C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

  In Autumn When the Leaves Fall and the Sandbag is Carried        “What should be sad in the falling of spent leaves, of leaves that have decked themselves in bridal hues to keep a tryst with death?  The leaves are glad enough.  They spiral down from their parent twigs, and golden and red they are, to carpet the loam of which they must become a part.  If wind drives over them they are blithe to dance in the hazy sunshine of autumn.  The leaves are not saddened by this most natural of fates.  In death is found rebirth, and the tree lives.  Nothing is lost in nature, nothing wasted.  These leaves shall, in a manner of speaking, break from their waxen buds again or come back to us as flowers… Yet the spent leaves sadden us, and the bare boughs touch our hearts.  Something or somebody is going away, unseen, silent, wistful, and on a certain morning we shall wake to know a loss, to feel an absence.” ~Ben Hur Lampman, writing in the Portland “Oregonian,” 1925      My favorite seasons for li

Plus a Bonus "WOD" to Boot      When I was younger, and first starting in bodybuilding—I'm afraid I often refer to, and think of, the '90s as the "good ol' days" here on the blog—I read quite a few articles on building muscular, large forearms.  They were often accompanied by pictures of some of the '90s bodybuilding superstars with the best forearm development—Lee Priest comes to mind.  These articles often featured workout routines for the forearm muscles that were similar to workout programs for other muscles.  In other words, they were programs with multiple sets of multiple reps, featuring multiple exercises.  Sure, the authors of these articles didn't recommend as much work for forearms as they did chest, back, legs, or arms,  accepting the adage that the forearms got plenty of work from a lot of back and biceps training, but, on the whole, the programs were pretty much the same.      The kind of programs I am remembering are ones wh