C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

 In February of this year, I published a post entitled "Winter Bulk Building" where I outlined the program that my son Matthew started on Thanksgiving of last year in order to gain a lot of mass.  In a few months, he went from around 210 pounds to just over 250 pounds - I believe it was 251, to be precise.  That was the point when I wrote the bulk-building piece. Fast forward to Thanksgiving of this year, and I thought I would give an update on my son's training, and how he went from being "bulky" to being an outright natural  mass monster.  Now he is a little over 260 pounds, but he didn't just gain 10 pounds of muscle since my last post on his training, he also reduced his bodyfat, and there is a noticeable difference in his "look" now as opposed to then.  Here are a couple of pics that I took of him yesterday while he was training arms in my garage gym: Matthew Sloan performs dumbbell triceps extensions with a pair of 80s for sets of 12 to 15 re

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 cornerstone of any good mass-building program, whether you’re splitting your body several ways or whe

Total Body Mass Training      It’s become an old adage in bodybuilding training: “everything works, and nothing works for very long.”   Yeah, well, that’s true but some programs do work better than others.   As a strength trainer (of both myself and others), I’m always trying to come up with new ways to keep the muscle gains—and the strength that my lifters and I crave—coming.   Enter Total Body Mass Training .   As far as packing on slabs of muscle goes, this one is as good as it gets.   (And it also ain’t half bad in the strength department, either.)      For a strength and/or muscle-building program to be successful, it needs two factors in order to consistently work.   These factors are variety and stability .   At first, it might seem that the two factors are diametrically opposed to one another.   They’re not.   Let me explain.      Variety is important because without it your muscle gains will shortly stop cold in their tracks.   The more advanced you are (in terms o