C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

    Heavy/Light/Medium Training Part One: The Basics of Program Design      This past week, I received an email from a reader asking if I would write an article on how to design a heavy, light, medium program.   It was a bit serendipitous, as I had been gathering together some of my past articles on just that very subject with the intention of putting together an e-book entitled “The Heavy, Light, Medium Manifesto” (or something such as that; I’m a little “iffy” on the title at the moment).   You see, April of this year will be 10 years since Starr-man (as Bill Starr was sometimes affectionately known) left for that grand weightlifting gym in the sky.   And I have been thinking that what better way to honor the man than to put together a book covering every aspect of his lifting wisdom that I can think of.   His heavy, light, medium system had the single greatest impact on my personal training than any other method.   ...

Some Thoughts on Understanding and Avoiding Overtraining      When it comes to the state commonly referred to as “overtraining,” opinions vary. They run quite the gamut, too.  Some lifters are so bold as to declare “no such thing as overtraining exists.”  On the polar opposite, flip side of that you have the typical “hardgainer” advice that more than just two workouts—hell, maybe more than just one hard session—per week will lead to “OVERTRAINING.”  For some reason, the latter group typically capitalizes “overtraining.”  I guess that’s to show the rest of us overtrainers just how scary of a subject it can be.  The truth, of course, and you may have already surmised this, lies somewhere in between those two extremes.      There are three areas , I believe, in which overtraining occurs.  They overlap but are still particular enough that they each deserve their own mention.  You can overtrain your movemen...