C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

Nothing is Worth Having in Life that Doesn’t Require Hard Work, but it Has to be Performed Correctly “By nature, men are nearly the same.   By practice, they become vastly different.” —Confucius      I have two teenage boys.   When they were younger—around 5 and 6, I think—I wanted them to become involved in martial arts.   The town where we lived didn’t seem to have much, nothing like the traditional karate-do that I practiced religiously, diligently for thirteen years, and have practiced less formally ever since.   They decided they wanted to take Tae Kwon Do—which, to be honest, I thought was a rather horrid idea; I never thought very highly of the Korean-inspired dojangs that I had encountered up to that point [1] .      But I relented.      And was quite horrified by what I encountered.   Here was a martial arts “school” where you could get a “black belt” in a year ...

            One of the more popular forms of “dieting” these days is “intermittent fasting.”  The term refers – rather loosely, I might add – to a wide range of different eating plans.  The premise, however, is rather simple:  You go for an extended period of time with little or no calories (the “fasting” period) and then you follow this up with a “feeding” period, which comprise either one meal, multiple meals, or possibly even an entire day of eating.      Opinions surrounding intermittent fasting are vast and, well, quite opinionated as to whether it’s good or bad.  The opinions run the gamut from “the best friggin’ diet on the planet” to “absolutely sucks, and has to be the worst diet ever; you’ll be starving all the time, and you’ll probably lose all of your muscle to boot!”      But I think the truth is somewhere in between.      Intermittent fasting ...

     For some reason, one of my most popular posts of the past year was my recent short rambling on literature, beer, and the joy of heavy squats .  Quite surprisingly to me, I received more emails asking about some of my favorite books, authors, and beers than I usually get from other posts asking how to bring up numbers in the major lifts or how to gain more muscle mass.  And since I enjoy writing about things that I love, I thought I would write what it is that you are now reading.      I’ll try not to ramble too much, but I’m not promising anything. On Beer      My favorite kinds of beers are stouts and porters.  I say “kinds” because, if I’m not erroneous here, I’m pretty sure they are much the same thing.  I wasn’t entirely sure, however, so I had to look it up, and here’s what Wikipedia [1] has to say about my favorite kinds of beers:     “Porter is a dark style of beer ...

     The legendary Russian powerlifting coach Boris Sheiko once remarked, “he who trains more—lifts more.”  For the most part, I agree with that statement, as many of the articles on this blog attest to, but you also have to put things into the proper context in order to understand them.  Sheiko’s statement is quite a loaded thing for many lifters when they first hear/read it.  This is especially true if you’ve spent the majority of your time—either on the Internet or in the pages of a magazine—reading articles written by Western (particularly American) writers/trainers.  And it’s even more true if you’ve gotten great results from heavy, infrequent training using a lot of the Western methods.      First, let’s look at an overview of training in general, then I’ll discuss a little about my own personal success with programs such as Sheiko and similar “Russian-style” programs for those of you interested in actually usin...

     I am sorry that it has been so long since I last posted something here.  It has been a few weeks.  I will try my best to do better with more frequent postings.  That being said, I hope you enjoy my latest (slightly philosophical) rant...      There are a few things in life that I love.  I love studying philosophy.  I love the feel of a new book in my hands—along the same lines, I love discovering a new author, for it is a deep joy; and I worry deeply about people who do not understand the joy to be found in such a discovery.      But there are still greater things that I love even more.  I love God [1] .  I love cold beer [2] (and worry even more deeply about those who do not understand how great a thing a beer can be).  I love holding my wife in my arms.      Last—but certainly not least—I love the feel of deep squats with a heavy barbell on my back....

     What follows is the original, "uncut" version of an article of mine that was published a few months ago in Planet Muscle magazine.  This is a form of training that I enjoy occasionally doing.  If you're the kind of lifter that actually enjoys more Crossfit-style training—as opposed to the more conventional training I typically recommend—this should be right up your alley. Strongman Muscle Using Strongman-style Training for Maximum Muscle Gains      Watch the “World’s Strongest Man” competition and you’ll see some of the most massively muscled men on the planet.  And they didn’t get that way by training like your average bodybuilder.  They got big, strong, and muscular by training on core lifts (squats, deadlifts, overhead presses, etc.) and utilizing a lot of odd lifts such as the farmer’s walk, log presses, sand-bag carries, and the tire flip—to name just a few.      Most of you reading thi...