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.     ...

Training Ideas and Workout Plans for Power and Mass      I think one of the best methods for your workouts, no matter your goals, is rest-pause training.  Although when it is used, it’s done so by bodybuilders more than strength athletes, it can also be a valuable lifting tool for those seeking strength above all else.  In this article, I’ll offer some different workout ideas using rest-pause training and some ways to incorporate the ideas into different programs.      Rest-pause training, in my view, is great because it allows you to use “density” workouts, where you can get an incredible amount of work within a short period of time.  Remember, the more work that you are capable of doing in a limited time, the better your results will be.  Now, this doesn’t mean just doing more work is the answer—you need to have the work capacity to handle the workload.  But rest-pause training is a good way to incorporate de...

High-Volume Workout Variation for Continuous Hypertrophy Gains      The more advanced a bodybuilder gets, the more variation that he needs.  The late strength coach Charles Poliquin believed that a bodybuilder should make a change to his training at every 4th workout.  He thought that 3 workouts was about the limit for doing the exact same session.  This doesn’t mean to overhaul your training completely at every 4th workout.  It means making a couple to a few changes, while keeping the workout template the same.  I think this is pretty good advice.  Some highly advanced bodybuilders might need to make a minor change at every workout session and some bodybuilders, even advanced ones, might do well with a slightly less frequent change.  Overall, however, I think the advice is fairly sound.      One mistake that I think some modern bodybuilders make is doing too much variety in a single session.  Fo...