C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

      Doing a high rep set of squats or deadlifts with a heavy poundage is one of the toughest, most demanding, most painful, and most brutal things you can do.  It is a training principle that has built tons of muscle and it is a training principle that has been endorsed by many of the most knowledgeable and influential writers to ever grace the game.  Dr. Ken Leistner, Peary Rader, Dr. Randall J. Strossen, John McCallum, Mark Berry, Joe Hise, Arthur Jones, and Bradley J. Steiner all have written at length about the almost uncanny ability of heavy, high rep leg and back work to transform a bag of bones into a human gorilla. ~Brooks Kubik in Dinosaur Training (1996 ed.) Kevin Tolbert (adopted son of Ken Leistner and current head strength coach at Michigan) seen here in his younger days.  He was massively strong, and used the sort of workouts described here.      After my brief essay at the beginning of the month on a basi...

  The "Original" Rapid Mass-Gaining Regimen A picture of a young Ken Leistner, one of the modern "popularizers" of 20-rep programs such as the one below.       When writing my “Old School is Still the Best… and Always Will Be” essay, I mentioned that I would begin to write regular programs on various old school training regimens.  And even though it wasn’t that long ago that I wrote about a 20-rep squat program (in a post a few months back on power rack training), and even though several of my articles/posts have mentioned 20-rep squat programs, I still thought that this would be the best program to begin any series on old-school muscle-building.      The 20-rep squat program is the original mass-builder.  Before steroids even came onto the scene, a couple of men named J.C. Hise—who first used the program to great success—and Mark Berry—who first wrote about the program—made this form of training the method for pac...

Power Rack Training for Physical Development   Part Two: The Ultimate Mass-Gaining, Bulk-Building Power Rack Training Program  (Inspired by Joseph Curtis “J.C.” Hise and the writings of Peary Rader) J.C. Hise, the inspiration for this article, in a picture from the 1930s. About two weeks ago, I released Part One of (what I expect to be) a semi-regular, but perhaps sporadic series on training in the power rack.  As I mentioned in that first part, the rack is so much more than a good training area to do partials—which, unfortunately, I think that is about the only thing it’s used for these days.  I recommend that you read Part One first, though it’s not necessary but it would be helpful, since I don’t plan on rehashing all of the goodies the power rack has to offer.  In Part One, I created a “new” program, but one heavily influenced by Charles A. Smith, who in turn was quite influenced by J.C. Hise, and Hise’s mentor Mark Berry.  It’s a basic, full-body, 3-...