C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

Mass Made Easy (or at Least Simple)      I have been lifting weights hard now for over 20 years—the “training bug” hit me big right out of high school, back in ’92.   (I had been lifting even before that, during my last few years of high school, but that training was just to help my martial arts; I more or less just played around with weights during those years.)   I devoured every single article that I could come across during my first few years of training.   There was no such thing as the Internet at the time—yeah, I know, that’s hard for some of you young ‘uns to believe—so this meant reading every single bodybuilding and fitness magazine that hit the newsstands.   And it also meant reading every damn article in each one of those rags.   (Luckily I also had an uncle who had a lot of old Iron Man and Strength and Health magazines from the ‘70s and before—I devoured the hell out of those magazines too, and later much of that stuff...

     Starting with the current post, I thought I would do a mini-series on how the "old-time" bodybuilders used to train.  In doing so, I also thought I would start with what I consider the greatest of the old-time mass tactics:  one-exercise-per-bodypart training.      When I first began to lift weights seriously (which was sometime in my high-school years; I'm 35 now, so you do the math), the bodybuilders that I loved were the ones that—even then—were considered the "old-timers."  I remember seeing pictures of Freddy Ortiz, Don Howorth (above), and Marvin Eder; I was amazed by their look.  For one, they definitely looked strong (which they were), but they also had excellent size, shape, and symmetry—small waists, large calves, boulder-sized shoulders; the whole "x-frame" look.  But—and I think this is what I still love about them—they didn't appear to be cardboard cutouts of one another.  They all had different "looks." ...