C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

Forgotten or Never-Used Workouts for Muscle Size and Strength Several of the workouts below are just the sort that Bronze Era lifters, such as George Hackenschmidt, used to great success.      I've written a few articles or essays similar to this one in the past.  Years ago—as in the '90s —I wrote an article for IronMan magazine called "X-Factors" which was about workouts that were never  used by mainstream bodybuilders, rarer even than sightings of Bigfoot or other pseudo-scientific, supposedly-existing cryptids.  And about ten years ago, I wrote an article here on the blog entitled "The Best Leg Workout You've Never Tried."  I doubt many people have still  ever tried it.  (Hint: it involved bottom-position squats, deficit sumo deadlifts, and sled drags—combined together, which is brutally hard, so, yep, it probably still is the best leg workout you've never done.)      Which brings us around to  this  essay.  C...

 On Solitude and the Company of Others "Associate with the noblest people you can find; read the best books; live with the mighty.  But learn to be happy alone." ~William James Napoleon Hill, the early 20th century motivational speaker and writer who inspired the title of this post. The other day, while having a conversation with my oldest son on the importance of having a good workout partner (or not), I started to think about the importance of who—and even what—we surround ourselves with.  Not counting just life in general, this may be more important than you realize when it comes to building muscle and strength. The title of this essay comes from the early motivational speaker and writer Napoleon Hill.  In one of Hill's lectures, he said this, "The very moment I come into contact with any person who has a bad influence on me, I immediately disassociate myself from that person.  I don't care who it is.  It might even be my mother-in-law or a close relativ...

  A.K.A - How to Really Eat and Train for Size, Strength, and  Fat Loss Classical bodybuilders such as Bill Pearl knew that one of the secrets was to train a lot AND eat a lot. For the sake of keeping it simple in this essay, we can say that there are four methods that people use with regard to training and eating: 1. They eat a lot and train a lot. 2. They eat a little and train a little. 3. They eat a little and train a lot. 4. They eat a lot and train a little. The other night, for instance, my girlfriend, her daughter, and I went out to eat at a local steakhouse, and, based on the waist size of almost every man in that place, and the hip size of every woman, most people—especially here in the Deep South—eat a lot and train absolutely none!  But we'll leave aside lazy people that don't care (apparently) how young that they kill over from a heart attack or that don't care if they acquire type-2 diabetes by the time they're 40 years old.  The above 4 categories make...

A.K.A: The Wildest and Craziest Muscle-Building, Fat-Burning Diet the World has Ever Seen! That's Right—EVER! Off and on, over the course of the past decade or so, I have thought repeatedly about writing what you are now staring at on your computer (or phone) screen.  But for some reason, I could just never bring myself to do it.  Maybe if I would have decided to write it as a sort of "museum piece," an essay from my favorite decade of bodybuilding (that I personally trained during) where I looked at Stewart's dietary principles from a more critical angle, well, perhaps then I would  have written this several years ago.  For the longest time, my "It Came from the '90s" essays were the most popular posts on this blog, only recently overtaken by all of my "Classic Bodybuilding" articles.  But the thing is this : I actually agree with most of what Stewart says here, and I agreed with it the first time I read this bit of (what others would call) in...

AKA: How "Big" Jim Williams Became the First Man to Bench Press 700 lbs Big Jim Williams bench pressing in competition.  I rarely think about, or plan at all, what I'm going to write on this blog until I actually sit down to write it. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't write everything  in this manner.  Currently, for instance, I'm working on a "Budo Zen" book on the real  intersection of martial arts and spirituality, and that book takes research.  But that aside, I really, truly have no idea what I'm going to write until I sit down and actually, you know, write it . So this morning I sat down to hammer away at my keyboard, and thought, "what the heck should I write about in the field of strength training that I haven't  written about, or, at least, haven't written about in a long time?"  About the only  planning I do is asking myself that sort of question once I decide whether I want to write about muscle-building, or serious  s...

  or How to REALLY Train, Eat, and Rest for Muscle Growth and Performance Bill Starr was a man who knew—and inspired—the information contained in much of this article. As of late, I have received more emails than I have in quite some time.  And most of them sorta, kinda—but not exactly, since I suppose it's almost human nature—surprised me.  Why?  Because most of them dealt with confusion in training.  Confusion about the proper diet, confusion about proper training (I'm 25 years old; should I follow your Ageless Bodybuilding program?), and even confusion over rest—a topic I just  covered in my essay on "Stillness, Rest, and Relaxation" for muscle growth.  Geez!  Initially, I didn't really respond to the questions other than tell the said questioners to, you know, actually search my blog for the topics they are interested in learning more about.  But this morning, I thought, what-the-hell, it's always a good time to discuss getting back-to-th...