C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

An “Everything Moderate” Approach to Heavy Singles, Full-Body Training, and Continued Progress      As the saying goes, there is more than one way to skin a cat.  I’m unsure where this idiom originated from—as an avowed animal lover I can’t imagine skinning any sentient being—but it does contain a certain truth.  If one method fails at something you are trying to achieve, you should find another.  Training is no different.      In my last article , I presented a Bill Starr-inspired method of implementing heavy singles into a full-body routine using Starr’s heavy/light/medium system.  When training with full-body workouts—singles or otherwise—you basically have two options that are the most effective for the majority of lifters.  You can cycle your training loads with the H-L-M method—or something similar, but load-cycling is the point—or you can follow an “everything moderate” approach, where, essentially, all ...

A 3 Days Per Week, “Moderate Strength” Program for Size and Power      Last week, I published a Q&A article based on a few questions that I had been asked in the preceding weeks.  One of the questions asked was if it was possible to do an “easy strength” program just 3 days per week.  I answered the question in the best way that I could—if you want to read my answer in full, then, well, read that article—but the more that I thought about it in the days since, the more I think that one of my answers might just be the way to set up a full-body program for 3 days per week of training.  I suggested that it might work for a 3 day program if you simply bumped up your total volume to around 15 reps per lift.  In this article, I want to outline in much more detail what this might look like and how you can use it to get the most out of a 3 day per week, full-body program.      In many ways, this shouldn’t really be thou...

                     While doing research for my last article, I was re-reading Bradley Steiner’s original “Rugged Size and Strength” essay (from 1972) and came across this bit of advice: “Do not attempt to set up a pre-planned schedule of either sets or reps.”  That may not seem like much—it’s the kind of “basic” advice that’s easily overlooked—but there is wisdom in it, minimal as it may seem at first glance.      Depending on the workout program and the lifting population it’s aiming for, that quote could be either good or bad.  It’s not good advice for a beginner’s program, any beginner’s program.  It’s not good advice for intermediate or advanced lifters, either, who are attempting a new workout program or a new “style” of lifting that they haven’t utilized before.  For instance, if you’ve been training for the past decade on a bodybuilding workout consi...