C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

  A Simple Method for Using Bodyweight Workouts as a Form of Muscle Building      After writing my last bodyweight training article— Bodyweight Training and Beyond: Lessons Learned from Martial Arts —I started making some more notes for Part 4.  However, while I was doing that, I was thinking about trainees who might want a simple way to use bodyweight workouts to build muscle.  So, I’m writing this piece as sort of an “in between” essay before I finish Part 4 of my Bodyweight Training and Beyond series.      The method discussed here is good for you if you want to use bodyweight training as your primary method of hypertrophy.  This is not an article for elite athletes, who might need more strength, speed, power, or a combination of those 3.  It’s also not for you if you’re already well-versed in bodyweight training and are already capable of highly voluminous, intense bodyweight sessions.  However, if you a...

A Not-Thought-Of, Often Not-Used Benefit of Bodyweight Workouts and/or Home Training      There are some real benefits to bodyweight training.  You don’t need a gym membership.  You can train no matter where you are or at any time, day or night, since you take your “gym” with you at all times.  You can train more often—a real plus in my book—since you don’t have to make that trip to the gym that might prevent you from otherwise training.  You can train more as in more days per week or more workouts per day.  Doing double-split, or even triple-split, daily workouts are viable for the same reason.  It’s just hard for most people with any kind of “normal” life—family, spouse, kids, job—to make it to the gym more than once per day.  You also don’t have to wait in line for equipment or put up with any of the other annoyances I always found when training in a commercial gym.      Most of the benefits of bodyw...

  Hybrid Methods and Programs Utilizing Bodyweight Training AND Weighted Workouts       For Part 2 of our series, we turn to the hybrid method of training where you combine bodyweight training with weighted workouts.  There are several different ways that this can be done, and the methods that apply to one also apply to the other.  You can combine bodyweight training with weights in the same session or you can keep the two separate, doing weighted workouts on one training day and bodyweight only on the other.          A great benefit of the 2nd approach is that you can still use high-frequency training without the need to go to the gym 5 to 6 days per week.  Even if you prefer lower-frequency routines, you can go to the gym just once or twice per week and then do bodyweight training at home another one or two days.  If the reason that you have for not training more, or not sticking to a training r...