C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

 The Mostly True Exploits and Tales of Bodybuilding, Powerlifting, and Other Strength Sports Across the South, from Texas to Alabama I wrote the original article (the inspiration for this piece) a little earlier than the time of this picture, where I squatted in the mid 500s at a bodyweight of 173 (around 20 years ago). Chapter One: The Mississippi Power Parable      From the first time I read "Powerlifting Basics: Texas Style" by Paul Kelso, and ever since I was enamored by the "fiction-style" articles of Bill Starr—of which he wrote plenty—I have wanted to write a book along mostly those same lines.      The seed of this began with an article I wrote in 2001 for IronMan Magazine  entitled "The Power Parable."  In the end, I began to write different "styles" of articles and got away from what you will read here.      The following is sort of a "redux" of that initial article.  Since I wrote this 22 years ago, the setting is in the late

Power Rack Training for Physical Development   Part Two: The Ultimate Mass-Gaining, Bulk-Building Power Rack Training Program  (Inspired by Joseph Curtis “J.C.” Hise and the writings of Peary Rader) J.C. Hise, the inspiration for this article, in a picture from the 1930s. About two weeks ago, I released Part One of (what I expect to be) a semi-regular, but perhaps sporadic series on training in the power rack.  As I mentioned in that first part, the rack is so much more than a good training area to do partials—which, unfortunately, I think that is about the only thing it’s used for these days.  I recommend that you read Part One first, though it’s not necessary but it would be helpful, since I don’t plan on rehashing all of the goodies the power rack has to offer.  In Part One, I created a “new” program, but one heavily influenced by Charles A. Smith, who in turn was quite influenced by J.C. Hise, and Hise’s mentor Mark Berry.  It’s a basic, full-body, 3-days-per-week program that wi

  A.K.A “Simple Workouts + Heavy Training = Effective Results” C.S. dragging a sled on the cover of his book "Ultimate Strength."  Read on to discover why you MUST drag or carry different objects in order to maximize your results! I have written about it so many times that you wouldn’t think it needs repeating, but the truth is that it does!  I’m talking about getting “back-to-the-basics”, about our inability to stop making things so complicated, and just do simple, hard, basic, result-producing workouts.  And I also think that the truth is that we will always need to remind ourselves of this because it is in our nature to make things “complicated”, to always be searching for some more complex but somehow “better” program that will produce results even quicker for us.  Even though we really “should” know better, and even though we do know better, we tend to always make this mistake. And this goes for myself, as well.  Maybe not so much with barbell training, although at on

  How Squats Can Change Your Life! “Happiness is different from pleasure.  Happiness has something to do with struggling, enduring, accomplishing.”   -Dr. George Sheehan I have been reading a lot lately.  Not that I haven’t always read a lot, mind you, so I guess it would be more appropriate to say that I have been reading a lot more lately.  Which you can strike up a little bit to the slightly increased free time I have on my hands.  You see, I have been doing some really hard martial arts training a few days a week, including a session or two of sparring every week, which always takes its toll on you (at my age and with my injuries), and I simply haven’t been able to lift weights as frequently, nor even as intensely, as usual.  Which means (long story short) that I have had more time to read on my hands. As I was perusing one of the local online “marketplaces”, I came across a book with a most interesting title: How Squats Can Change Your Life!   At first, I thought, well, that’s an