C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

       Someone told me at the gym one time—many years ago; I haven’t been to a commercial gym on a regular basis since the ‘90s—that I had a lot of creative ideas.  I can’t remember the exact words that he used, but something to the extent of “innovative” or “unique.”  He had been reading my (almost) monthly articles in IronMan magazine at the time.  At this point, I had switched over from writing many “bodybuilding” pieces, and instead wrote a lot of strength-oriented articles with ideas I had stolen from (primarily) Bill Starr and various Russian strength coaches such as Zatsiorsky.  That’s right, stolen .  I proceeded to tell him that, although I might concede to being creative, I was most definitely not (and still am not) innovative or unique.  I simply borrowed, and still borrow, ideas from a lot of great writers, strength coaches, bodybuilders, powerlifters, and other strength athletes that have come before me.  ...

  A Hepburn-Inspired High-Frequency Strength Program      In April, I wrote an article entitled “ Size AND Strength: The Best Way to Train for Both .”  In it, I outlined a few Hepburn inspired routines based on the power/mass methods of the great Canadian strongman and world-champion weightlifter Doug Hepburn.  The methods in that article—as the title portends—are all about building a combination of size and strength, as most lifters who are trying to achieve both often go about it incorrectly.  The program here is going to be a bit different.  This is a program geared strictly toward getting the lifter as strong as possible on a few, select lifts.      The program I’ve designed here is based on another one of Hepburn’s methods.  Although Hepburn would often combine this particular strength and power method with multiple sets of “pump” work once finished with the strength sets, this program foregoes the pum...