C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

       This morning, I received a question from a reader asking if it’s possible to—not just get in shape or get a “good” workout—but to actually build a lot of strength, power, and mass using only dumbbells.  I responded that yes it is possible to, in fact, build a tremendous amount of overall muscle mass and strength using nothing but dumbbells.  Believe it or not, sometimes, as I explained to him, dumbbells might actually be better than barbells—and certainly, of course, better than machines—for those very goals.  Anyway, since about half of the material that I write these days—at least here on the blog—is precipitated by a reader’s question, I thought that this would make a good article, even though I have written material similar to this one before.  But if it’s true, then it bears repeating, especially in the world of strength and hypertrophy-training, where there seems to be just about as much misinformation as ever in the b...

 Every week, I receive emails from folks who count their calories, know the exact percentage of macronutrients they are consuming, weigh their food, and train with apps full of charts, graphs, and whatever other things  those apps track.  They also keep meticulous journals, and can tell you the exact repetition tempo performed for all of their machine work at the gym.  I only mention this because just yesterday - while I was relaxing at home, drinking a Coors light, and grilling out for Juneteenth - I checked my email, only to see that I had received an email from a reader who explained to me he is having trouble getting "psyched up" for his workouts - despite taking a pre-workout pill, wearing his state-of-the-art lycra pants and mesh "cooling" tank top, along with his brand new, brand name workout shoes.  So he wanted to know what I did pre-workout to prepare for my training sessions, and what I wear.  I told him I try to remember to wear some shorts, and...

 I have, for a number of years on Integral Strength, pushed the benefits of high-frequency training.  But no matter how long I've been training, I can always learn something new.  And what I've learned over the past six months, is how wondrous hard, heavy, frequent  dumbbell training can be when it comes to eliciting mass and strength gains. I really can't believe it took me this long to give dumbbell-centric training a "go", but it did.  In the past, with HFT, I always used primarily barbell exercises, coupled with dumbbell training for "assistance" lifts.  Don't get me wrong, there were a few exercises that I always did, such as thick-bar one-arm dumbbell deadlifts and one-arm dumbbell overhead presses.  But now I've come to appreciate - not to mention very much enjoy  - exercises such as two-arm dumbbell power cleans, one-arm dumbbell power cleans, one-hand and two-hand dumbbell clean and push presses, two-hand dumbbell hang cleans, one-hand a...

 Building Mass and Power/Strength with HFT + Dumbbells Combo The great Reg Park overhead pressing a pair of dumbbells In my last post, I outlined a brief, basic, (somewhat) hard full-body, 3-days-per-week program using ONLY dumbbells.  For this post, I'd like to outline a  high-frequency training (HFT for short, hereafter) program using primarily  dumbbells to build mass, power, and strength. The MASS is going to come about on this program from the sheer amount of total work performed in the course of the week.  When a lot of lifters -at least the ones I've worked with over the years - first take up HFT, they typically complain because it doesn't seem as if they are doing enough at each workout, or they don't think that they are training enough.  But the sheer frequency of the workout program really does add up .  After several weeks on the program, when most of the lifters I've worked with begin putting on muscle at a rate they hadn't been doing befor...

 Make Fantastic Strength, Power, and Mass Gains by Utilizing Heavy Dumbbell-Only Workouts! The great "old-time" strongman Arthur Saxon lifting a heavy pair of 'bells! When most lifters think of building tons of mass, power, and strength (either all at one time or in some combination), they usually think about heavy barbell training.  And when the same lifters think about dumbbell training, they usually think of it in terms of traditional "bodybuilding-style" workouts (3 to 4 sets of 10-12 reps - that sort of thing) or in terms of really light, higher-rep workouts.  But this shouldn't be the case.  The same way that a barbell-only workout can be geared toward traditional bodybuilding workouts and mega-high-rep training, dumbbell-only workouts can be great for building mass, strength, bulk, and power! Of course, every single workout of your program doesn't have to be a dumbbell-only regimen, but it does make for a nice change of pace and  dumbbells in many...