C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

To truly be a lifter, lifting must get into your bones, it must live in the marrow of your being, and it must enter into the depths of your soul . I think it's safe to say that Doyle Kennedy was a real  lifter. Lifting is an art—and it's this way with any artist.  One can paint without being an artist, but that doesn't make the man a painter.  One can write without being an artist, but that doesn't make the man a writer.  One can practice religion without being an artist, but that doesn't make one a religious .  And so it is with lifting.  One can always lift without being an artist—many do that very thing—but those who do so will never truly be lifters. At one time, I practiced bodybuilding.  I enjoyed it to no ends—I still do when it's good.  I enjoyed the love, perhaps even the art, of "chasing the pump."  At the time, I would have even called myself a bodybuilder.  But then, it happened.  I discovered lifting, real  lifting, and I realized

      Matthew Sloan does real bodybuilding workouts at 16 years old, and it shows!      The other day I received an email from a reader who stumbled across my article on "Increasing Work Capacity."  Apparently, this particular gentleman had come across it while perusing some forum-or-another—in one of the many "hardcore bodybuilding forums"—that was discussing the article.  Basically, to sum it up, he took me to task for "daring" to suggest that drug-free bodybuilders could possibly perform such hard work as I suggested for the advanced lifters in my post.      I, politely as I could, explained my reasonings.  I explained how drug-free bodybuilders could certainly work up to the amount of work I suggested and, not only survive it, but actually thrive  on it.  When I was finished with my reply, I hit the "send" button, and then began to lament inwardly, thinking to myself, "Where have all the real bodybuilders gone?"      I t

Life Lessons Learned from Lifting      In my life, I have learned much from people and from paths.   My life is not my own.   It belongs to God, and to those that have molded me.   My life is fleeting and temporal—as are all of our lives.   All men die, but many do not live as they were meant to.   I can only thank those that taught me well, that my life will not have been a complete waste.      From my father, I learned of decency, a mild temperament, kindness to others, and the value for a man to attain a scholarly mind.      From my mother: piety, morality, and the ways in which a woman should behave.      From my uncle Kirk: that austerity, toughness, and raw strength in a man can be balanced with tenderness and love—that a man can be a man and still cry as much as he needs.      From my friends Chad, Josh, and Puddin’: that it is okay—even necessary—to tell another man how much you love him.      From my children, Matthew and Garrett: how to love another as uncondi

I hope that everyone who reads my blog—and even those of you who have just stumbled upon it—will take the time to view some of the videos below. They are some of my favorites. Although Jack Lalanne is gone, it's nice to know that we can still watch and listen to him as he tells it like it is.

Every so often I come across an article that I wholeheartedly agree with. The following article, from T-Nation , is one such piece. This one's written by a guy named Jackson Yee—who I've never heard of—but if this article is any indication of his training philosophy, then I'm sure I will enjoy other stuff that he writes. What he says about full-body workouts is especially true. Although it's been many years ago—as in back in the mid '90s for me—I went through something similar when I switched from one-bodypart-per-week training to full body sessions. Check it out: Morphing From Blobby Bodybuilder to Bad Ass by Jackson Yee For 20 years I was obsessed with getting big. I was a bag of bones when I graduated from high school and didn't even break 100 pounds. I was tired of looking like a skeleton, so I put all my effort into developing as much muscle mass as possible. I was fully dedicated to transferring my skinny five-foot-four frame into a meathead. With hard