C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

Turn up the Volume for More Size and Strength      Okay.  Yeah.  I know.  If you’ve read even a smattering of my articles or essays, you’ve probably seen me say that squatting is king.  Well, it is.  If you give it your all on squats—whether it’s back squats or front squats, barbell squats, kettlebell squats, or just your bodyweight, really high-repetition squats or heavy-as-heck, low-rep squats—you will make gains.  In fact, if you’re not going to squat, you might as well hang it up as far as gains are concerned.  No squats.  No gains.  It’s that simple.  (Okay, I did write THIS article on how to make gains without squatting, but that aside…)  But let’s just go ahead and assume that squats are mandatory.  Because the truth is also this: You can squat and not make any gains if you’re on a crappy program where you train infrequently or just do random “whatever” workouts.     ...

     In my last article, I presented a few workout routines along with some training ideas for using high-frequency training (HFT) with what is commonly termed “grease-the-groove” workouts.  After writing it, I had a few thoughts still rumbling around my mind for some various ways that you can implement and use HFT.  HFT, just like other methods of training, has multiple routines and programs that you can work with.      Grease the groove training is sometimes called synaptic facilitation .  Why?  It comes from Russian research on strength training and the methods that the countries from the former Soviet Union used in both weightlifting and powerlifting training.  “Soviet research clarified that repetitive stimulation of a motoneuron increases the strength of its synaptic connections and may even form new synapses… the process is called synaptic facilitation or, in lifter speak, ‘grease the groove’... by frequen...

An “Easy” High-Frequency Training Program for Plenty of Size and Strength + Some Other Tips and Workouts for Transforming Your Physique      I began training in martial arts more than 40 years ago, when I was around 10 years old.  By the time I was a teenager, it was my life.  (In many ways, it still is.)  I was at the dojo just about every day of the week but I also trained at my home every day.  However, when I was around 16 or 17—I’m not really sure of the exact age; I just remember that I could drive by that point—I only started going to the dojo about once per week.  Sometimes just once every two weeks.  I’m pretty sure that a lot of my fellow karatekas—especially those who had known me for many years—thought I had become lazy or that something was “wrong” with me or that I no longer took my martial training very seriously or even cared about it anymore, for that matter.  But I had a reason for it, though I didn’t really c...