C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

       A couple of posts ago, in my essay on stealing good ideas, I mentioned a quote I stole (and have often used) from the strength coach Nick Horton: “More is not always better, but it usually is.”  In this essay, I want to give you some practical ways to apply this truth to your training.      It has been generally asserted over the years—in bodybuilding magazines and now in blogs and in YouTube videos, or other social media sites—that the key to gaining muscle or strength is through “progressive overload” and that the best way to do that is by either increasing reps or by increasing the weight (but keeping the reps the same), but that one shouldn’t just add sets or exercises.  But I don’t believe that to be the best option for the majority of lifters.  I actually think it’s good to add extra sets, exercises, and, yes, even entire workouts , on a consistent if not regular basis.  In fact, I think this is the key to making steady progress.  But it needs to be done systematically.  

     A little more than ten years ago, or thereabouts, I made a change in how I trained.  I switched over from heavy, full-body infrequent routines to heavy, full-body, frequent training programs.  I’m not going to get into all of the details here as to why this happened – you can read past posts about my success with the powerlifting programs of Boris Sheiko if you desire to know more.      Once I had success with Sheiko’s programs, however, I wanted to try more routines, so I voraciously read everything I could get my hands on from knowledgeable lifters/writers who had espoused such forms of frequent training over the years.  Some writer/trainers (whether they were bodybuilders, powerlifters, or Olympic lifters) were better than others.      Bill Starr, of course, was one of the best.  (And he still is.)  But I had been doing Starr’s routines – or stuff similar – for quite a long time before ever attempting the insane (or so I thought) amount of volume that the Sheiko’s routin