C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

  How to Gain 50 Pounds of Muscle! Part 3: Bill Pearl’s Advanced Mass-Training      This is the 3rd part of my Classic Bodybuilding series based on an article that the great Gene Mozee wrote for IronMan magazine in 1992.  The first part covered the “Golden 6” training program of Arnold Schwarzenegger.  If you’re a beginner, or if you need to get “back-to-the-basics,” then I would start there.  The second part that I posted a few days ago was another full-body program based on Larry Scott’s Gironda-inspired mass-building techniques.  I would advise reading those pieces first.  And definitely don’t just leap into the training program presented here without a couple years at the minimum of (mostly) full-body workouts.      Bill Pearl has long been one of my favorite bodybuilders.  In another piece I wrote last year, I mentioned that I believe Pearl to be one of the 5 greatest bodybuilders of all time.  I won’t get into as much detail about Pearl here.  If you’re interested in knowing m

How Old-Time Lifters and Bodybuilders SLOWLY Worked Up to Using Split Workouts - How They Utilized Them and How YOU Should Use Them Bill Pearl was one of the greatest bodybuilders who ever lived, and he rarely used anything more than a "2-way" split program.      If you’re new to training, always start with full-body workouts.      I say this because I see WAY too many split workout programs being recommended on the internet for “average” or even “beginner” trainees.  I write “trainees” because I understand that these guys aren’t lifters per se, and the kind of results they are after are probably not what the average reader of my blog is after.  None-the-less, I have a feeling that the majority of lifters that read my blog probably do a lot of split workouts, too, where you just might be better off performing a full-body program instead.      Now—and I must make myself crystal clear on this point—split workouts are not “bad.”  They simply need to be utilized correctly.  I

  A.K.A - How to Really Eat and Train for Size, Strength, and  Fat Loss Classical bodybuilders such as Bill Pearl knew that one of the secrets was to train a lot AND eat a lot. For the sake of keeping it simple in this essay, we can say that there are four methods that people use with regard to training and eating: 1. They eat a lot and train a lot. 2. They eat a little and train a little. 3. They eat a little and train a lot. 4. They eat a lot and train a little. The other night, for instance, my girlfriend, her daughter, and I went out to eat at a local steakhouse, and, based on the waist size of almost every man in that place, and the hip size of every woman, most people—especially here in the Deep South—eat a lot and train absolutely none!  But we'll leave aside lazy people that don't care (apparently) how young that they kill over from a heart attack or that don't care if they acquire type-2 diabetes by the time they're 40 years old.  The above 4 categories make th

  The Old-School High-Set, Low-Rep Arm Building Secrets of the Great Bill Pearl! A young Pearl flexes his peaked biceps.  At the time, he would have used a method similar—if not the same—as what is written here. The other day, in my post on "Ageless Bodybuilding for the Young," I made a brief mention on how a young Bill Pearl trained.  And, although I have done a couple of Pearl pieces in the past, I thought this might be a good time to look at his arm training "secrets" since I think Pearl had something unique to offer the muscle-building world—and still does to this day.  (Just a brief mention that Pearl will also be instrumental in explaining some of the details in my Ageless Bodybuilding System in a future post.  Pearl, in fact, had a very  unique way of training as he got older that I believe a limited number of people are actually aware of.  But I got the scoop!  And  I digress—back to this post...) A lot of what I am going to write here comes from a 1998 &quo