C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

 When I first began working on this series, I was going to title it "Back-to-Basics".  However, I've had a change of heart.  From henceforth (man, that sounds official), this series will be titled "Fundamentals" in an homage to the great Bradley Steiner, who penned a column of the same name for Ironman Magazine  for a few decades beginning in the '70s. Bradley Steiner is seen here on the cover of one of his training booklets Steiner preached no-nonsense, sane, sensible training - almost ALWAYS full-body, 3-days-per-week workouts.  The man had a profound effect upon me through all of his many articles, not just as a lifter but as a writer and trainer. Everything in the rest of this series will follow his sane, sensible, no-nonsense theory of training. In the first post, I discussed workout frequency.  If you haven't done so, read that one first.  This one will build upon that one. Okay, now, before we get into the specifics  of the sets and reps ...

  I thought, for the sake of a few e-mails that I have received recently, that I would do a "back-to-the-basics" series of posts covering most of what you need to know if you're just getting started in a serious weight training program.  Now, this could also be for you if you have been training for a considerable amount of time (6 months or longer),and haven't made any real gains. Let us begin with workout frequency. If you're just beginning - or if you don't have much muscle or strength as of now - then almost always begin your muscle-building career with a 3-days-per-week, full-body program.  In fact, you could spend your training lifetime using a 3-days-per-week program and do just fine. Clancy Ross spent his career using a 3-days-per-week, full-body program!* Most lifters enjoy using a Monday, Wednesday, Friday routine, just so they can take weekends off, but any three non-consecutive days are fine.  The one complaint I sometimes hear about that is that a ...