C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

Workload as an Important Factor in the Quest for Size and Strength      What follows is nothing more than some of the thoughts that have been rattling around in my training-filled brain since writing my last couple essays, the first on the “ Old School Way ” and my most recent one entitled “ Train Through the Soreness ,” both of which were also precipitated by my series on “ Tailoring Your Workout Program .”      I think it’s fair to say, or write in this instance, that modern gym-goers believe gains in muscle or strength (or both) comes down to “hard” training coupled with rest, recovery, and eating enough calories and protein.  I think that is true but only partially so.  Since it’s not the entire truth, however, it can hold you back from achieving (potentially) even better results in the gym.      The “whole truth” of muscle growth contains several factors.  If you want to prioritize muscle gr...

The Classic Bodybuilding Approach to Cycling Workloads, Developing Work Capacity, and High-Frequency Training      I’ve been lifting since the mid ‘80s, when my father bought me one of those old, shaky DP weight sets for, I think, my 13th birthday.  If you are my age or older, you know well the kind of set I’m talking about, with weights made of plastic, gray in color, and filled with cement.  Many a young man got their start in iron from just such a set.  It was about all you could find down at the local Sears & Roebuck department store.  The bench was flimsy as all get-out, the weights not that long-lasting, but, honestly, it got the job done.  In many ways, it was all I (or others) needed.  You could do deadlifts and cleans, overhead presses and curls, not to mention all the bench pressing your pre-pubescent heart desired.  Like all other young teenagers, I wanted a big chest and biceps, so I did entirely too much benchi...

A Method for Developing a Work Capacity That Can Handle High-Volume, High-Frequency Workouts      I often preach the benefits of high-frequency training along with full-body workouts.  I think they are two of the best ways to build a lot of muscle and strength, especially for the natural lifter.  Another central component for the natural lifter is to develop a strong work capacity , or the ability to do a lot of work and then recover from it quickly.  Read that last sentence again if you have to and let it sink in.  There are, I would guess, a lot of lifters who are capable of doing a lot of work in the gym, but very few of them can then recover from it quickly.  You can blame that on modern training, I suppose, more than anything else, since we live in some sort of upside down, topsy turvy training world where bodybuilders “blast” their muscles with endless sets and then give those muscles a week—hell, sometimes even more—before train...

  Some Thoughts on How/When to Use Back-Off Sets, Add Extra Work, and Increase the Total Workload of Your Training      The other day, I received an email from a reader who wanted to know my advice on back-off sets and how to use them.  His question was based on the fact that he was having a hard time increasing the weight on his “top-end” sets using a standard 5x5 training model.  This essay is partly an answer to that question but, in addition to that, I want to use it to discuss how (and when) you should not only do back-off sets but also when a lifter should add extra work, whether that additional training is at the end of a workout or in another workout altogether.  The goal of all of this being, of course, greater strength on the core lifts, whatever those core lifts might be, whether you’re a powerlifter attempting to increase the three powerlifts, an Olympic lifter looking to increase your quick lifts, or just an “all-around” strength...