C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

The VOLUME, FREQUENCY, or INTENSITY Bodybuilder - Which One Are You?! A Vision of INTEGRAL Hypertrophy Training Part One: The VOLUME Bodybuilder This series is dedicated to George Hackenschmidt, the "original" integral bodybuilder. C.S.’s Note: What follows is something that I have been working on—in my mind at least—for quite some time.  It is an attempt at an “integral vision” for hypertrophy training.  It’s not necessarily “complete” in the sense that, as I work with some physique athletes, I may come to make some slight changes to the entire “system” I have intuited, especially when dealing with bodybuilders who respond to different methodologies than myself.  And, I must admit, that I almost didn’t post this even after writing the entire thing because I thought it could be confusing for some readers, especially for new bodybuilders.  This entire series of articles, therefore, is meant for bodybuilders who are at least at an intermediate level.  Having said...

     When I started this blog several years ago, it was with the intention of making it an “integral” blog – hence the name “Integral Strength”.  At the time, I was quite enamored with Eastern philosophy – Buddhism in particular, having practiced strains of both Theravada and Zen for some time – and so I thought it would be a great way to combine my love of lifting weights and philosophy, not to mention martial arts – a passion of mine that has existed since childhood – into one website.  Add into the fact that I was also reading quite a bit from the “integral” philosopher Ken Wilber at the time – some of my earliest posts that you can still find on here attest to this – and you can see why I thought that Integral Strength would be such a cool, not to mention accurate, name.  (Let me say this right off the bat, however: I don’t care much for Wilber or his philosophy any more.  I think it is, on the whole, quite reductionist, and actually has many of ...