C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

AKA: How "Big" Jim Williams Became the First Man to Bench Press 700 lbs Big Jim Williams bench pressing in competition.  I rarely think about, or plan at all, what I'm going to write on this blog until I actually sit down to write it. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't write everything  in this manner.  Currently, for instance, I'm working on a "Budo Zen" book on the real  intersection of martial arts and spirituality, and that book takes research.  But that aside, I really, truly have no idea what I'm going to write until I sit down and actually, you know, write it . So this morning I sat down to hammer away at my keyboard, and thought, "what the heck should I write about in the field of strength training that I haven't  written about, or, at least, haven't written about in a long time?"  About the only  planning I do is asking myself that sort of question once I decide whether I want to write about muscle-building, or serious  s...

  or How to REALLY Train, Eat, and Rest for Muscle Growth and Performance Bill Starr was a man who knew—and inspired—the information contained in much of this article. As of late, I have received more emails than I have in quite some time.  And most of them sorta, kinda—but not exactly, since I suppose it's almost human nature—surprised me.  Why?  Because most of them dealt with confusion in training.  Confusion about the proper diet, confusion about proper training (I'm 25 years old; should I follow your Ageless Bodybuilding program?), and even confusion over rest—a topic I just  covered in my essay on "Stillness, Rest, and Relaxation" for muscle growth.  Geez!  Initially, I didn't really respond to the questions other than tell the said questioners to, you know, actually search my blog for the topics they are interested in learning more about.  But this morning, I thought, what-the-hell, it's always a good time to discuss getting back-to-th...

  THE ULTIMATE WORKOUT SPLIT? Full-body split workouts were actually a favorite for classic bodybuilders (such as Freddy Ortiz and Larry Scott).  My "bodybuilding" workout below was similar to what they used. I have, on multiple occasions, extolled the benefits of what I refer to as "full-body split workouts."  But I'm not sure if I have ever written an article dedicated exclusively to this concept.  So here goes nothing, or, well, something  to be more exact. So, first things first, what are  full-body split workouts?  Is this, if not completely oxymoronic, paradoxical to say the least?  Aren't full-body workouts, well, full-body workouts, and split workouts split workouts?  The short answer is no , but since that wouldn't make much of an article, this post will be the long answer. When most lifters, bodybuilders, and physique athletes think of full-body workouts, they think of workouts where you work your entire body in one session, and the...

Stillness, Rest, and Relaxation The Forgotten Keys to Muscle Growth Epictetus, the founder of Stoicism, one of the inspirations for this article. “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit alone with himself in a room.” ~Blaise Pascal I begin our essay with this quote from the great French writer, philosopher, and Catholic theologian, not just because 2023 is the 400th anniversary of his birth, and not just because I believe in the utter, complete truth of the statement, but because it can easily apply to all of man’s problems—including, whether you believe it or not, your goal of getting bigger, stronger, or the combination of both. That’s correct, man’s inability to rest in stillness (and woman’s, too, although women actually tend to be naturally better at this than men) often prevents one from achieving his/her muscle-building, strength-gaining, physique-enhancing goals. Now, as I mentioned, you may not believe this, and if you don’t, then I only ask that you sus...

Classic Bodybuilding:  The Wisdom of Paul Grant’s Muscle-Building Methods Paul Grant, seen here in the '70s, was a Golden Age bodybuilder from Wales, with some excellent training wisdom. Paul Grant, the “Welsh Dragon,” is a bodybuilder that may not be that well-known, but he had some fantastic muscle-building wisdom that more and more bodybuilders need to know about these days.  “Wisdom” isn’t always a word that can be associated with bodybuilders - or bodybuilding in general, to be honest - which is unfortunate, since there have always been at least some bodybuilders throughout the history of the “iron game” that have some wise thoughts, words, and ways of life.  And Paul Grant was one such man. I first saw Paul Grant as a kid in the ‘80s when I watched the bodybuilding “documentary” Pumping Iron.  (I put the word “documentary” in quotes because it was more akin to modern reality television - scripted and set up by the filmmakers, but it had very little truth to it,...

Achieve Fantastic Results in Martial Arts by Utilizing the Maxims of the Founder of Matsubayashi-Ryu Karate Do: A “Modern” Application Shoshin Nagamine seated in Zazen (Zen Meditation). One of the earliest books that I bought as a young karate-ka was Shoshin Nagamine’s “The Essence of Okinawan Karate-Do.”  For those of you that don’t know—or only “know” because of the title of this essay—Shoshin Nagamine was the founder of an “offshoot” of Shorin-Ryu karate that he called Matsubayashi-Ryu .  But most modern martial artists probably know him—if they even know him at all—from the aforementioned book.  As I said, I bought this book when I was probably 11 or 12 years old (which means in the early to mid 1980s) at a store called “Bookland”—that’s right, kids, once-upon-a-time there were these things called “malls” that actually had relatively small bookstores inside of them.  (The other one in our local mall was called “Walden Books.”)  By the way, I at the time had...