C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

     It is, apparently, the end of an era as I just discovered that Dragon Door has shut down. Dragon Door, if you're not familiar, was the place where Pavel Tsatsouline pretty much got his start. They were the OG kettlebell company, publishing books, DVDs, and selling equipment for the new "functional fitness" craze. They also published a handful of my articles over the years. If I'm not mistaken - you can't access their articles anymore, so I'm not entirely sure - I wrote my first article for them sometime in 2008. So, since they are no more, I thought, over the next several weeks, I would re-post those articles here on my blog.      The most recent article that I wrote for them was The 30-Rep Program. When I have referenced that program in essays here on the blog, I have often inserted a link to that article, and since that link is no longer valid, I thought it would be the best article to start with.      I have long been a fan of ...

       Here is a random selection of questions that I received via email the last several weeks.  I figured these might be of interest to some readers. Question: Is it possible to do an easy strength program only 3 days each week and get good results? Answer: Maybe.  It depends.  (This might annoy some of my readers, but, to be honest, the answer to a lot of questions is it depends .)      Now, first off, if you don’t know what “easy strength” is, the standard recommendations for an easy strength program goes something like this: 1.      Train with full-body workouts using a limited number of basic barbell, dumbbell, or kettlebell lifts such as squats, bench presses, overhead presses, chins, dips, curls, cleans, snatches, or deadlifts. 2.      Lift 5 to 6 days per week. 3.      On average, keep your reps per set in the 1-5 range.  Doubles and triples are probably the p...

  Another High-Frequency Hypertrophy Program for the Natural Lifter      I write a lot about high-frequency training (HFT).  I think on average—assuming the lifter has the time to make it to the gym frequently—it’s the best form of training for the natural lifter or bodybuilder.  When I first started writing about this form of training—which I have been doing now for more than 20 years, perhaps longer—my programs mainly focused on strength training or strength training along with concomitant mass gains.  Recently, however, I have created more and more hypertrophy programs using these methods.  Part of that probably has to do with the fact that I have personally been using HFT for my own physique goals.  As I am not getting any younger, my body often can’t handle the heavy weights that I used to enjoy training with, but it can handle high-frequency when done with “reasonable” weights.      There are differen...

  A Total-Body, High-Frequency Training Program for Building Strength, Gaining Mass, and Conditioning Your Body      As regular readers of this blog, and my writing in general, probably know, I’m a big fan of high-frequency training (HFT for short).  I believe that HFT is the best form of lifting for the vast majority of trainees, especially the natural lifter.  Here at Integral Strength , I have a wide range of different HFT programs, from my popular 30-Rep Program (along with quite a few other easy strength regimens) to the 3-to-5 Method to Bill Starr-style H-L-M workouts to John McCallum’s High-Protein, High-Set Program —and everything in between.  In fact, most of my training programs fall under the umbrella of HFT.      Although it’s not always the case, HFT is usually combined with full-body workouts.  Many times, this is out of necessity.  If, for instance, you want to use a HFT program but you ...