C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

Chuck Sipes as he appeared in the pages of the original Ironman Magazine. For a while now, I have wanted to write a piece on one of my favorite bodybuilders of all time: Chuck Sipes. I had relented in doing so until now only because there are so many good pieces that you can find on the internet just from doing a cursory search. But I finally figured, you know, what the hell, you can never have too much Chuck Sipes. Also, in addition to my own memories and thoughts on Sipes' totally bad-a training, I've tried to find some of the best information from various sites, and include a lot of that here. For those of you that don't know much about Sipes, he was one of a kind. I know that's a bit cliché, and I've used such terms before when it comes to other "classic bodybuilders", but there was nothing cliché about Sipes, so it's completely true in this instance. Don't believe me? Then read on. First off, he was natural. In fact, he was one of the l...

Three "Rapid Fire"* Routines for Mind-Blowing Arm Growth Garrett Sloan builds his muscular arms with various programs When I started bodybuilding—as I may have mentioned elsewhere on this blog—the first programs that I followed were ones in the "briefer-is-better for massive growth" vein of '80s and '90s training articles.  This sort of training was personified by the Mentzer brothers in the '70s and early '80s, and before that was brought to the world primarily through Arthur Jones (who was the person the Mentzer brothers, Mike and Ray, received their inspiration from in the first place).  And if, like me, you read a lot of Ironman magazine  in the '80s and '90s, then you know that the Mentzers and Jones were influential with other Ironman  writers such as Steve Holman, John Little, Stuart Robert, and Richard Winett.  (Not to mention Bradley Steiner, even though Steiner wasn't really interested in "HIT" training, but was ju...

 For many bodybuilders older than myself, John Grimek is often considered the greatest bodybuilder of all time.  I personally am unsure as to whether or not that is true - I tend to have Bill Pearl in the Numero Uno spot on that particular list.  But perhaps if I was a little bit older, and had been exposed more to Grimek in all of the bodybuilding magazines, I would feel different.  See, here's the thing: if you came of bodybuilding age in the late '80s, early '90s (which I did), then you read a lot about the legend of Grimek or you "heard" his name bantered about by a lot of the top pros, especially the pro and amateurs who themselves "came of age" in the '70s, but you never actually saw that much of Grimek in the magazines, other than occasional "blast from the past" pictures in Ironman Magazine .  But, whether or not he's in the #1 spot really doesn't matter that much to me because he is definitely in my top 5 - which one of ...

Build Massive Arm Size and Strength with this Singles-Oriented Dinosaur Program The great Bill Pearl demonstrates just the kind of mass that is built with classic, basic "Dinosaur-style" training.      It really doesn't seem that long ago.  The '90s, though seemingly in a distant past for many younger lifters these days, seems as if it was just yesterday for me.      In the late '80s, early '90s, I got serious about weight training, and I spent the first seven years of the decade, or so, performing bodybuilding workouts.      I was a bodybuilding addict .  I tried almost every form of bodybuilding training  under the sun, while also attempting a hell of a lot of different diets and supplements.  (Supplements, for the most part, didn't get "advanced" until the early '00s—when creatine came on the scene mid '90s, it was absolutely revelatory, and it relegated all other supplements to sub-par status.)  (Some o...

Arm Specialization Training for Massive Guns by Jared Smith Arnold showing off his "guns" in this early '70s pic It Begins with an Epiphany Many of the greatest things in the world were born out of necessity. In my case, I am not speaking of an invention, but rather a method of training that would allow me to bring up a lagging muscle group by forcing me to train it more often. I have always been of the mindset that the major lifts need to be trained often. Squats, bench presses, overhead presses, and deadlifts in all their various forms should be done as often as possible to stimulate growth throughout the entire body. One day I was squatting, as I had done a thousand times before, only this time my body decided it had done enough. A pain that felt like a rusty knife scraping across my kneecap hit me all at once. I rested and backed down the weight, thinking that perhaps it was just “wear and tear” and that a little light weight set or two may e...

Old-School Arm Training Secrets: John McWilliams’s Arm Routine      My most popular posts here at Integral Strength typically fall into two categories: old-school bodybuilding programs or serious strength and power routines.      With that in mind, I thought I would do a series of articles on various old-school lifters and bodybuilders (the two overlapped once-upon-a-time), and on various old-school methods for training different bodyparts or lifts.   Thus, this first entry is on old-school arm training, but others will be on old-school chest, shoulders, back, legs, squats, bench presses, overhead presses, power cleans, etc.   And for this first entry, I decided upon an old-school bodybuilder cum powerlifter that many of you may never have heard of: John McWilliams. McWilliams's back double-biceps pose.  He was impressive even in his 40s.      When I first came across an article about McWil...