C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

A Strong-as-You-Look Bill Starr-Influenced, Old-School Strongman-Inspired Program for the Natural Bodybuilder/Lifter      Modern bodybuilding is certainly capable of producing hypertrophy.  The problem with it is that it often doesn’t produce the kind of muscle size that is as strong as it looks.  This program takes care of that problem.  If you want to build muscle that is also strong and powerful, then look no further.  This one is as good as they come.      This program combines, in one routine, many of my favorite methods. It utilizes heavy/light/medium training a la Bill Starr.  It uses load-cycling, where several training weeks move from lighter to heavier, then back off again.  And it also utilizes an old-school weight ladder method inspired by the legendary strongman Hermann Goerner that I have grown more fond of the more I use it.  Goerner called them “chains” where—unlike “rep ladders” in whi...

A HIgh-Frequency Muscle-Building Routine So Simple That It Seems Almost Too Good to Be True      A few years ago, after suffering from some herniated discs that were causing me pain, I experimented with a program so simple that I wasn’t sure it would work.  I should have known better.  After utilizing it, and getting good results, I thought it was even too simple to write about.  Readers might think I had gone off the deep end.  But I didn’t.  And I haven’t.  I’m currently using the program right now, after taking a week-long layoff in order to prepare myself for a “bigger” program a few weeks down the road.      Before using this program, I had already had a lot of success with easy strength methods.  I write about them quite a bit, so, unless this is your first time reading one of my articles, you’re already well-aware of the methodology.  With easy strength, you, typically, do no more than 10 r...

A 3 Days Per Week, “Moderate Strength” Program for Size and Power      Last week, I published a Q&A article based on a few questions that I had been asked in the preceding weeks.  One of the questions asked was if it was possible to do an “easy strength” program just 3 days per week.  I answered the question in the best way that I could—if you want to read my answer in full, then, well, read that article—but the more that I thought about it in the days since, the more I think that one of my answers might just be the way to set up a full-body program for 3 days per week of training.  I suggested that it might work for a 3 day program if you simply bumped up your total volume to around 15 reps per lift.  In this article, I want to outline in much more detail what this might look like and how you can use it to get the most out of a 3 day per week, full-body program.      In many ways, this shouldn’t really be thou...