C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

Variations on the 10 Sets of 10 Reps Method for One-Exercise-Per-Bodypart Training      Since the ‘90s, I’ve preached the benefits of one-exercise-per-bodypart workouts in articles I wrote for Ironman magazine and MuscleMag International .  The very first method that I touted was the 10 sets of 10 reps workout.  Back in the last century, when I still trained as a bodybuilder before my “conversion” to powerlifter, I did most of my hypertrophy workouts using the standard multiple exercises per muscle group for multiple sets—typically 3 to 4 lifts per bodypart for 3 to 4 sets of (somewhere between) 6 and 12 repetitions.  I’d hazard that’s still the way most bodybuilders train in today’s gyms.  Back then, I was “chasing the pump” in most of my workouts.  I noticed something, though. I would often start a workout with a good pump on my first exercise but when I switched to a new one, I would lose my pump or it would diminish somewhat.  ...

A (Relatively) High-Volume 2-Exercise-Per-Muscle Group Program for Gaining Muscle      As I was typing away on my latest article for the blog, I needed a break.  I typically write in sort of creative “bursts.”  I’ll sit down at my “writing nook” with my laptop in hand and hammer away vociferously in periods of 30 minutes or so.  Once I feel as if I’m losing inspiration or the words just aren’t flowing as harmoniously as they could from my mind to my fingers, I’ll get up and do some household chores or walk around my wilderness property with my dogs for 10 to 15 minutes until the inspiration, once again, returns to me.  About once a day, I also take a break to check my emails, too.  And this morning, I received a question from a reader that I thought might not only interest other readers but would be a good idea for an article in its own right.  Hence, what you’re now reading on whatever-the-heck device you utilize to read my ramblin...

For those of you who are my age or older, you can probably remember well the first time you saw the amazing physique of Serge Nubret: It was in the pseudo-documentary we all now know and love as “Pumping Iron.”  With the director and writers of Pumping Iron attempting to make out the film as a “David vs Goliath” with the young (but massive) Lou Ferrigno taking on the older “Goliath” in the form of Arnold Schwarzenegger, they had no idea that their whole half-true enterprise would crumble a bit with the entry of Serge Nubret. You took one look at Nubret and you knew there was no doubt that Ferrigno was out of his league with both Schwarzenegger and the Frenchmen.  (Nubret was French.) Nubret - to this day - had one of the most classically beautiful physiques of all-time.  Arnold, of course, won the whole thing, but Nubret easily came in 2nd. By the time I watched Pumping Iron sometime in the mid to late ‘80s, there was very little information that I could fin...