C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

     In my last article, I presented a few workout routines along with some training ideas for using high-frequency training (HFT) with what is commonly termed “grease-the-groove” workouts.  After writing it, I had a few thoughts still rumbling around my mind for some various ways that you can implement and use HFT.  HFT, just like other methods of training, has multiple routines and programs that you can work with.      Grease the groove training is sometimes called synaptic facilitation .  Why?  It comes from Russian research on strength training and the methods that the countries from the former Soviet Union used in both weightlifting and powerlifting training.  “Soviet research clarified that repetitive stimulation of a motoneuron increases the strength of its synaptic connections and may even form new synapses… the process is called synaptic facilitation or, in lifter speak, ‘grease the groove’... by frequen...

Build More Mass and Power with Hybrid Lifts and the Workouts That Utilize Them      The best lifts for building size and strength are “big” compound movements.  If you want to build as much mass and power as your body is capable of, then you need to do heavy squats, heavy pulls (whether it’s deadlifts or one of the quick lifts), plenty of heavy presses (benches and overhead movements), along with some heavy curls.  The more muscles that you utilize in a lift then the better the lift.  This is the reason that squats, deadlifts, and the quick lifts—power cleans, snatches, and high pulls—reign supreme.      Based on this, you could also argue that even better are “hybrid lifts” that combine two (or even three) movements in one lift.  A classic example of this is the “full clean” done by weightlifters.  As you clean the barbell, you drop into a front squat before standing up with the weight.  The full clean, al...