C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

Build Massive Muscles and Monstrous Strength with Heavy, Old-School Dumbbell Training      I don’t know when it happened, or how it happened, but when it comes to strength and power training, we think of barbells and little else.  I’m guilty of this myself.  I’ve written before about using the “ two barbell workout .”  It’s a sound theory, don’t get me wrong.  Basically, if you start your workout session, any workout session, with 2 big, compound barbell lifts—say, front squats and power cleans—you can then do whatever else you want for the rest of the workout and you will get great results.  Or, heck, you can just do 2 compound barbell lifts and nothing else at each workout.  But there was a time not that long ago, when the largest, most massive, muscular, and strongest lifters on the planet—the so-called “Bronze era” of the late 19th century, early 20th century—when strongmen did most of their training with dumbbells and not b...

The High-Set, Low-Rep Training Manifesto Part 2: Training the Chest and Lats      In Part 1, we discussed some different high-set, low-rep training strategies for the legs and back (squats and pulls).  If you have not done so, please read the 1st essay, as it covers some information necessary for understanding the reasoning of the training that will be presented here.  At the very least, read the 1st few paragraphs, even if you’re not interested in leg and back training as much as you are interested in upper body training.  Maybe you just want a big bench press or just want to look good with your shirt off while at the beach—I don’t know.  Even if you are only interested in a good upper body, you will get there much faster, by the way, by training your leg and back muscles.      In future essays, we will also cover arm training and overhead press work.  I have divided the series into these divergent parts for a r...