C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

Minimalistic Programs for Strength and Power, Added Size, or an Aesthetic Physique      The other day I was at the grocery store stocking up on meat, veggies, and my other pantry mainstay, dog food and treats.  If you have a couple of Labradors who you consider part of the family, then you understand.  I’d actually go to the grocery store less but one of my dogs’ favorite pastimes is riding there, so we go a few times a week.  Anyway, on this particular day, I decided to look over the magazine rack—I’m glad that enough people read so that the magazine section still exists, despite the preponderance of fluff that most of them are filled with.  Obviously, I decided to peruse the “fitness” magazines, just to see what-the-heck are the current fads in training and to see what crap is currently being hawked in the advertisements.  But then I opened a pop-psychology rag and came across an interesting study that claimed that depression is direct...

Build More Mass and Power with Hybrid Lifts and the Workouts That Utilize Them      The best lifts for building size and strength are “big” compound movements.  If you want to build as much mass and power as your body is capable of, then you need to do heavy squats, heavy pulls (whether it’s deadlifts or one of the quick lifts), plenty of heavy presses (benches and overhead movements), along with some heavy curls.  The more muscles that you utilize in a lift then the better the lift.  This is the reason that squats, deadlifts, and the quick lifts—power cleans, snatches, and high pulls—reign supreme.      Based on this, you could also argue that even better are “hybrid lifts” that combine two (or even three) movements in one lift.  A classic example of this is the “full clean” done by weightlifters.  As you clean the barbell, you drop into a front squat before standing up with the weight.  The full clean, al...