Classic Bodybuilding Articles and Essays

Bradley Steiner’s Rugged Size and Strength Split Routine – Easy Strength Version

Bradley J. Steiner, author of the original "Rugged Size and Strength Split Routine" In the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s, Bradley J. Steiner was the voice of (what he called) “sane, sensible” barbell training. His workouts were full-body programs done 3 times per week, utilizing a limited number of big “bang-for-your-buck” movements such as squats, deadlifts, barbell rows, bench presses, overhead presses, barbell curls and the like. They were intended for the average, drug-free lifter who didn’t have the luxury of living at Muscle Beach in Venice, California and training all day, but worked a full-time job, had a wife and kids—you know, a “regular” life—but still wanted to build a strong, impressive physique that could move some heavy iron and turn heads at the local swimming hole. He wrote prolifically for (primarily) IronMan magazine up until the early years of this century. When I started writing for IronMan i...

Get Big, Strong, and Ripped—One Goal at a Time

Stop trying to do so many things at one time. Really. Just stop. If you want to achieve a goal— any goal, but we’ll stick with size and strength here—then you need to focus on that one goal. Duh, right? Pretty obvious. But, as I’ve written in other essays, the obvious sure does seem to get overlooked by the vast majority of our lifting population. So, obvious though it may be, let me repeat. Focus on one goal at a time . I started thinking about all this, and the cognitive wheels began turning in my mind to write an essay on it, when I read these words from Dan John in an article of his on the same topic. He wrote: One of the most overlooked aspects of muscle-building programs is a four-letter word: STOP. Stop playing basketball. Stop jogging. Stop doing cardio. I swear, if I get one more email like this, I will do something rash: “Hey, Dan: I’m interested in doing High...

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 ...

C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

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