C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

An Old-School Powerbuilding Regimen from the Golden Age Powerlifter Hugh Cassidy      The other day, a reader suggested that I write an article on Hugh Cassidy, a legendary powerlifter from the ‘70s.  It reminded me of something I had forgotten.  A few years ago, I had made some notes on Cassidy, with the intent of turning those notes into an article.  After reading the comment, I scoured through several notebooks filled with various ideas—I probably have a dozen or so notebooks crammed full of my thoughts for articles—until I found the page of scribblings I had made on Cassidy.  After reading over what I had written in ‘23, I have no idea why I didn’t write an essay on Cassidy back then.  Perhaps it was too similar to other articles I had written at that time. Usually, when I let something fall to the wayside, that’s a possible reason.  Sometimes, I simply lose interest in an article.  Oh, well.  After reading over my not...

The Importance of Proper Breathing in Budo      I have been training in the Budo for more than 40 years.  In the last few years, I have been to a few dojos and I’m sad to say (or write in this case) that modern budokas don’t know how to breathe.  Most of them aren’t taught how to breathe in the first place, so they’re not even aware that there is a way that a budoka should breathe.  This is typically because the teachers in these dojos weren’t taught it themselves.  When they are taught breathing techniques, it’s only on a superficial level, such as to breathe in through their nose and out through their mouth when executing a technique in practice, whether it’s a block, punch, or kick.  But there is more to breathing in Budo than this, and that may not even be accurate, either.  There are different ways to breathe, depending on the technique and the art.      The one thing that I’ve noticed modern budoka a...

     It is, apparently, the end of an era as I just discovered that Dragon Door has shut down. Dragon Door, if you're not familiar, was the place where Pavel Tsatsouline pretty much got his start. They were the OG kettlebell company, publishing books, DVDs, and selling equipment for the new "functional fitness" craze. They also published a handful of my articles over the years. If I'm not mistaken - you can't access their articles anymore, so I'm not entirely sure - I wrote my first article for them sometime in 2008. So, since they are no more, I thought, over the next several weeks, I would re-post those articles here on my blog.      The most recent article that I wrote for them was The 30-Rep Program. When I have referenced that program in essays here on the blog, I have often inserted a link to that article, and since that link is no longer valid, I thought it would be the best article to start with.      I have long been a fan of ...

Lessons in Mind Power from Bill Pearl and Others      In one of Bill Pearl’s books, “Getting Stronger,” he has a chapter entitled “The Power of Positive Lifting” (which I have unabashedly stolen for the title of this essay).  He opens that chapter with a story from Charles Garfield, a sports doctor in the ‘70s, who had visited Russia in ‘79, when it was still the Soviet Union.  A group of Soviet sports psychologists and physiologists met with Garfield and told him of the wondrous powers and the fabulous effects of intense mental concentration on the performance of their lifters and athletes.  Garfield spent days with the Russian researchers, and apparently had enough “theory.”  He wanted to see results .  Here’s how Pearl tells the tale:      “At a gym, the Soviets quizzed Garfield. ‘How long since you’ve done any serious training?’ they asked.  ‘Eight years.’ ‘What was your maximum bench press in your prime...