Classic Bodybuilding Articles and Essays

Marvin Eder’s Mass-Building Methods

The Many and Varied Mass-Building Methods of Power Bodybuilding’s G.O.A.T. Eder as he appeared in my article "Full Body Workouts" for IronMan magazine. In many ways, the essay you are now reading is the one that has had the “longest time coming.” I have no clue why it has taken me this long to write an article specifically on Marvin Eder, especially considering the fact that I have long considered him the greatest bodybuilder cum strength athlete of all friggin’ time . In fact, over 20 years ago, I wrote this in the pages of IronMan magazine: In my opinion, the greatest all-around bodybuilder, powerlifter and strength athlete ever to walk the planet, Eder had 19-inch arms at a bodyweight of 198. He could bench 510, squat 550 for 10 reps and do a barbell press with 365. He was reported to have achieved the amazing feat of cranking out 1,000 dips in only 17 minutes. Imagine doing a dip a second for 17 minutes. As Gene Mozee once put ...

Old-School Muscle-Building Once More

Learn the Training Methods and Workout Programs of the Silver Age Bodybuilders What follows is, in many ways, nothing more than an extension of some of the subjects I have been discussing in recent articles, such as Part 3 of my ongoing Tailoring Your Workouts series, and my other essays on The Old-School Way , Effective Full-Body Training , and How to Train Through the Soreness . Enter Old-School Old-school bodybuilders knew how to build muscle. In many ways, I think the training methods and workout programs they utilized were a lot better than the routines of the modern bodybuilder. I also realize that modern bodybuilders—many of whom have larger, sometimes much larger, muscles than their old-school counterparts—might scoff at such an idea. After all, hasn’t training evolved in the last few decades? Don’t modern bodybuilders know more about the “science” of hypertrophy than bodybuilders whose heyday...

Tailoring Your Workout Program - Part 3

Tips and Advice for Tailoring Your Training Routine Part 3: Sets, Reps, and Training Frequency Click on these links if you would like to read the first 2 parts of this series: Part 1 & Part 2 . In part one, we covered the basics of “workload” and in part 2 we covered how to “select a program” for your individual needs and goals. This essay may not make as much sense if you don’t read the first two parts, so if you just jump in here, you’ve been warned. With that out of the way, let’s get right to it. Originally, I was just going to sub-title this part “sets and reps,” but as I began to put pen to paper—I almost always handwrite my articles before I type them—I realized that training frequency must come first and it should determine the set/rep range that is then utilized. Since we have been covering primarily full-body workouts done 3 days per week, we will start with the b...

C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

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