C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

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...

C.S.'s Note: The following is a training program that Jared Smith and I have had in the works for some time.  It's Jared's brainchild.  He came to me with an article that outlined the program.  I made a few tweaks here-and-there, added some notes on classic bodybuilders, and what you are reading here is the end result. In honor and promotion of our new program, the template here at Integral Strength has changed—as you may have noticed—to a more ghoulish and ghastly image. If you have any questions or comments regarding the program, please post them in the "comments" section instead of emailing me.  That way, Jared can reply as well. And just why are we calling this program "Cemetery Circuit Training"?  Read on, discover, and (hopefully) enjoy! Cemetery Circuit Training Pump-Inducing, Hellish Training for Muscle Building Heaven! C.S. Sloan and Jared Smith      Most of us who have attempted to build muscle for a signi...

C.S.'s note: The chest-training methods that Jared uses in this article are ones that he first laid out in his "Prime and Pump for Massive Muscle Growth" article a couple of posts back.  Do yourself a favor and read that one first, if you haven't yet done so, before proceeding to this new bodypart-centric piece.  If you read the article below without  having read the other one, you may be confused over some of the terminology Jared uses. Prime and Pump Training for a Silverback Set of Pecs and Animalistic Arms! by Jared Smith I’ve heard some say that a pump will limit one's ability to go heavy. This could not be further from the truth. Physics dictates that the more mass something has, the more power it will possess. I’m not saying to obliterate a muscle with insanely high reps before attempting to go heavy, but if you pump the muscles that support the lift, it will add “mass” via sarcoplasmic expansion which will lend itself to more strength. ...

a.k.a.: Antagonist Agony A Teeth-Grinding, Blood-Curdling Superset-Based Program! By Jared Smith Freddy Ortiz and Larry Scott - lovers of the superset!      We’ve all seen the images of bodybuilders from the golden age of training when there was far less—how should I put it?—“douche baggery” and far more camaraderie. The days when high-volume ruled the muscle-building world, and a 3 hour workout wasn't unusual. Much of what those guys did seemed deceptively simple. However, there is much you can learn from the bodybuilders of yesteryear. I absolutely love the antagonistic superset-based programs many old-school guys used. (Most people don't realize that optimal performance from one muscle is dependant upon how quickly its antagonistic muscle can elongate.)     Supersets are awesome in general; they decrease the amount of time it takes for a certain amount of work to be done, which increases the intensity level of the s...