C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

Use This Training Concept for Better Athletic Performance and/or New Gains in Size and Strength      In my article The Fighter’s Physique , I mentioned the benefit of “weaving” together one’s strength training with one’s fighting art in the same session.  While proper strength training improves athletic performance, martial arts or otherwise, it will have even more benefits when both the strength training and the sport one competes in are performed simultaneously.      This concept is nothing new.  The idea was originally “created” by German strength coach Peter Tschiene in the 1980s, though I have a feeling that other athletes going back decades—or perhaps even centuries—were already using the method, even if Tschiene coined the term “mixed training” and was the first to widely promote it.  Monks at the Shaolin Temple were combining resistance training—bodyweight calisthenics, isometric holds, and lifting stone locks (ca...

  The Focus Strikes Back!      One of my more popular training programs—I wrote it over a decade and a half ago for IronMan magazine—is “ High-Frequency Focus Training ,” or HFFT for short.  It involves combining two of the most popular, and result-producing, programs that you can do.  It’s a high-frequency training program—you train your entire body at each session—but one that also uses a “focus” at each training session, as well.  For the “focus” aspect, you train a muscle group(s) with more sets for a pump.  My original "beginner" program (I also wrote an advanced one—click on the link above for details), as an example, looked like this: Monday: High Frequency Portion Squats – 5 sets of 3 reps. Perform two warm-up sets of 5 reps, followed by 3 work sets of 3 reps, using approximately 70-75% of your one-rep maximum. Deadlifts– 5 sets of 3 reps. Use the same set/rep format as the squats. Barbell Bench Presses or Incline Bench Presses ...