C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

       If you have been involved in the iron game for even a little while, you probably know most of the “get big advice.”   Stuff such as “eat a lot of protein and calories,” “train heavy on the big lifts,” “get plenty of rest and recovery,” and other such “basic” advice can be found in any number of articles, YouTube videos, or Facebook posts.   And most of it is pretty good and fairly sound—I’ve written plenty of such articles covering similar material here on the blog and I will continue to do so.   But in this essay, I want to do something just a little bit different.   Here, I want to look at some various tips, training ideas, and nutritional hacks that are not your run-of-the-mill suggestions.   Most of these are not to be used long-term, but they can be quite useful when utilized over a short period of time, such as one training cycle or even over the course of only a few weeks.      Before we get starte...

       Stop trying to do so many things at one time.   Really.   Just stop.   If you want to achieve a goal— any goal, but we’ll stick with size and strength here—then you need to focus on that one goal.   Duh, right?   Pretty obvious.   But, as I’ve written in other essays, the obvious sure does seem to get overlooked by the vast majority of our lifting population.   So, obvious though it may be, let me repeat. Focus on one goal at a time .      I started thinking about all this, and the cognitive wheels began turning in my mind to write an essay on it, when I read these words from Dan John in an article of his on the same topic.   He wrote: One of the most overlooked aspects of muscle-building programs is a four-letter word: STOP. Stop playing basketball. Stop jogging. Stop doing cardio. I swear, if I get one more email like this, I will do something rash: “Hey, Dan: I’m interested in doing High...

        I have a new book available on Amazon Kindle.  It's entitled "Ultimate Mass and Power: A Collection of Training Programs for Getting Massively Big and Incredibly Strong." (Click on the link to purchase.) Here's the description: Are you looking for massive muscles? Monstrous strength gains? How about a combination of both? There seems to be quite a bit of confusion out there—whether it’s on the internet or at the gym—about how to train for BOTH hypertrophy and serious strength gains. The first problem seems to be that some folks just don’t know how to do either. Guys go to the gym to “get big” but then spend most of their time attempting to max out on a lift. Or, conversely, a guy wants to be massively strong but spends too much of his time training for a pump or doing a lot of repetitions. The training programs contained in this book will clear up this confusion. Herein you will find 16 different articles—each article replete with different program...

How to Gain 50 Pounds of Muscle Part 2:  Larry Scott’s Mass-Building Program      A few days ago, I posted PART 1 of this 3-part series based on an article by Gene Mozee in a ‘92 issue of IronMan .  I won’t get into many details of the original article itself, but, if you haven’t done so, I would encourage you to read Part 1 first before reading this one.  In fact, if you’re interested in actually doing the program presented here, I would also encourage you to try your hand at Arnold’s “Golden Six” before embarking on this routine.  Scott’s program (as we’ll see shortly) is very similar to Arnold’s, but with a couple more exercises, and several more sets of each exercise.  It makes the program below sort of the “intermediate” workout of the 3 programs presented in Mozee’s piece.      For anyone who doesn’t know, Scott was the first Mr. Olympia, having won the inaugural Mr. O competition in 1965.  After that...

  Build the Ultimate Combination of Mass and Strength with this Unique High-Set, Low-rep Method of Training The late, great Anthony Ditillo utilized programs very similar to what is written here.  If he were with us today, he'd probably give this one a thumbs up and say, "Ditillo approved!" Some of my favorite programs for building muscle mass involve the use of high-sets and low-reps.  In fact, when I first started this blog 14 years ago, one of the very FIRST questions I was asked by a reader was whether or not I had a “favorite” method of training.  At first, I think I was going to “cop out” and tell him some crap such as, “the best workout is the one you’re not doing” kind of thing.  But then I decided that, hell, honesty is always the best policy, and so I told him the truth: my FAVORITE approach to training was the high-set, low-rep method, specifically using anywhere between 10 to 20 sets of 1 to 5 reps. Fourteen years later is that still the case?  ...