C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

Gain Slabs of Muscle, Make an Undersized Bodypart Grow Massive, or Improve Your Strength on a Specific Lift with High-Frequency Specialization Workouts      Sometimes it’s a good idea to specialize on a muscle group that is lagging behind your other bodyparts or to follow a specialization program for a specific exercise that you really want to get stronger on.  If you’re struggling to gain weight in general, it can also help to follow a “squat and pull” specialization program, as heavy leg and back work is often what is needed to produce big-time mass gains.      High-frequency training combined with high-volume workouts can be great for quick gains in muscle size or strength as long as you don’t try to do the workouts for the entirety of your body..  The key is to increase the frequency and the volume on a certain muscle group, maybe two, or a specific lift while also reducing the work on the remainder of your muscles. ...

  Heavy/Light/Medium Training Part Two: Bill Starr’s Secrets for Upper Body Bulk and Power +How to Move to a 4 Days a Week Program        This is, as the title indicates, the 2 nd part of our new, ongoing series on heavy, light, and medium training .   If you haven’t read it, then please go to Part One first before diving into this one.   This essay assumes an understanding of everything discussed in the first part.        Here, we will cover upper body training, and more specifically how to build your upper body pressing strength.   I’ll give you the great Bill Starr’s advice along with some of my personal insights.      I was never a strong presser, either on the bench press or on the overhead press.   The most I ever bench pressed in competition was just over 350 pounds in the 181-pound class.   Sure, that’s not bad for the average gym-goer—and, yes, I did win some local be...

 For this week's "Thursday Throwback" I have selected an article that I originally wrote for Planet Muscle Magazine  around 15 years ago.  What is interesting is that the article as I wrote it for PM was essentially a "redux" of an article I wrote in the late '90s for MuscleMag International  when I competed regularly in powerlifting - and bench press-only - competitions.  Jeff Everson - the publisher and editor of Planet Muscle  - actually sent me a "clipping" of my original MuscleMag  article, and asked me if I could re-write it, and make enough changes that it was different from my original (and therefore wouldn't violate any copyright laws).  And the funny thing - for me, at least - is that I could hardly even remember writing that original article.  Anyway, the article itself as it appeared in PM is still great, I think (I am a little prejudice since I did write the thing), for anyone that is looking to build his/her bench press but...