C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

  Some Training Ideas for Outdoor Fall Lifting Using Loaded Carries and Odd Lifts      I have written before that my favorite time of the year to train is the Fall season.  In fact, last year, around this exact same time, I wrote a piece on Fall training that was mainly centered around sandbag workouts.  In this essay, I want to do something a little different by giving you some different and varied training ideas for outdoor lifting using loaded carries and other “odd” lifts.      For the first time this year, it’s starting to get a little cool here in central Alabama where I live.  And when coolness sets in, I like to take some training implements and objects from my garage to the yard, where I can lift, carry, drag, flip, or push them in assorted ways.      Last night, after completing a full-body workout consisting of front squats, kettlebell cleans, bench presses, chins, and barbell curls—a pretty good workout in itself—I decided to do something that my girlfriend, Kandy, called

  A.K.A “Simple Workouts + Heavy Training = Effective Results” C.S. dragging a sled on the cover of his book "Ultimate Strength."  Read on to discover why you MUST drag or carry different objects in order to maximize your results! I have written about it so many times that you wouldn’t think it needs repeating, but the truth is that it does!  I’m talking about getting “back-to-the-basics”, about our inability to stop making things so complicated, and just do simple, hard, basic, result-producing workouts.  And I also think that the truth is that we will always need to remind ourselves of this because it is in our nature to make things “complicated”, to always be searching for some more complex but somehow “better” program that will produce results even quicker for us.  Even though we really “should” know better, and even though we do know better, we tend to always make this mistake. And this goes for myself, as well.  Maybe not so much with barbell training, although at on

  Welcome to the World of High-Intensity, High-Volume Workouts-Of-The-Day! First things first: read Part One of this series from September 15th of last month if you haven't already done so.  If you have, then we can move on... Let's keep things as simple as possible for the sake of "ease of workouts".  The workouts themselves will be hard enough without overcomplicating the program. Start off by training each of the core lifts - squats, bench presses, and deadlifts - on one day per week.  I like to train during the week when on this program - or when training someone on this program - and then take the weekends off for rest, relaxation, drinking cocktails, throwing down the gauntlet at an arm-wrestling tournament; ya' know, whatever it is you like to do with your weekends without having to think about also performing a hard-ass training session. So the split would look like this: Monday: Squats - pick any of the WOD below Wednesday: Bench Presses - pick any of the

This may be a bit of an odd post.  It's basically whatever is simply swirling around in my head at the moment.  I will try my best to make sense of it.  Not for me.  It makes sense for me, however abstract it might be.  But for you. I've often felt that what makes us good, makes us bad, as well.  Let me explain... A Saint Who Wasn't When I was accepted into the Orthodox Church (or, as the Orthodox refer to it, the One Holy, Catholic, and Orthodox Church), baptized, and then chrismated, I took Saint Christopher as my patron Saint.  It made sense to me, since my parents had given me the name Christopher (after the very same saint, Christopher the Christ-Bearer).  (They also gave me two other middle names, one of them being Stuart, for those of you who actually give a damn.  Hence, the name C.S.)  But Christopher is not the saint I would have originally chosen.  No, that honor would have gone to Saint David, or the Prophet David, to be precise.  (Unlike the Roman Catho

     For some reason, one of my most popular posts of the past year was my recent short rambling on literature, beer, and the joy of heavy squats .  Quite surprisingly to me, I received more emails asking about some of my favorite books, authors, and beers than I usually get from other posts asking how to bring up numbers in the major lifts or how to gain more muscle mass.  And since I enjoy writing about things that I love, I thought I would write what it is that you are now reading.      I’ll try not to ramble too much, but I’m not promising anything. On Beer      My favorite kinds of beers are stouts and porters.  I say “kinds” because, if I’m not erroneous here, I’m pretty sure they are much the same thing.  I wasn’t entirely sure, however, so I had to look it up, and here’s what Wikipedia [1] has to say about my favorite kinds of beers:     “Porter is a dark style of beer originating in London in the 18th century, descended from brown beer , a well hopped beer mad

     I am sorry that it has been so long since I last posted something here.  It has been a few weeks.  I will try my best to do better with more frequent postings.  That being said, I hope you enjoy my latest (slightly philosophical) rant...      There are a few things in life that I love.  I love studying philosophy.  I love the feel of a new book in my hands—along the same lines, I love discovering a new author, for it is a deep joy; and I worry deeply about people who do not understand the joy to be found in such a discovery.      But there are still greater things that I love even more.  I love God [1] .  I love cold beer [2] (and worry even more deeply about those who do not understand how great a thing a beer can be).  I love holding my wife in my arms.      Last—but certainly not least—I love the feel of deep squats with a heavy barbell on my back.  (Oh, what a loathsome life it must be to not love literature, beer, and heavy squats.)      I love all of these t

      “I gave myself a full year to recover. Literally, I walked, did a little this and that, biked a bit, waded in the ocean and lived like what I call a “normal.” A normal human being. They are wonderful people, really, but they don’t wear singlets, weightlifting boots and smell of fear and chalk.”   -Dan John      The above quote from Dan john is from a post he has on his blog about his return to Olympic lifting competition.  The post, in general, can be said to be rather pedestrian – although John seems to do “pedestrian” better than most any other writers in this field – but this quote made me smile, and got me to thinking.  Thinking about the times I lived as a “normal” myself – times that I sometimes look fondly upon, sometimes view it with little other than indifference, but, on the whole, look upon it with something akin to disdain.  And then there’s the fact that I can’t really live as a “normal” even if I wanted to, even when I’ve tried to do such a thing.  (Although