C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

  A Hepburn-Inspired High-Frequency Strength Program      In April, I wrote an article entitled “ Size AND Strength: The Best Way to Train for Both .”  In it, I outlined a few Hepburn inspired routines based on the power/mass methods of the great Canadian strongman and world-champion weightlifter Doug Hepburn.  The methods in that article—as the title portends—are all about building a combination of size and strength, as most lifters who are trying to achieve both often go about it incorrectly.  The program here is going to be a bit different.  This is a program geared strictly toward getting the lifter as strong as possible on a few, select lifts.      The program I’ve designed here is based on another one of Hepburn’s methods.  Although Hepburn would often combine this particular strength and power method with multiple sets of “pump” work once finished with the strength sets, this program foregoes the pump work in favor of a pure strength-building workout.  This will allow you to ut

  Hardcore Strength and Power Training Part One: A Hepburn-Inspired Pure Power Program Doug Hepburn, the Canadian strongman, didn't let being born with a club foot keep him from becoming one of the greatest strength athletes of all time!      I thought I would do a series of articles on my true love, the one form of training that has always been closest to my heart: hardcore strength and power training.  The sort of training done by elite powerlifters and strength athletes, not for money or fame, but because they can’t think of anything better than being the absolute strongest human being on earth, man or woman.      I understand the mentality.      I love the mentality.      I had that same mentality when I was a powerlifter.  Until I was hit with a series of career-ending injuries, I had one goal and one goal only: to be the strongest powerlifter walking the earth, drug-free, at my bodyweight (I competed, most often, in the 181-pound category, so this was usually around 175 pou

AKA: How "Big" Jim Williams Became the First Man to Bench Press 700 lbs Big Jim Williams bench pressing in competition.  I rarely think about, or plan at all, what I'm going to write on this blog until I actually sit down to write it. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't write everything  in this manner.  Currently, for instance, I'm working on a "Budo Zen" book on the real  intersection of martial arts and spirituality, and that book takes research.  But that aside, I really, truly have no idea what I'm going to write until I sit down and actually, you know, write it . So this morning I sat down to hammer away at my keyboard, and thought, "what the heck should I write about in the field of strength training that I haven't  written about, or, at least, haven't written about in a long time?"  About the only  planning I do is asking myself that sort of question once I decide whether I want to write about muscle-building, or serious  s