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

  How Squats Can Change Your Life! “Happiness is different from pleasure.  Happiness has something to do with struggling, enduring, accomplishing.”   -Dr. George Sheehan I have been reading a lot lately.  Not that I haven’t always read a lot, mind you, so I guess it would be more appropriate to say that I have been reading a lot more lately.  Which you can strike up a little bit to the slightly increased free time I have on my hands.  You see, I have been doing some really hard martial arts training a few days a week, including a session or two of sparring every week, which always takes its toll on you (at my age and with my injuries), and I simply haven’t been able to lift weights as frequently, nor even as intensely, as usual.  Which means (long story short) that I have had more time to read on my hands. As I was perusing one of the local online “marketplaces”, I came across a book with a most interesting title: How Squats Can Change Your Life!   At first, I thought, well, that’s an

  If you've never read any McCallum, you're in for a treat.  I didn't read McCallum myself until after  I had already become a successful lifter - not to mention a successful writer.  But I wish I had  read McCallum when I first began weight training.  It would have saved me a lot  of confusion, not to mention prevent me from following a lot of the foolhardy training programs I did follow, if I would have just read - and then put into practice - the great McCallum's advice on getting big. But here's the thing: McCallum ("Mac" as he was known) didn't JUST know how to get one big and strong.  He also knew how to get someone lean and looking good .  And he was light years  ahead of his time.  For instance, here's the diet he recommended about 15 to 20 years before Atkins (this article was written in 1965): “The Definition Diet, like most good things, is simple. It’s tasty, nutritious, easy to figure, easy to follow and the ideal adjunct for the hardco

Reg Park - seen here in his 50s - built ALL of his muscle by keeping it simple! What follows might be slightly rambling (hey, it’s my blog so I can ramble however much I want).  So… I sat down at my computer this morning to crank out - or at least attempt to crank out - my second installment on “Sets and Reps”, a follow-up to my “Frequency” Fundamentals post from a few months ago, when I said to myself, “ya’ know, CS” (I always talk to myself in my mind in the third person for some damn reason) “I think you jumped the gun a little bit.  Maybe you need to just tell everyone to keep it simple, and stop trying to be so complex, before you get into the varying nuances of sets and reps .” Now, why did I tell myself this?  A couple of reasons. First, it started with a co-worker of mine who wanted to know about “sets and reps” himself.  He has been going to the gym for several months, and, of course, not making the best progress because he has been attempting to “go it alone” instead of liste

  The Summer Olympics - delayed as they might be due to the Coronavirus pandemic - are upon us.  And with their advent comes Olympic Weightlifting.  And  some seriously awesome lifting.  AND  some seriously awesome physiques (especially the Chinese - Wow!). Lu Xiaozun of China has a great physique, along with being a world-class lifter (photo courtesy of https://luxiaojunbarbell.com/) Of all the competitive lifting and training I've done, I have never competed in Olympic weightlifting, but I do believe Olympic lifting, or at least the "quick lifts", have a place in everyone's lifting regimen.  As much as I may not be a fan of Crossfit training (due to its emphasis on higher repetitions and it's lack of programming - at least at the local levels), I do appreciate that Crossfit has made the quick lifts popular even among the average gym rat. Now, the average gym rat might also  decide that there's no reason to do Olympic-style lifting because there are plenty of

 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 that I