C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

Lessons in Strength and Muscle Building from Russian Weightlifting and Powerlifting Methods      Ever since I wrote my essay The Bulgarian Way back in May of this year, I have had what you are now reading in my mind.  That article—I recommend reading it if you haven’t already—was on the lessons bodybuilders and lifters can learn from the methods of the Bulgarian weightlifters.  When I first started training back in the ‘80s, Bulgarian training was an almost mythical form of training.  We had heard about it, or read a little about it, but we actually knew very little.  When the “Serious Growth” manuals started appearing in advertisements in various bodybuilding magazines—particularly “Serious Growth 3: Big Beyond Belief”—purporting to explain how bodybuilders could use the methods of Bulgarian strength training in pursuit of hypertrophy, a willing and gullible bodybuilding public gobbled it up.  For those who are/were actually “in the kn...

     This is the 2nd part of my new series on Adventures in Muscle-Building.  Part One covered arm training, so read that if you haven’t yet and are interested in growing big, massive, and massively strong arms.  Unlike other series that I have, this one doesn’t require that you read the previous articles in it.  That’s one thing that I like about this series.  Even if I end up writing something like 50 separate essays, you will be able to read any of them without having knowledge of the others.  The only thing that “holds” this series together is that each one will be about the methods, techniques, and various training programs and workout routines that lifters have used throughout the history of lifting for that particular lift, muscle group, or even competitive sport.  For instance, I might do an “adventures in track and field training” or something even more specific such as “adventures in throwing” where I discuss the workouts...