C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

  Part One of a "How to Get Strong On (fill-in-the-blank)" Series      Based on a whole slew—or, well, at least a handful—of emails that I’ve received in recent weeks, I thought it might be a good idea to do a series dealing with how to get strong on various lifts and exercises.  I don’t know how long or short this series will be.  It depends on how many exercises I end up covering, and if there’s interest from readers for additional tips about exercises I don’t cover at first.  So, hell, this thing could just be two articles or it could be five or six.  We’ll just wait and see.      Questions I receive regarding getting stronger on certain exercises come in, generally, two forms.  Some readers will ask about specific powerlifts or quick lifts; stuff such as how to get stronger on the bench press, the squat, the deadlift, the overhead press, the power clean, or some variation of those seem to be the most c...

     In past articles/posts, I have discussed the benefits of bodyweight-only – and bodyweight-primary – strength training.  Since I first started blogging about bodyweight training few years ago, I have received many emails from readers who are interested in this stuff.  The readers usually want one of two things.  One, they just want to tell me how much they have been enjoying bodyweight strength training, and they want to offer their two cents on how effective/ enjoyable this kind of training has been for them.  (I love reading these kind of e-mails because, first, it inspires me, and, second, it means I don’t have to reply to some of the odd-ball questions I occasionally get asked.)  Two, they want to know exactly what kind of program they should be following.  It is to this second set of questioners that this post is addressed – well, sort of .  You see, I think it’s important for people to learn to think for themselves.  Wh...

      “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,...

As I get older (although I'm only 38, I have been a dedicated lifter for 20 years), certain things remain important to me, and—to be honest—many things do not.  For instance, I no longer want to have 20 inch arms, or be the biggest bloke alive (that's the kind of stuff I wanted 20 years ago), or be the strongest dude walking the planet at my bodyweight (that's what I wanted 10 years ago).  But I do want to be strong, and I don't mind being fairly big, and most of all I want to be healthy. And I want to keep learning. And I just love to train.  Period. So... as I get older, and as I learn more, the most important lessons are the ones that I have learned about myself.  It dawned on me—not that long ago, to tell the truth—that I train just to train.  I love  the feel of a tough, two-hour workout where I squat something, put something heavy over my head, pull something heavy off the floor, and tote something heavy across my lawn.  When you train just...

Ultimate At-Home Workouts Volume One: The One with the Session from the Night of March 7th The Intro Recently, I’ve been forced to do almost all of my training at home. At first, this might not sound like that big of a deal to you. If you have read my posts—or my articles—for any length of time, then you know that I trained at home for years . But that was different. At one time, I had over 1,300 pounds of weights in my garage. (I counted the total amount of weight one point, but I don’t remember what it was—and I probably accumulated even more stuff after I counted it.) My entire garage was a gym. This included a squat rack, a bench press (Forza, good stuff), and a deadlift platform. When my wife and I separated a couple of years ago, I trained with minimum equipment. At the time, I really didn’t know how to train using minimal equipment, since I hadn’t done it since I was a teenager and my father bought me one of those old, concrete DP sets for my 15 t...

I haven't lifted weights in almost a week. My sons and I took a trip to the mountains of Tennessee for a few days. We arrived back this afternoon. After taking it easy at my house for a spell, we decided it was time they return to their mother—she was missing them, after all. And I was DYING to hit the weights again. Once my children were safely returned, and their mother and I said our cordial goodbyes, I headed over to the "wrecking gym" where I train. Only to find, much to my chagrin, that the garage was more than just a little bit infested with... fleas. Must be this sweltering Alabama heat—I know summer has just arrived, but it seems like every day for the last month the heat index has been over 110 degrees. Could be all the dogs that hang out around the gym. Well, whatever it is, tomorrow it will be time to spray the pesky critters. (Yes, yes, I'm aware that the fleas are—technically speaking—a "sentient being", but I'm afraid they're st...

Over the last few months, I've written a couple of articles for Mike Mahler that have appeared on his website—www.mikemahler.com—or in his "Aggressive Strength" magazine. In the past, I have enjoyed reading some of Mahler's articles on training—his stuff is not necessarily revolutionary but he is very good at assimilating ideas from great lifters both past and present. However, it was only recently—after reading a lot of his "Aggressive Strength Living" articles—that I came to appreciate just where Mahler's strength lies. Perhaps it's Mahler's background in Eastern philosophies—Buddhism, Hinduism, Sufism—that causes me to like him so much, but I think it's more of the fact that he's not your typical "self-help", "positive thinking" sort of writer (as the article below will clearly show). I picked out the following article because it resonated with me, but I hope you will use it as a springboard to expl...