C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

  A Unique Heavy/Light Training Approach for Bodybuilders Seeking Size and Power      I first discovered alternates a little over 30 years ago.  At the time, my primary interest (training wise) was bodybuilding.  I had just started writing for some of the popular bodybuilding magazines and it would be a few years before I discovered my real love—which, by the way, would be powerlifting and other strength sports.  However, even then, I loved being strong.  I couldn’t understand—and, I suppose, I still don’t, though I’m perhaps a little more sympathetic—bodybuilders who only trained for looks without the strength to go with it.  Even though I considered myself a bodybuilder at the time, I was definitely a power bodybuilder.  I wanted to be at least as strong as I looked.  I was actually stronger than I looked.  If I had known then what I know now, I would have known that I was “made” for powerlifting and strength ...

  Heavy/Light/Medium Training Part 6: Getting Bigger Starr in his competitive days A Sample Workout Program + Bill Starr’s Dietary Advice for Adding Bulk      Bill Starr had some damn sagely advice for getting bigger.   Heck, I suppose all of his advice was sagely, for that matter.   So, in this, the 6 th part of our ongoing series on Starr’s H/L/M training, I’m going to present that advice to you , dear reader.      We will cover both diet and training for getting bigger, because one won’t work without the other.      Before we go any further, this essay, just like the ones that preceded it, builds upon the other installments.   So, for the simple sake of clarification alone, it would be a good idea to read the parts before continuing here.   Here are the links: Part One – program design Part Two – upper body pressing power Part Three – building the squat Part Four – back and pullin...

What it Takes to Actually Achieve Your New Year’s Resolution(s)       I rolled out of bed this morning, went to the coffee maker to brew my morning cup of Joe, and then put on the local morning news while I listened to the spewing and sputtering sounds made by my generic Keurig.  I don’t usually watch the news in the morning.  I typically get out of bed and, as my coffee is brewing, begin lacing up my shoes for a morning walk while my dog Kenji paces back and forth in anxious anticipation of our almost daily exercise.  But it was so cold this morning, and with slight snow flurries coming down, I thought it would be good to take the day off from my usual walk (much, it must be said, to my dog’s chagrin).  So I turned on the news to see what the weather had in store this week in my adopted home state of Alabama.      But, don’t worry, it’s not the weather in the Deep South that I want to discuss for this essay....