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Showing posts with the label C.S. Sloan heavy-light-medium training

Planned Variety for Steady Gains in Size and Strength

A Bill Starr-Inspired Method for Making Consistent Progress      When many lifters think of Bill Starr (assuming they even know who he was), they often think of his 5x5 heavy-light-medium system , a system of training that I have used at times, and have often touted, over almost the entirety of my lifting and writing career.  You can probably do a brief, cursory search right now on “Bill Starr training program” or something similar, and you will, in all likelihood, find more than a few training plans, and almost all of them—or so I would bet a hefty sum—will outline a week or two of training using 5 sets of 5 reps.  But if you take the time to read a lot of the training articles that Starr actually wrote—he penned hundreds, if not thousands, of articles for almost all of the major bodybuilding magazines and training journals during his lifetime—you would find that there was a lot more to his system of training than what he is typically known for.  This is not the essay to get into al

The Strongest Shall ALWAYS Survive!

  Today marks the 9-year anniversary of Bill Starr's death, so I thought today would be fitting to post this article.  Word of warning: It's the longest article I've posted on this blog, and probably the longest article I've ever written - at over 4k words - but I decided to not break it up into several posts, but to just post it "as is".  I hope you enjoy it, and I hope it brings more awareness to just how damn great of a writer, strength athlete, and coach Starr was. The Perennial Training Wisdom of Bill Starr’s Classic Strength Program      I took my dog Kenji for a walk this morning.  I live in the “Deep South” of Alabama, and one of the best things about ‘Bama—at least in the central and northern portions of the state—is the beauty of the local trails and parks, perfect for keeping me, and my 110-pound Labrador Retriever, in decent shape.  But don’t worry, I’m not here to wax euphoric over a man and his best friend—as much as I could easily do that for th