C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

  Why You May Not be a Hardgainer After All      Based on the title of this essay, there is a good chance you are going to end up reading something different than what you probably expected.   By the “myth” of the hardgainer, I don’t mean that hardgainers don’t exist.   It is certainly true that some lifters find it harder to gain muscle than others.   That’s simple genetics.   The “myth” is the fact that, just because you find it harder to gain muscle, doesn’t mean that there is just one way for you to train.      When a lifter is labelled a hardgainer—either by himself or by fellow lifters—the typical recommendation given is that he needs to train with a lot less volume than other lifters but with more “intensity”—intensity meaning the effort that is put forth in a set.   But I don’t think this is necessarily the case.      It is true that there are plenty of lifters that will find it h...

How to Design a “Hybrid” Easy Strength Program      If you have read even an inkling of my writings—especially over the last 20 years—you know that I’m a fan of high-frequency training (HFT).   Now, I must admit that this wasn’t always the case.   If you read my early articles for IronMan magazine—from, say, 1994 to the end of that decade/century—I often recommended infrequent training done for relatively “high-intensity” and (fairly) low volume.   But my views on training frequency, volume, and intensity shifted when I started powerlifting seriously in the late ‘90s and began to use the more frequent training regimens from (predominately) Eastern Europe and the heavy/light/medium system of Bill Starr.   Before trying these regimens, I often had trouble gaining muscle and just weight in general.   While using these methods, however, I had trouble not gaining weight even when I didn’t want to!      Not everyone will...

High-Frequency Training Parameters and Programming Ideas      Yesterday, I was sitting in my garage gym—pen and paper in hand as I jotted down some different article ideas—watching my son Garrett go through a lower body session when I told him the title for this article.   I thought “Train Easy, Repeat Often” was a pretty good title.   I originally intended it to simply be the title for a workout program.      Then Garrett said, “Okay, but how easy and how often?”      I stroked my beard as I began to mull over his question and the wheels began turning in my mind.   “Good point,” I replied.   “Maybe that’s what the article should be about.   I could still outline some workout programs, but I could mainly just explain how much you should train based on how frequent you want to lift.”      Garrett gave me a thumbs up, then returned to his sumo deficit deadlifts.   I doubt ...