C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

  Strength-Building and Mind-Power Secrets from the 20th Century’s Greatest Weightlifter/Bodybuilder      I love old-school bodybuilders.  If you’ve scoured this site, or have been a long-time reader, you’re probably aware of that.  My most popular articles at Integral Strength are almost all “classic bodybuilding” pieces.      Old-school bodybuilders—especially before the ‘70s—were a different breed.  Like bodybuilders today, they trained for aesthetics and to have a pleasing physique, but they also trained for strength and power, for flexibility, on various “odd” lifts, and for all-around athleticism.  They were, essentially, one part bodybuilder, one part weightlifter, and one part gymnast.  But a few stood out above all others.  One of those was, without a doubt, the great Tommy Kono.  Superlatives such as “great” are heaped upon a lot of old-time lifters, but with Kono it’s no hyperbole....

  The Arm Training Secrets of an Old-School Bodybuilding Legend   Columbu in his heyday      “The average person who wants to see how well built or strong you are will inevitably say, ‘Make a muscle.’   Such folks aren’t interested in your lat spread, huge pecs, or rippling abdominals.   They want to see you roll up your sleeve and display a bulging biceps.   It’s the main attribute that sets you apart from the average man or athlete and identifies you as a muscle man!” ~Franco Columbu [1]        As I was searching for an article of mine in an old Iron Man magazine, rummaging through my many issues, I happen to come across the article “Franco Columbu’s Mighty, Massive Arms” by Gene Mozee.   It was in his regular feature “Mass from the Past” from the ‘90s that always outlined the training regimens of many of the “old-school” bodybuilders from the ‘70s or before.   Truth is, they were invariably just...

  Simple, Easy-to-Implement Strategies for More Size and Strength        If the titles of workout articles are any indication, America doesn’t know how to train.   I can’t speak for other countries, since I haven’t lived anywhere else.   In the past, I have spent some time in Asia for work, and if my visits there were any indication, then I don’t think the rest of the world trains much better.   So I guess there’s that.      Now, if you know anything at all about proper training, and if you walked into any gym anywhere in America, you’d probably come to the same conclusion—that Americans simply don’t know how to train—so why am I singling out the titles of English-language workout articles?   The reason is simple.   Almost every single article I have seen lately—to a friggin’ tee—has almost the exact same title, and it goes something like this: “I did (fill-in-the-blank) for (fill-in-the-number of days...