C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

A Mass and Power Program for the Natural Lifter      This morning, I was reading some old muscle magazines—I have hundreds of them boxed in my attic—when I came across an article by Don “Ripper” Ross entitled, aptly for this essay, “Power Bodybuilding.”  I’m always looking for inspiration for new training programs, and this article gave the idea for the program you’re now reading.      Ross’s program was a 6-days-per-week routine where you trained chest and arms on days 1 and 4, back and shoulders on days 2 and 5, and, finally, legs on days 3 and 6.  I really like a lot of the training programs that Ross created—this one included—but I do think it had too much overall volume at each session for that many training days.  Each day contained between 8 and 10 exercises in his program.  Ross was the kind of guy that thrived on hard work and a lot of volume (oh, and a lot of anabolics).  This program keeps some of Ross’s principles—heavy training, multiple sets for each lift, low reps—and k

        “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.” ~Helmuth Von Moltke the Elder      When it comes to building prodigious amounts of strength and/or muscle mass, you must learn to plan your training, program based on your plan, and then make assessments throughout the application of your program.  If you can’t do these three things, then, to be honest, you have little chance of success.  Planning, programming, and assessing may not be “sexy” but they are vital and necessary to achieving your goals.      It all starts with a good plan, and you must have a plan, but, as with the best laid plans of mice and men, it will often go awry, which is where assessment is as important as both the plan and the programming.      First, what do you want out of your training?  You can’t plan unless you’re specific about your goals.   I have written this elsewhere but it bears repeating here: you will not achieve your goals—in training, in life, in anything, really—unless you’re honest about w

  A Unique Training Split for Size, Strength, Muscle Mass, AND the Look of Power      As humans—and as lifters—we tend to be creatures of habit.  In many ways, this is good.  If we want to be skilled at something, anything really, we need to make a habit of practicing it, practicing it well , and practicing it often.  If you want to make good gains—in strength training, mass-building, or a combination of both—you must be consistent first and foremost.  But, as lifters, it can sometimes actually hinder us, or, at the very least, not allow us to take full advantage of different training strategies.  Because, since we are creatures of habit, we create a habit of training the same way for each of our muscle groups or for all of our lifts.  Sometimes, however, it might help to take an almost counterintuitive approach to training.  And that’s exactly what this program is.  (In fact, I suppose that I could have titled it “The Counterintuitive Power-Mass Variation Program” but, as that’s word