C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

Thoughts on Lifting and Thoughts on Thoughts While Lifting      What do I think about when I think about lifting?  For one, just lifting in general.  I think about programs, workouts, regimens that work for me and work for others I’ve trained.  I think about the ones that didn’t work and why they didn’t work.  I suppose, more than anything else, I think about life.  I think about life when living and when lifting.  They’re inextricably bound for me, life and lifting.  My life, in many ways, is a life of lifting.      I suppose it would be different if I wasn’t a lifter.  There are those who lift.  Then there are those who are lifters.  The former do it for any myriad of reasons.  At least, I guess they do.  I’ve trained a lot of those who fit in that group.  I’ve trained with those that fit in it.  And I’d also surmise that a lot of folks who read my writing fall ...

Increase Your Workload and Work Capacity with this Size and Strength Building Method      Natural lifters and bodybuilders—in other words, those of us who don’t use any anabolic steroids, testosterone replacement, and other performance-enhancement drugs—need a different strategy from lifters and bodybuilders who do use them.  One of the tenets of my training philosophy, and, therefore, the methodology that my programs utilize, is that building muscle and strength, for the natural lifter, is not just about hard training sessions coupled with enough rest and recovery supplemented with a good nutritional strategy.  Instead, if you’re serious about building muscle and strength naturally, you need to follow workout programs that focus on increasing your work capacity—your ability to handle more and more “work” in the gym—through frequent training using big, compound lifts.  As you do this, and in order to do this, the workload of your training sessio...

     I write a lot about lifting because I think a lot about lifting.  I am a writer after all.  Sometimes I even write about writing.  When you’re a writer, that’s what you do.  You write.  Anyway, I was thinking earlier about why I write about lifting and why in the world I continue to write about it, even when I’ve penned around 800 articles at this point, but who’s counting?  No one but me.      I think I’ve written more articles, essays, and musings this past year than I have in any other year of my life.  That’s saying something since I’ve been writing training articles since 1993, when I sold my first articles to IronMan magazine and MuscleMag International .  Earlier this year, at some point, I remember briefly thinking something along the lines of, “What if I run out of ideas to write about?  Maybe I should slow this thing down.”  But then I realized that it’s not possible....