C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

     Saint Augustine once uttered the phrase “love, and do what you will.”  The blessed Augustine was basically saying that as long as you do everything out of love – love for others, love for God – then whatever else you do will be correct.      I happen to think the same thing about squatting.  As long as you are squatting – if not at every workout, then at least on a very regular basis – then you can do what you will with the rest of your workout.  In fact, I think squatting is the foundation of all successful training.  (Okay, I suppose you can get good results without squatting – especially if you’re doing plenty of Olympic lifting or deadlifting – but squatting is a sure fire way to get great results all the time.)  For instance, if you do the following five things, I can guarantee you will get great results [1] : 1.       Squat a lot 2.       Train with volume 3.       Train frequently 4.       Get plenty of rest when not training 5.       Eat a lot of food

High Frequency Training Frequent Workouts for Fast Results      High Frequency Training—we’ll just call it HFT from here on out—involves any form of training where you are working each muscle group a minimum of 3 times a week (that’s right, a minimum ).   HFT usually gets a bad rap when it is presented to the average bodybuilding public.   It has become a fad to train each muscle group infrequently and with a very high-intensity and/or high-volume.   But I’m here to tell you right now that there is a better way to train.   So if you’re tired of hearing that the best way to train a muscle is to “annihilate” it and then give it a week (or longer) to rest and grow stronger, you ought to love this article.      If you don’t believe this kind of training works, you probably would like to see some examples of well-developed athletes and/or bodybuilders who have used it.   First off, let’s examine athletes .   Some of the most muscular athletes in the world train very frequently.

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.

Life Lessons Learned from Lifting      In my life, I have learned much from people and from paths.   My life is not my own.   It belongs to God, and to those that have molded me.   My life is fleeting and temporal—as are all of our lives.   All men die, but many do not live as they were meant to.   I can only thank those that taught me well, that my life will not have been a complete waste.      From my father, I learned of decency, a mild temperament, kindness to others, and the value for a man to attain a scholarly mind.      From my mother: piety, morality, and the ways in which a woman should behave.      From my uncle Kirk: that austerity, toughness, and raw strength in a man can be balanced with tenderness and love—that a man can be a man and still cry as much as he needs.      From my friends Chad, Josh, and Puddin’: that it is okay—even necessary—to tell another man how much you love him.      From my children, Matthew and Garrett: how to love another as uncondi

The One-Exercise-Per-Muscle Group Manifesto      God only knows how many different training routines are out there in today’s bodybuilding world.   The magazine in your hands alone probably has at least a half dozen of them.   All this eclecticism can get a bit confusing for many bodybuilders and strength athletes.   Especially for those guys and gals of you that are just starting out.   So, what is the best way to train?      One reason that so many different programs exist is because all of them are effective (to a certain extent), and lifters and ‘builders all respond differently to different programs based on their body types.   I’m here to tell you, however, that one method of training seems to stand above all the others.   And this method is the one-exercise-per-bodypart philosophy.   Of course, many different workouts exist within one-exercise-per-muscle group training, so this article will attempt to outline just about every single one of them—a hefty thing to do,