C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

Some Thoughts and Remembrances on “The Duke of Delts” Don Howorth, His Training Methodology, and His Departure from Earthly Life      Even though I spend quite a bit of my time writing articles and essays for this blog, along with other writing projects that I have going on, I don’t spend that much time online.  As I have a feeling it’s the same with many of you, if I do get online, it’s not long before I’m down some rabbit hole of different posts, videos, articles, or whatever else it is that I get sucked into on the internet.  Then, once I come to my senses, I discover that I’ve wasted the last half hour or so doing little other than rotting away my precious gray cells, to paraphrase the words of that famous Belgian detective written by the world’s most famous British mystery writer.  But not being online 24/7 has one drawback, I suppose.  I’m often out of touch with the latest news in the bodybuilding/strength and power community.  ...

Variations on the 10 Sets of 10 Reps Method for One-Exercise-Per-Bodypart Training      Since the ‘90s, I’ve preached the benefits of one-exercise-per-bodypart workouts in articles I wrote for Ironman magazine and MuscleMag International .  The very first method that I touted was the 10 sets of 10 reps workout.  Back in the last century, when I still trained as a bodybuilder before my “conversion” to powerlifter, I did most of my hypertrophy workouts using the standard multiple exercises per muscle group for multiple sets—typically 3 to 4 lifts per bodypart for 3 to 4 sets of (somewhere between) 6 and 12 repetitions.  I’d hazard that’s still the way most bodybuilders train in today’s gyms.  Back then, I was “chasing the pump” in most of my workouts.  I noticed something, though. I would often start a workout with a good pump on my first exercise but when I switched to a new one, I would lose my pump or it would diminish somewhat.  ...

Build Muscle the Classic Way with an Old-School Favorite      I’m going to stop writing that I’m going to stop writing about a subject, any subject.  For one, I never know quite where my writing is going to take me.  That’s correct.  I don’t really feel as if I write.  It’s more as if writing just happens through me. I sit down at my laptop in the morning, my heavy cream-laden coffee steaming next to me, with every intention of writing on a certain subject.  Only to find that it morphs into something completely different, sometimes not even remotely in the same orbit as my initial idea(s).  For another, quite practical reason, I never know what kind of questions my recently written articles are going to generate, often prompting another essay on a subject I thought I was finished with.      I mention the above because at the end of my recent Old-School Muscle-Building Once More , I wrote that I was going t...