C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

 I have a new book coming soon.  It's titled "The Strongest Shall Always Survive: Lifting Lessons from an Iron Legend."  If you haven't guessed already, based on the title, it's on the training of Bill Starr.  It includes all of the H-L-M essays that I originally wrote for the blog, though they have all been revamped with new material, along with some never-before-published chapters.  Here is the tentative cover: Whether you're a long-time fan of Starr or this is your 1st time hearing of him, I think you will find plenty of great workouts, training ideas, tips, and strategies for getting bigger, stronger, and more athletic.  Outside of owning Starr's original book "The Strongest Shall Survive: Strength Training for Football," it will be the best book available for understanding Starr's methods.  (Yes, I'm aware that I might be a bit biased.)  Look for it in the next week or two! Outside of my new book, look for a new essay on the blog in...

  Winter is the Time for Bulk Building      A couple of occurrences precipitated this essay.  First, my last article on the legendary powerlifter Hugh Cassidy.  His training is just the kind of program anyone seeking bulk should follow.  And not just his style of training, but most certainly his “method” of eating.  You know, if you can call scarfing down every calorie-laden, protein-packed, carb-loaded thing in sight a method.  Second, and most obvious, the cold.  Much of our country, as I type these words on my laptop, snug against the warmth of my fireplace, is in the grip of a bone-chilling freeze.  Even in the Deep South of Alabama where I live, work, and train (outdoors), we have been told by the wintry weather prognosticators that it will only get slightly above freezing as the high for the week.      I have long believed that we should do “seasonal” training.  Too many lifters, train a...

An Old-School Powerbuilding Regimen from the Golden Age Powerlifter Hugh Cassidy      The other day, a reader suggested that I write an article on Hugh Cassidy, a legendary powerlifter from the ‘70s.  It reminded me of something I had forgotten.  A few years ago, I had made some notes on Cassidy, with the intent of turning those notes into an article.  After reading the comment, I scoured through several notebooks filled with various ideas—I probably have a dozen or so notebooks crammed full of my thoughts for articles—until I found the page of scribblings I had made on Cassidy.  After reading over what I had written in ‘23, I have no idea why I didn’t write an essay on Cassidy back then.  Perhaps it was too similar to other articles I had written at that time. Usually, when I let something fall to the wayside, that’s a possible reason.  Sometimes, I simply lose interest in an article.  Oh, well.  After reading over my not...

The Importance of Proper Breathing in Budo      I have been training in the Budo for more than 40 years.  In the last few years, I have been to a few dojos and I’m sad to say (or write in this case) that modern budokas don’t know how to breathe.  Most of them aren’t taught how to breathe in the first place, so they’re not even aware that there is a way that a budoka should breathe.  This is typically because the teachers in these dojos weren’t taught it themselves.  When they are taught breathing techniques, it’s only on a superficial level, such as to breathe in through their nose and out through their mouth when executing a technique in practice, whether it’s a block, punch, or kick.  But there is more to breathing in Budo than this, and that may not even be accurate, either.  There are different ways to breathe, depending on the technique and the art.      The one thing that I’ve noticed modern budoka a...