C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

Plus a Bonus "WOD" to Boot

When I was younger, and first starting in bodybuilding—I'm afraid I often refer to, and think of, the '90s as the "good ol' days" here on the blog—I read quite a few articles on building muscular, large forearms. They were often accompanied by pictures of some of the '90s bodybuilding superstars with the best forearm development—Lee Priest comes to mind. These articles often featured workout routines for the forearm muscles that were similar to workout programs for other muscles. In other words, they were programs with multiple sets of multiple reps, featuring multiple exercises. Sure, the authors of these articles didn't recommend as much work for forearms as they did chest, back, legs, or arms, accepting the adage that the forearms got plenty of work from a lot of back and biceps training, but, on the whole, the programs were pretty much the same.
The kind of programs I am remembering are ones where you would do 2 to 4 sets of reverse curls, followed by 2 to 4 sets of barbell wrist curls, followed perhaps by 1 or 2 "burnout" sets of cable wrist curls—you know, just for the "pump."
In case you had any doubts in your mind (despite my love for '90s bodybuilding), no, I decidedly do not think these are good programs for building massive—not to mention strong and powerful—forearms.
I developed my forearms through one thing and one thing only—years and years of heavy deadlifts of various sorts, not to mention other heavy "pulling" movements. It worked, but it took a long time, so I think there is a better, quicker way to massive forearms, but not a way that looks anything like those '90s training articles. (One must keep in mind that my forearm development was simply a side-effect of my strength training. I wanted a strong grip, but I could have cared less what my forearms actually looked like.)

C.S. Sloan's current forearm development, despite minimal training due to health issues.

The quickest way to massive forearms in my book are core pulling and carrying lifts—deadlifts, chins, farmer's walks, etc.—using thick-handled bars. The forearms get a great workout, but it also carries over to the strength and development of your back, legs, and arms to boot. (By the way, purchase a pair of "Fat Gripz" so that you don't have to actually purchase numerous thick bars. They are an awesome piece of training equipment for such a low price.)
And now for your bonus "workout-of-the-day", so to speak, but please keep in mind that I think the idea of just doing a "WOD" as its currently used in some strength "training" communities is downright stupid. Unless you are a more "seasoned" (I don't want to use the word "old") lifter such as myself, then there is no way you can just randomly do whatever-the-hell it is you choose to do and ever expect to get great results. With that being said, here goes:
This is a workout I performed just 2 days ago. It is a good example of the sort of workout I have in mind for building massive forearms.

Conventional deadlifts (with a "regular" Olympic bar): 10 sets of 5 reps. For these, use a relatively "light" weight—let's say 70% of your max, roughly—and move as fast as possible between sets while still not turning it into cardio.
Thick-bar chins: 5 sets of 3-5 reps
Thick-bar one-arm dumbbell deadlifts (note: I love these): 4-5 sets of 6-8 reps. These will work you very hard. A weight you can typically get 20 reps with will probably be difficult at the 6-8 rep range. (For my workout, I actually alternated these with knuckle push-ups on concrete to improve the strength and power of my fists, but I'm not recommended that here.)
Thick-bar farmer's walk: 3 sets to distance (pick your poison) using the same weight as the one-arm dumbbell deadlifts.

I finished this workout with 10 minutes hitting the heavy bag, and another 20 minutes of steady martial arts work, followed by a few sets of sprints with minimal rest between sets (the doctor told me to get more conventional cardio, and this is as "conventional" as I ever plan to get). There is no need for you to do that if you try this workout. Word of caution strongly needed: If you haven't performed some thick-bar work before this, be very careful about just "jumping in", otherwise, your forearms will be very sore the following days after the workout.

Until next time, stay strong and lift something heavy!

To truly be a lifter, lifting must get into your bones, it must live in the marrow of your being, and it must enter into the depths of your soul.

I think it's safe to say that Doyle Kennedy was a real lifter.

Lifting is an art—and it's this way with any artist. One can paint without being an artist, but that doesn't make the man a painter. One can write without being an artist, but that doesn't make the man a writer. One can practice religion without being an artist, but that doesn't make one a religious. And so it is with lifting. One can always lift without being an artist—many do that very thing—but those who do so will never truly be lifters.

At one time, I practiced bodybuilding. I enjoyed it to no ends—I still do when it's good. I enjoyed the love, perhaps even the art, of "chasing the pump." At the time, I would have even called myself a bodybuilder. But then, it happened. I discovered lifting, real lifting, and I realized what I had been all along, and just never truly knew it. I was a lifter. I am a lifter.

Last month, I was writing about some of the health issues that have kept me away from lifting for far too long. After I wrote a couple of entries, it got even worse: I had to have my gallbladder removed a couple of days after the last entry here. Finally, two days ago, I was able to resume normal training. It didn't even take a single set—hell it didn't even take a single rep of a single set. I gripped the bar, felt the knurl upon callouses that are still there—diminished but there—and in that single instant the lifter in me returned. Not that it had every really truly gone anywhere. Possibly it had laid dormant, but never truly gone. For, when it lives in your soul, it can never be extinguished. You can avoid it, you can pretend it's not there, or that somehow it never truly existed in the first place, but the soul of a man never lies.

A few weeks ago, I was giving a presentation at a conference that in some ways consisted of the role of Eastern Orthodox spirituality within the larger Christian spiritual framework. After my talk, a participant asked me when I "converted" to the Orthodox faith. I don't know if she really understood my answer, but I told her that I didn't convert to the Orthodox Church. I walked into a Temple one Sunday morning for the Divine Liturgy—inhaled the thick incense, witnessed the gold and blue of the ever-present iconography, listened to the Russian chants from a language I had never heard, yet, somehow, had never not known—and knew that I was Orthodox. That moment only made me aware of what my soul had always yearned and hungered for—its home.

