C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

The Best Two-Way Training Splits for Inducing Hypertrophy and Unleashing Impressive Gains in Strength      I’m fond of full-body workouts.   In fact, if you’re new to training, and you stumbled upon this essay as you scoured the internet looking for the best split program to make you massive—not to mention massively strong—then understand that you’re better off utilizing full-body workouts.   At least at the start.   Eventually, you will want to move on to a split program of some sort, however.   Now, please don’t get me wrong (I mean, really, don’t), you could spend your entire training life doing nothing other than full-body workouts —whether they’re high-frequency “easy strength” programs, or heavy/light/medium programs, or just “basic” 3 day a week programs where all of the training is “ moderate ”—and never need anything else.   But eventually you’ll want to use some split programs, even if it’s just occasionally, and even if it’s don...

5 Keys to Mass… Fast  5 Principles for Building Massive Muscles in the Shortest Possible Time       If you’re reading this article, the chances are that you want exactly what the title implies: massive muscles.  And I bet there’s an equally good chance that you have been going at it all wrong.  It’s time to fix that!  What follows are 5 tips – along with training programs and other sagely muscle-building advice – for acquiring the most massively muscled body that your genetics are capable of building. Key #1: Squat, squat, and squat some more Jon Cole squatting heavy and deep      Whenever someone wants to know what they can do to build more muscle, I ask one question first.  Are you squatting?  If the answer is “no,” then I know that the lifter isn’t serious about building muscle or is misinformed about what entails good training.      Hard, heavy squats should be the corners...

The Mass-Building, Split Training Ultimate! Creating the Ultimate “Split” Workout Program Within the last few weeks I’ve been receiving e-mails that go something like this: “Okay, Sloan, I get it! Full-body workouts are perfectly capable of building muscle mass—hell, they might even be the best muscle building workouts!—but the problem is this: I don’t enjoy full-body workouts . So... if you were to design a split workout program for someone, what would it look like?” Before we go any further, let me say this: I am not “opposed” to split training programs. I just think for the average lifter/bodybuilder who has limited time to lift weights—and also doesn’t mind a little something called effort —full-body workouts are the best way to go. However, I also understand that there are a lot of serious lifters who love following split workout programs. And—since you’re not going to stick with a workout program that you don’t enjoy doing (not for long, at...