C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

 For some reason, by FAR the most "hits" on any of my pages here at Integral Strength are for one of my oldest posts, one that I wrote in 2009 when I first started this blog entitled "Old Time Mass Tactics: One-Exercise-Per-Bodypart Training."  You can read it here if you're interested: https://cssloanstrength.blogspot.com/2009/05/old-time-mass-tactics-one-exercise-per.html Even though I wrote that piece when I was 35 - and I'm now 48 - I do think that it still "stands on it's own", and so I wouldn't change much, if anything, about it.  However, my views HAVE changed a little since that time, primarily when it comes to older lifters because, well, I'm  an older lifter now, and when you're in your upper 40s (or older) you probably  shouldn't train the way you did when you were in your early to mid 30s.  For instance, when I was in my early 30s, I was the strongest I had ever been in my entire life.  I could squat and deadlift (in...

  New Year, New You A.K.A.: Designing a Kick-Ass Program to Achieve Your Goals Simplifying Your Workout Program Now that it's the start of a new year (yes, I know, I'm a month late in getting this out😏), I thought it would - quite obviously - be a good time to put out a series of posts on some of the various keys to designing, and then maintaining, a workout program, whether your goals are building muscle mass, losing body fat, gaining prodigious amounts of raw strength, or some combination therein.  And perhaps the fact that I'm putting this out at the end of January may not be such a bad thing.  If you are already  having trouble sticking to your New Year's resolution(s), then just maybe I can be of some assistance.  For Part One in this series, I would like to offer some basic tips for getting "back to the basics" and simplifying your workouts.  Each post in the series will build upon the previous ones, so this seems as if it's a good way to start. Tip...

     For those of you who are regular readers of my blog, forgive my long delay in posts.  I have been going through some personal stuff the last couple of months—some of which I may write about at some point—and have found it difficult to write things for this blog.  Hopefully this post will be the first in many to come over the next month or two. High-Volume, Low-Frequency Training for the Ultimate in Mass-Building Part One Dennis Du Breuil’s “Ultimate Bulk and Power” Rules      Most of what I write on this blog deals with more of my recent training tactics—and the stuff I’ve written about the most recently revolves around my recent training strategies.   One problem I’ve always had as a writer on strength-training and muscle-building is that I’ve always—or almost always—been the kind of writer that has trouble writing about training other than what I was currently doing at the time.    ...

Three On/ One Off Redux A New Twist on an Old Classic      When I began lifting weights – sometime in the late ‘80s – there was really only one training split that most bodybuilders used: the three on, one off scheme.  For any of you unfamiliar with this split, it works like this: You split your body three ways, and then you train for three days straight before taking a day off.  After your day off, you begin the split over again.      Most bodybuilders of that era trained legs on one day, and then split their upper body into two sessions; some lifters trained antagonistic bodyparts together on one day – chest and back, or biceps and triceps – while others would train all of their push muscles on one day – chest, shoulders, and triceps – and their pull muscles on the other day – back and biceps.      But the three on, one off split eventually fell the way of the dinosaurs.  In the early ‘90s Dorian Yates entered the s...