C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

  A "Both/And" Approach to Training      We often live in a world of dichotomies, juxtapositions, and sometimes the downright oxymoronic.  Despite the obviousness, however, of the “yin/yang” of our world, we, as people, tend to take an “either/or” approach to life.  This is especially so in the worlds of bodybuilding, strength training, and, really, just general fitness and health.  It’s either high-volume with a lot of sets and reps or “high-intensity” with brief, incredibly hard workouts.  Or it’s Carnivore and other high-fat, animal-forward diets versus vegan and high-carb, incredibly low-fat diets.  To paraphrase Kipling, East is East and West is West, and never shall the ‘twain meet.  But the problem is that’s simply not the way of things .      Good religions, philosophies, and theologies always take a “both/and” approach to things.  I once asked a priest what he thought defined a “heresy” as opposed to just some muddled, wrong—but not necessarily heretical—thinking.  H

      I have not been able to write quite as much on the blog as usual of late.  I also write full-time for a media company, and sometimes it causes me to get a little behind in the stuff that I really love to write about; hardcore strength and power, traditional budo, etc.  Anyway, I should have some more "regular" articles published here in the next couple weeks, and, until then, I thought it would be good to do another "Thursday Throwback."      This is an article I wrote for Planet Muscle  around ten years ago.  I think it's a good article, and, in fact, I thought it would be more popular than it was/is.  You can find quite a bit of my training programs out there on the internet - my "high-frequency focus training" is rather popular, for instance - but you don't see this program anywhere.  Credit Jeff Everson - who I miss dearly every time I think of my time writing for PM - for running a lot of my programs in the pages of his rag.  Believe it