C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

Massively High-Rep Training for Massively Built Muscles (AKA: An Homage to the Late Dr. Ken Leistner)     Around five or six years ago, I was training with a good friend of mine.  Even though he and I are good friends, we rarely trained together (and still don’t) due to the simple fact that he never liked to train legs or back muscles very hard, and, unfortunately, preferred a lot more training on the “showy” bodyparts of the chest and biceps.  And, while I’m not against a nice “pump” workout for the pecs and the arms, I’m primarily going to train my legs and my back hard, even if it’s at the expense of other muscle groups.     And even though my friend could out-bench press me by a couple hundred pounds, I could easily (at least at one time) out-squat or out-deadlift my friend by 300 pounds on each lift!     That’s just sad in my book.     Now, even though my friend knew that I liked to train my back and my legs with plenty of intensity (“intensity” in this case refe

The Benefits of High-Frequency Training for Size and Strength Gains!       If you haven't done so, please read my previous post on High-Frequency Training (HFT) before reading the following.  It will be of more benefit—no pun intended—if you do so.      Now, on to building more muscle, strength and power... George Hackenshmidt—the "Russian Lion"—built a massive physique, with the massive strength to boot, using High-Frequency Training tactics in the early 1900's.      Different training strategies provide different benefits.  For instance—as an example of a training paradigm completely counter to HFT—if you were to follow a 2-days-per-week program of full-body workouts, focusing on the 3 powerlifting exercises, then you would reap the benefits of having more free time than usual during the week, and of being able to get good strength gains out of minimalistic training.      High-Frequency Training has more benefits, in my book, than most other trainin

     What follows is the original, "uncut" version of an article of mine that was published a few months ago in Planet Muscle magazine.  This is a form of training that I enjoy occasionally doing.  If you're the kind of lifter that actually enjoys more Crossfit-style training—as opposed to the more conventional training I typically recommend—this should be right up your alley. Strongman Muscle Using Strongman-style Training for Maximum Muscle Gains      Watch the “World’s Strongest Man” competition and you’ll see some of the most massively muscled men on the planet.  And they didn’t get that way by training like your average bodybuilder.  They got big, strong, and muscular by training on core lifts (squats, deadlifts, overhead presses, etc.) and utilizing a lot of odd lifts such as the farmer’s walk, log presses, sand-bag carries, and the tire flip—to name just a few.      Most of you reading this will probably never compete in a strongman competition, bu