C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

     I write a lot about lifting because I think a lot about lifting.  I am a writer after all.  Sometimes I even write about writing.  When you’re a writer, that’s what you do.  You write.  Anyway, I was thinking earlier about why I write about lifting and why in the world I continue to write about it, even when I’ve penned around 800 articles at this point, but who’s counting?  No one but me.      I think I’ve written more articles, essays, and musings this past year than I have in any other year of my life.  That’s saying something since I’ve been writing training articles since 1993, when I sold my first articles to IronMan magazine and MuscleMag International .  Earlier this year, at some point, I remember briefly thinking something along the lines of, “What if I run out of ideas to write about?  Maybe I should slow this thing down.”  But then I realized that it’s not possible....

Here's an article that I wrote around 10 years ago for IronMan Magazine .  At one time, I had a link to the original article on IronMan's  website, but that link doesn't work anymore, so I removed the old post.  But, anyway, here's the article in its entirety: Dorian Yates performed some pretty "insane" workouts in his day. Mass Insanity Stuck in a rut?  Need something different from the run-of-the-mill training program you've been doing for the past several months?  Sometimes in order to keep the gains coming -- or to bust out of the rut you're stuck in -- you have to get a little crazy. Enter mass insanity .  On the following pages, I'm going to outline several training programs that I guarantee you haven't been doing lately. In fact, it could be that you've never attempted -- or even thought of attempting them.   I'm including four different plans. Variety is a crucial component of making continuous ga...

Three On/ One Off Redux A New Twist on an Old Classic      When I began lifting weights – sometime in the late ‘80s – there was really only one training split that most bodybuilders used: the three on, one off scheme.  For any of you unfamiliar with this split, it works like this: You split your body three ways, and then you train for three days straight before taking a day off.  After your day off, you begin the split over again.      Most bodybuilders of that era trained legs on one day, and then split their upper body into two sessions; some lifters trained antagonistic bodyparts together on one day – chest and back, or biceps and triceps – while others would train all of their push muscles on one day – chest, shoulders, and triceps – and their pull muscles on the other day – back and biceps.      But the three on, one off split eventually fell the way of the dinosaurs.  In the early ‘90s Dorian Yates entered the s...