C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

High-Frequency Training for Muscle and Strength with the Two-Barbell "Plus" Program Matthew Sloan demonstrates more lean muscle built with HFT      This is part of my on-going series on how to build muscle and strength fast  by using low-rep, multi-set, high-frequency training.  If you haven't read my other, recent posts on the subject, you may want to do so before continuing with this article.  If not, then this article certainly stands on its own two feet. The Two-Barbell "Plus" Program      This program begins with its starting point something that I have, in the past, called the "two-barbell rule".  (Others, such as Dan John, have certainly written about it as well.)  The two-barbell "rule" says this: at the start of any workout, begin with two barbell exercises before proceeding to anything else.  I recommend using it in conjunction with my "Big 5" rules.  In summary, even though I have discussed this ...

Simplify Your Training, Your Diet, and  Your Life to Receive Your Best Results Ever!       Okay, perhaps the title of this article is  slightly over the top.  After all, some of you probably have achieved some pretty good results in your days spent pulling, pushing, and battling the barbell.  But, for a great majority, it could be pretty close to the truth.  If you have spent weeks, months, or, possibly, even years toiling away at ineffective—and often too damn complicated—diets and training programs, it could be that you've never really seen the results you want, much less what you're actually capable of achieving.      After training and working with many bodybuilders, lifters, and average men and women (my favorite people to train were always just average women who wanted to get in shape—they always trained hard, never complained, always did what I asked of them) over the years, the largest culprit for lack of gains—hands d...

Mass Made Easy (or at Least Simple)      I have been lifting weights hard now for over 20 years—the “training bug” hit me big right out of high school, back in ’92.   (I had been lifting even before that, during my last few years of high school, but that training was just to help my martial arts; I more or less just played around with weights during those years.)   I devoured every single article that I could come across during my first few years of training.   There was no such thing as the Internet at the time—yeah, I know, that’s hard for some of you young ‘uns to believe—so this meant reading every single bodybuilding and fitness magazine that hit the newsstands.   And it also meant reading every damn article in each one of those rags.   (Luckily I also had an uncle who had a lot of old Iron Man and Strength and Health magazines from the ‘70s and before—I devoured the hell out of those magazines too, and later much of that stuff...

Thoughts on the Two-Barbell Rule      Over at T-Nation, Tony Gentilcore has an article where he mentions something he calls the “two-barbell rule.” [1]   The “rule” is pretty simple: At each training session, perform two barbell exercises before doing anything else.      Although I never thought about making this one of the “rules” of training, I like it.   In fact, a couple of things crossed my mind upon reading about it.   First, I wished I would have thought of it myself—it’s one of those things that’s so simple, it should be blatantly obvious to most lifters, but it’s not.   Second, I realize that I “do” this rule almost every time that I train myself or others.      The two-barbell rule—although simple, and although it should be obvious to most lifters—needs a little clarification.   What I would like to discuss here, then, is ways that you can make this “rule” work.   If applied p...