C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

A Simple 3-Days-Per-Week, H/L/M Bodyweight Regimen      I received an email the other day asking me if I was going to write another part of my Bodyweight Training and Beyond series.  I wrote Part 3 of that series back in January, and mentioned at the end of it that I would soon do a 4th part.  I have yet to do so, however.  I have a tendency to get on “kicks” where I cover a certain topic for several different essays or for weeks on end before moving on to something else, and I haven’t written that much on bodyweight training of late.  I wrote back to the reader that, yes, I do plan on writing another part to that series, maybe even several.  I’ve made quite a few notes on isometric training along with “dynamic tension” that I plan on including in the next part.  The reader also had a request.  He asked if I had a suggestion for how to design a 3-days-a-week workout using only one’s bodyweight.  He has a chinning bar a...

Simple Methods to Improve Your Workouts and Obtain Better Results      Over the years, one of my most popular articles has been my “ Train Long, Not Hard ” feature that I wrote for Testosterone Nation around the beginning of this century.  The title comes from a saying of Arthur Jones, the creator of Nautilus equipment and the father of so-called “high-intensity training” and the whole one-set-to-complete-momentary-muscular-failure approach to workouts.  He and Mike Mentzer are responsible for brain-washing an entire generation of lifters and quite possibly ruining real strength training, at least here in America—though I’ll save my ramblings on that for another essay or you can read my article on REAL High-Intensity Training .  Anyway, his saying goes like this: “You can either train long or you can train hard, but you can’t do both.”  Jones, quite obviously, believed that “train hard” was the answer to that conundrum.  In my article...

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...