C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

A Simple Method for Quick Muscle (and Strength) Gains      When it comes to building muscle, especially for the natural lifter, I don’t think anything “beats” high-frequency training (HFT).  It works whether you want to use high reps or low reps, whether you’re after strength or hypertrophy or if you’re seeking a combination of both.  If there’s an “issue” with it, it’s the fact that you can’t generally do a lot of work for one muscle group.  I’ve had conversations with lifters—whether in person or through the internet—who have told me that HFT, no doubt, works but that they missed doing more volume for their muscles.  These are typically bodybuilders who really enjoy pump training and the feeling of completely congesting a muscle (or muscle groups) with a lot of sets for a massive pump.  I understand.  After all, in the pseudo-documentary “Pumping Iron,” Arnold even compared the pleasure of “da pump” to the pleasure of good sex. ...

A Highly Effective High-Frequency Program for Strength, Power, and Muscle Mass      In several recent articles, I have presented a few key concepts to building strength, power, and muscle mass.  One of the concepts is the “90% method” where you do most of your sets at 90% of a certain rep range.  It could be 90% of 1 rep, of 3 reps, of 5 reps, or even as high as 10 reps.  (If you want more in depth discussion on the 90% method then read my article “ Skill Training as Size Building .”)  I have also presented the concepts of weight ladders and wave loading , where, instead of sticking with the same weight throughout several sets before moving to a different weight, you move back and forth from heavier to lighter sets.      One of my more popular recent articles that used the above concepts is “ The 1-5 Program .”  It’s a high-volume program.  It’s good for lifters who like to use split programs, as it’s a mul...

The 5x10 Workout Program      The longer that I have been training and working with other lifters, the more that I believe that simple, though not necessarily easy, programs are the best methods to use.  I think this is the case for the majority of lifters.  There are times when this is not so, but that’s usually for either elite athletes or programs for strength athletes at the top of powerlifting or Olympic weightlifting.      In my last article on different ways that you can incorporate heavy, light, and medium workouts into your training, I mentioned a few ways that this can be done.  One of them is to keep your weights the same at each workout session but rotate the sets and/or reps.  This is in direct contradiction to the most popular method of H-L-M, Bill Starr’s 5x5 training, where you keep the sets and reps the same (5x5) but rotate the amount of weight used on the lifts.  The program here uses the firs...

     When a lot of lifters consider “heavy, light, medium” training, if they even consider it at all, they probably think about Bill Starr and his “5x5” programs.  If you read this blog, then that’s probably especially so.  But maybe not.  After all, I have, on a few occasions, mentioned using the methodology for programs outside of Starr’s routines.  And, here’s the thing, that’s exactly how I want you to think about it.  Starr’s system is great.  I love it.  I write about it.  I will continue to love it and write about it.  But the truth is that it can be applied to all training programs, not just Starr’s.      It really comes down to using it as a way to manage load cycling , which I have written about in several articles and essays of late.  Load cycling is prevalent in almost all strength programs that have come out of Russia and other former “Soviet bloc” nations.  Probably t...