C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

It's been almost six months since my last post.  Three months ago, if I am honest, I didn't think I would be sitting here now, typing these words. I thought I would be dead. I am not going to get into all of the details - not yet, anyway.  I will save all of that for another post, when I am feeling more of a combination of elegiac and poetic, and when I think I'm ready to write about my declining health, and how it has affected my life in ways - often, amazingly - better, but bitter, as well, than I imagined such declining health could.   But my health has caused some real problems.  Until only a few weeks ago, I haven't been able to write, and I haven't been able to do the one thing I almost  love more than anything else I do on this green Earth of God's: lift weights. But I am writing again. And I am lifting again. Hopefully my health will continue to improve even more, which means even more writing and more lifting.  Often, the more I lift, t...

Journal of Strength Wednesday, November 12, 2014      My current workout program is a bit haphazard.   But it’s also enjoyable and effective for my current goals.      It’s haphazard in the fact that I pretty much do whatever I feel like on whatever days I feel like training.   Of course, to be honest, that’s not entirely the case, but it’s close to it.   There is some structure—I always begin each workout with high-set singles of one exercise.   I rotate between a few different exercises.   Deadlifts, power cleans, power snatches, full snatches, clean and presses, or one-arm dumbbell presses are the typical exercises, although occasionally I will do flat bench presses or squats.   Also, I sometimes do two exercises for high-set singles instead of just one, and I always finish the workout with two or three additional exercises of whatever I feel as if I should do, for two or three sets each ...

     The legendary Russian powerlifting coach Boris Sheiko once remarked, “he who trains more—lifts more.”  For the most part, I agree with that statement, as many of the articles on this blog attest to, but you also have to put things into the proper context in order to understand them.  Sheiko’s statement is quite a loaded thing for many lifters when they first hear/read it.  This is especially true if you’ve spent the majority of your time—either on the Internet or in the pages of a magazine—reading articles written by Western (particularly American) writers/trainers.  And it’s even more true if you’ve gotten great results from heavy, infrequent training using a lot of the Western methods.      First, let’s look at an overview of training in general, then I’ll discuss a little about my own personal success with programs such as Sheiko and similar “Russian-style” programs for those of you interested in actually usin...

     Simplicity can be a virtuous thing.  For some reason, in our current age, we want to make things decidedly not simple.  Perhaps this is because our lives are not simple – we have made them more and more complex by a stream of never-ending texts, instant messages, YouTube videos, music streaming, and the general need to always feel as if we need to be doing something.  I might add, however, without us actually doing anything, since we are more slothful and gluttonous – not to mention pear-shaped; especially the younger generation – than ever before.      Life should not be that way.  We were built for simplicity – in fact, the only way to enter into the complexity of things is to purposefully simplify.  If for instance, you want to enter the depths of your consciousness, the very depths of your being , you don’t do so by anything so complex as various ascetic feats of standing on your head or other odd yogic poses, o...

The One-Exercise-Per-Muscle Group Manifesto      God only knows how many different training routines are out there in today’s bodybuilding world.   The magazine in your hands alone probably has at least a half dozen of them.   All this eclecticism can get a bit confusing for many bodybuilders and strength athletes.   Especially for those guys and gals of you that are just starting out.   So, what is the best way to train?      One reason that so many different programs exist is because all of them are effective (to a certain extent), and lifters and ‘builders all respond differently to different programs based on their body types.   I’m here to tell you, however, that one method of training seems to stand above all the others.   And this method is the one-exercise-per-bodypart philosophy.   Of course, many different workouts exist within one-exercise-per-muscle group training, so this article will at...

Grease The Groove For Explosive Strength and Power        There are several good methods and training programs out there for building large amounts of strength and power.   One of the best methods—one that many lifters will find works the best for them—is to practice what Russian and other former Soviet lifters call “greasing the groove.”      Olympic and powerlifting coaches from the former Soviet republic—as well as Eastern Bloc countries—held the belief that the more frequently you performed a lift, the better, and, therefore, stronger you became on it.   Even now, it’s not uncommon for Russian (and other countries from the former Soviet Union) powerlifters to squat and deadlift three to four days per week and bench press as many as eight times per week.      For years, the success the Soviet Olympic lifters and powerlifters had was attributed to large amounts of anabolic steroids and/or great genetics.   I’m here to tell you, however, that this is just not the case.   I...