C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

  Instinctive Mass-Building with Dave Draper’s “Freestyle” Workouts      It’s usually called instinctive training. It’s often referred to as “auto-regulation” these days.   Dave Draper called it freestyle training .      Draper, the “Blonde Bomber,” for those of you who don’t know, was a Golden Age bodybuilder of the highest caliber, but not necessarily just for his physique.   His physique was fantastic, don’t get me wrong (one of the best of that era), but Dave himself was a bit of an iconoclast.   He thought outside of the box, had some unique training perspectives, and was, to boot, a gifted writer.   It may have had something to do with the fact that he was a creative .      Lifters and bodybuilders of all sorts train for all sorts of reasons.   For some, training is a creative expression they undertake for the same reasons that other artists take up particular crafts.   These train...

       I may give the impression at times that I’m not a fan of split workouts.  That’s not true, of course.  I have a lot of split programs here on the blog—in fact, I’ve probably written considerably more split workout programs than full-body ones over the course of my writing career.  But it’s also true that I do have a certain disdain, and don’t try to hide it, for “modern” workout splits.  Programs where you train only one bodypart at each session, and take off a week between training sessions for individual bodyparts, pretty much drives me crazy.  And, of course, yes, I’m obviously a fan of full-body workouts.  Not only are they highly effective, but they’re probably the  best form of training for the “average” gym-goer, allowing you to train your muscles frequently (always a plus in my book), while also minimizing the amount of time that you have to go to the gym each week.  You just can’t beat workouts like th...

Get Big and Strong Using this Old-School Workout Program      Old school bodybuilders—from the ‘70s and before—built their muscles with full-body workouts.  They started their lifting careers with basic, full-body training sessions using only a limited amount of exercises, with a limited amount of sets to boot.  As they slowly built up their work capacity, they added sets to their exercises, and then added new exercises once they had the ability to handle them.  They stuck with full-body workouts even as they began to use multiple exercises per bodypart for multiple sets.  Eventually, some of these classic bodybuilders began implementing split programs, but that was only if their workouts got so long that they were almost forced to change to a split system.  But then there were guys like Clancy Ross—perhaps bodybuilding’s original mass monster—who stuck with full-body workouts throughout his career.      The ol...