C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

  Minimalist Training for Maximum Gains      I made the mistake today of reading one of the popular bodybuilding websites.   Occasionally I do this, but almost always regret it shortly after.   Today was no different.   I write that it was a “mistake” only because reading these online “rags”—I suppose that’s the best term, though perhaps “zine” might be more apropos—almost always makes me want to beat my head into the wall of my dungeonous garage gym until I black out and (hopefully) forget everything I just read.      I always make my way to one of these websites in the hope, faint though it may be, that I might actually stumble upon an article or two with good training advice.   But, alas, to no avail.      I suppose you could argue that I’m being a bit too curmudgeonly.   Heck, you might be right.   Well, partially right.   Because, if I’m honest, there are some decent traini...

  I have a brand new e-book available for purchase at Amazon.  If you would like to buy a copy, here's the link: Ultimate Mass and Power Essays: A Collection of Essays, Thoughts, and Ideas for Getting Incredibly Big and Massively Strong This book is a follow-up to my first book in this series, "Ultimate Mass and Power." That book is primarily a collection of different training programs to help you get incredibly strong and massively big. This book is concerned with the same topics - building massive amounts of strength, power, and hypertrophy - but is a collection of essays instead of programs. Oh, there are some programs thrown in here and there. But this is for anyone who wants to be informed and (hopefully) entertained with some of my thoughts and ideas when it comes to building the ULTIMATE in Mass and Power. If you enjoy reading the likes of "old school" writers such as Bill Starr, Bradley Steiner, and John McCallum, or modern day writers such as Dan John o...

  A.K.A. - How to Gain 40 Pounds of Bulk in 8 Weeks John McCallum’s High-Frequency, High-Volume Routine for Rapid Mass Gains      In the 1960s, John McCallum wrote arguably the greatest monthly column the bodybuilding world has ever known.  It was called “The Keys to Progress” and appeared in what was probably also the greatest muscle magazine of all time, Strength and Health .  His column is still fantastic to this day.  To be honest, it’s probably better today because of all the nonsense that you see, hear, or read about in the ultra-saturated world we all know and love called the internet.  I wonder what the hell McCallum would think about training and nutrition information these days?  I have a feeling he wouldn’t think highly of it at all.      I thought about McCallum this morning when I was “thumbing” through my new digital copy of “The Complete Keys to Progress.”  I have an older, slightly tatt...

       This morning, I received a question from a reader asking if it’s possible to—not just get in shape or get a “good” workout—but to actually build a lot of strength, power, and mass using only dumbbells.  I responded that yes it is possible to, in fact, build a tremendous amount of overall muscle mass and strength using nothing but dumbbells.  Believe it or not, sometimes, as I explained to him, dumbbells might actually be better than barbells—and certainly, of course, better than machines—for those very goals.  Anyway, since about half of the material that I write these days—at least here on the blog—is precipitated by a reader’s question, I thought that this would make a good article, even though I have written material similar to this one before.  But if it’s true, then it bears repeating, especially in the world of strength and hypertrophy-training, where there seems to be just about as much misinformation as ever in the b...