C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

       I first tried using high-set, low-rep training sometime in the early to mid ‘90s.  At the time, I was bodybuilding and not powerlifting, and had just started writing for some of the major bodybuilding magazines, but I still had plenty to learn.  Don’t get me wrong.  I had done some low-rep training, especially for a few sets at the end of a workout, but I had never done low rep training exclusively using really high sets.  At one point, however, I read an arm training article by Greg Zulak, where he mentioned that it was beneficial to do 15 to 20 sets of 2 to 3 reps on occasion.  Now, to be honest, I can’t remember the exact article—I tried to find it in my attic full of old magazines while this essay was churning around in my mind, but to no avail.  Anyway, after reading it, my workout partner Dusty and I decided to see how that kind of workout felt.  We had been training at the time with a lot of sets, but also a...

  An Eder-Inspired High-Set, Low-Rep Program      After writing my last essay on the great Marvin Eder, I thought more and more about his Olympic lifting program (which is featured in that essay).  Of all the programs that he did, and recommended to others, I think that program might be his most effective for lifters after a combination of raw power and muscle mass.  I also think for the average gym-goer, however, it would probably be a bit “too much.”  So with that in mind I created a sorta kinder, gentler version that will be more effective for the vast majority of readers.      I would encourage you to read my Eder article, but if you don’t, then just know this: Eder was fond of high-set, low-rep workouts, especially when training for Olympic lifting, but combined his lifting workouts with bodybuilding workouts to create—what we would probably now call—a “hybrid” system of training.  The program below uses thi...

  The Many and Varied Mass-Building Methods of Power Bodybuilding’s G.O.A.T. Eder as he appeared in my article "Full Body Workouts" for IronMan  magazine.      In many ways, the essay you are now reading is the one that has had the “longest time coming.”  I have no clue why it has taken me this long to write an article specifically on Marvin Eder, especially considering the fact that I have long considered him the greatest bodybuilder cum strength athlete of all friggin’ time .  In fact, over 20 years ago, I wrote this in the pages of IronMan magazine: In my opinion, the greatest all-around bodybuilder, powerlifter and strength athlete ever to walk the planet, Eder had 19-inch arms at a bodyweight of 198. He could bench 510, squat 550 for 10 reps and do a barbell press with 365. He was reported to have achieved the amazing feat of cranking out 1,000 dips in only 17 minutes. Imagine doing a dip a second for 17 minutes. As Gene Mozee once put ...