C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

Journal of Strength Monday, November 17, 2014      Today I did something that—to some lifters, at least—might seem rather odd.   I performed a full-body workout of whatever I felt like doing, for relatively moderate to high reps.   I had no idea what I was going to do, with the lone exception of the first exercise, until I actually started training.      This might seem even more odd for those of you who read this blog regularly, which includes me often praising—rather highly, I might add—the benefits of high-frequency training for multiple sets of low reps.      And here’s the thing: I actually think the kind of workout I did today can be highly effective, for a certain segment of the lifting population, at least.      First, a little backtracking is in order.      Last week I mentioned that I have been training using a regular program of high-set singles for the past few weeks.   I also mentioned in a previous post that I have been having some pain and numbnes

     This is a little belated—should have done it a couple of weeks ago—but my latest article is out in Planet Muscle magazine (October, 2013).  It is on "strongman-style" training, replete with a few weeks of workouts to get you started if you want to begin such a thing.      Here I am—in my study, semi-naked as usual when writing or engaging in creative endeavors—holding up the cover:      And here is what the article looks like inside the magazine:      To whet your appetite just a little bit more, here's a brief excerpt:      Most of you reading this will probably never compete in a strongman competition, but the kind of lifting they utilize can be a great way of training for any bodybuilder looking to pack on some muscle mass.      The program presented here allows you to train as if you were preparing for—or even competing in—a strongman competition.  First, I am going to lay out the parameters of the program.  Second, I will discuss the benefits of

A couple years ago, I had a few "around the web" posts where I re-posted or linked to articles that I thought readers of my stuff would find interesting. From now on, I'm going to routinely do this again (I'm thinking that about once every 2 weeks would be good to shoot for), as long as I can find enough articles that I think browsers of this article would enjoy. I've come across several good articles, so here they are in no uncertain order: The first one is from Dan John, entitled Even Easier Strength .  And you thought his 40-Day Program was simple?  This breaks it down for those of you who may have a hard time doing stuff like simple comprehension. Over at T-Nation, despite the fact that they now publish a whole bunch of crap, there are still the occasional good articles, such as this one from Mark Rippetoe.  It's always nice when Rippetoe "goes off."  Oh, and just to make you realize how much you want to read this piece, here's a go

High Frequency Training for Strength and Power Part One: The Basics      This is the first of what will be a multi-part series on “high frequency training” geared specifically for building strength and power.   High frequency training – training not just multiple times per week, but training each muscle group multiple times per week – has become more popular in recent years.   I’ve been touting its benefits for almost a decade, but so have other strength trainers/writers such as Pavel Tsatsouline and Dan John.      High frequency training (henceforth just “HFT”), however, is nothing recent nor is it particularly innovative.   If you read my last couple articles on the training of Anthony Ditillo you should know that.   Before Ditillo there was “Big” Jim Williams.   (My first post on this blog a few years ago was related to Jim Williams training.   If you haven’t done so, please read it.)   And before either Ditillo or Williams, there were the original “old-timers” – men su

Here's a video taken tonight of me doing a 405 pound bottom-position squat.  The BP squat is one of the best exercises you can ever do for building massive strength.  The problem is that most lifters do them incorrectly.  Because they lack either proper form or flexibility (or both), they end up doing partial squats. This is how the exercise should be done.  Notice foot placement and bar placement.  It's tough to get low on a BP squat if the bar is too high and/or the stance is too narrow.

First, I want to apologize for my long delay between blog posts. I have been more than a little busy as of late. Between work (I do have a regular “9 to 5” job), moving into a new house (and all that entails), and writing quite a bit of articles, my blog just took a back seat. (Speaking of writing articles, I now have an article in almost every issue of Planet Muscle, so that’s where you can find all of my latest stuff. And I now only write occasionally for Iron Man.) With that out of the way, let’s get on with this blog post: As regular readers of my material know, I believe that fairly high-volume, frequent training is the best (the quickest, the most result-producing) route to bigger, stronger, more (dare I say?) functional muscles. (It must be noted that this wasn’t always my opinion. If you read a lot of my early stuff in Iron Man – mid ‘90s to very early ‘00s – you’ll find that my training programs tended to be based around infrequent training. But all of that changed when I actu

One of my all-time heroes, Jack Lalanne, died yesterday. I'm not sure if—as popular as he was—Lalanne ever got his just due. Modern "fitness" experts (and I use that term rather loosely considering a lot of the current crop of "experts") couldn't hold a candle to old Jack. If you don't believe me, then ponder this: What current "expert" could do a 1,000 push-ups and a 1,000 pull-ups in just over one hour? The answer: not one. But Lalanne could. He's due more respect among bodybuilders, as well. (And if you don't believe that, just look at the picture above.) His physique in the '40s was as good as anyone (though, admittedly, not as large as others.) In honor of him, I thought I would post the article below. It's from 1949, but it's words ring as true now as they did back then. (Maybe even more true, considering the fact that so few lifters want to work hard these days.) Strength and Endurance by Jack Lalanne The ques

Now that 2010 is come and gone—and now that a whole slew of people (some of you reading this) are in the midst of attempting to succeed at their New Year's resolution—I thought I would post my pick for the "Best Article of 2010." If you know me—or at least my writings—then you won't be surprised by my pick. I've selected Bill Starr's article that appeared in the March '10 issue of Iron Man magazine entitled "Make it Harder: There are No Shortcuts on the Road to Building Strength." And if you are truly interested in succeeding at your resolutions, then this article is a must read. Enjoy. (And maybe in the near future, I'll post my "honorable mentions" for 2010.) Make it Harder There are No Shortcuts on the Road to Building Strength Bill Starr The current trend in strength training and the fitness world is to come up with some new piece of equipment or a training system that isn’t demanding but that

To fail or not to fail... that is the question. We're talking training to failure, of course. On one side of the spectrum, you have strength coaches such as Chad Waterbury and Charles Staley (and I suppose myself in recent years) who seem to never recommend training to failure. On the other side of the spectrum, you have the great strength coach Charles Poliquin, and bodybuilding writers/trainers such as Steve Holman, Eric Broser (and whoever the hell invented that Doggcrapp—yes, that's the actual name of the training system for those of you who don't know— crap) who seem to always recommend training to failure. The million dollar question: Who's right? I think the answer is both—as long as certain criteria are adhered to for the most part. I haven't always felt that way. If you read my early writing for Iron Man magazine and MuscleMag International —I used to write quite a bit for those magazines 10 to 15 years ago—then you would have assumed I was a training

Here's an article that I wrote for Iron Man back in 2003. It's probably been my most "controversial" article (or, at least, it was when I wrote it, which was probably a year or two before it was actually published). If I was to write this again, there are some things I would change—my training theories have evolved slightly in the seven years since. Nonetheless, it's still a pretty good article (if I do say so myself). Myths of Might If you’ve been bodybuilding for a long time, listening to your buddies at the gym and reading the garbage that appears in bodybuilding magazines, and you have not given any serious thought to powerlifting or strength-event training, the warning at right is for you. The fact is, almost all of the trainees at your local health club know virtually zero when it comes to getting truly strong. That doesn’t have to be you. Read about the following myths, trust in the truth of what is said, and if you’re still not a believer,