When I lace on my belt, when I chalk my hand for a big pull, when I squeeze my shoulders into the bench for a heavy set of max bench presses, it is the same thing. My soul knows its home. I have the soul of a lifter because I was never not one.

It has been far too long since I last posted something here at Integral Strength. For those of you who have enjoyed reading my blog over the years, please forgive my dereliction. Hopefully, starting with this post—and God willing—things in 2017 will be different.

I usually don't make this blog too much of a "personal" thing. At least, not to the degree that you see on many blogs. But, I thought, "what the hell", maybe I can make more "journal" entries at IS, ones that are reflective of not just my physical growth—as in strength and muscular development—but ones that also reflective my personal growth: mental, emotional, spiritual. Not just body, but mind and spirit (or even Spirit, if you will).

Don't worry, I have not stopped training, or even writing, since my last post, though both have been more haphazard than I would like them to be.

Writing first: I have been fairly hard at work on a memoir-esque book dealing with my life as an Orthodox Christian over the past 5 to 6 years, and, more specifically, my spiritual life as it has been influenced by Orthodox saints. The tentative subtitle of the book would be something along the lines of "Living with the Orthodox Saints," or "My Life with the Orthodox Saints". The Saints of Orthodoxy are a bit different than what you tend to find in the saints of the West. They are ones defined more by a spiritual "interiority"—a life lived in the "cave of the heart", one of humility, asceticism (some of the asceticism is of an heroic extreme), and spiritual warfare. This kind of ascetic spirituality produces a different kind of "person" than what you often find in western religion.

For me, personally, my Eastern Orthodox spirituality has allowed me to get through some of my struggles of 2016, struggles that have largely been physical, but have also allowed emotional pains to enter in because of the physical pains. My writing has become a sort of spiritual therapy too, as I learn myself—not just teach—about the Orthodox saints. And, trust me, the saints of the Eastern Church have a lot to teach modern western man, who has become more and more susceptible to psychological, emotion, mental, and spiritual ills than at any time in the west's past.

Training: Because of my physical health, my training has been more limited than it has been in any year before 2016. Further down in this post, I will give you my current training "split", along with my plans moving forward. (As a note, this will also include quite a few posts in 2017 dealing with "Training After 40—And Beyond!" sort of entries.)

I have trained significantly less in 2016 than in any other year that I can remember. Yes, I did have the year—about a decade ago—when I had surgery for several herniated disks. Although that year prevented me from training for almost six months straight, I trained consistently for the six months afterwards, and I was able to get back to hard, frequent, regular training—even if the training wasn't always as heavy as before—for many years after.

Year in Review

The BAD Stuff First

2016 started in one of the worst ways I could have ever imagined. My beloved priest—Father Demetrius Edwards of Saint Gregory's Orthodox Church in Tuscaloosa, Al—passed away (or "fell asleep in the Lord" as we say in Orthodoxy) at the very beginning of the year. I loved him like a father. In fact, he was a father to me. He was my spiritual father, and had become equally as dear to me as my earthly father.

Father Demetrius marrying me and my wife Tara

Starting in 2015, and even some in 2014, I had quite a few physical pains. Severe joint and back pain, primarily, but also lethargy that increased as the months of 2016 progressed. Father Demetrius was always there for me during these times, guiding me spiritually as my health declined. With his death, I felt lost and bereft of the guidance I had trusted since becoming Orthodox in 2011.

For the first quarter of 2016, my health continued to get worse. Extreme lethargy, combined with some extreme back, stomach, and chest pain. Toward the summer, I got a little better once I had surgery to remove my gallbladder. Apparently, it was so inflamed that it should have been removed at a considerable time prior to the surgery. It was infected, which also caused me issues before and after the surgery.

I was hoping that the surgery would make things better. And, yes, it did, in that it eliminated much of my pain. But I knew that things were not "right", so to speak, with my health. As the year went on, I developed more and more lethargy. Some days, I could hardly get out of bed. When I did, I would be exhausted with the simple act of showering, brushing my teeth, or putting on my clothes. It affected my work—I have never been one to miss days of work in my "regular" job as an Industrial Engineer. I have always valued a good, strong work ethic. But there were days that I could hardly function, and would have to miss a day or two of work at a time, or I would often have to go into work late once my lethargy subsided. On weeks where I did work my regular 8, 10, or 12 hour shifts, I was so exhausted when I returned home that it made training or writing damn-near impossible.

I am not going to lament my pain at length in these pages—I won't no sympathy, only prayers for those of you who believe (or know) that there is a Power That Knows the Way. I will only say this: as it turns out, I have a severe neurological disorder that attacks my central nervous system, and this affects both my brain and my muscles, to greater or lesser degrees on certain days. Some days, I feel perfectly fine, as if I could train for hours at a time, whether in martial arts, or when lifting weights. Other days, simply moving my body is more laborious than a two-hour-long training session.

Now the GOOD Stuff

There is always a "silver lining", as they say. My health has allowed me to enter into a deeper prayer life. One that is marked by a deep, abiding sense of serene joy and peace. My pain has been a gift, as simple as that.

My health has also allowed me to focus on training others during this time, particularly my sons and some of their training partners. As I have always said on this blog, you won't learn much about training if you have only ever trained yourself. This is the reason some of the largest, strongest, most muscular guys in the gym suck at training others. What works for themselves, won't necessarily work for others. Especially those not as genetically gifted.

My son Garrett doing a set of dumbbell curls

My son Matthew demonstrates his arm development after a biceps session

It's safe to say that my son Matthew is one of the biggest, most well-developed 17-year old bodybuilders you will ever see. My son, Garrett, is not far behind him. Garrett is not near as big, but he is "ripped" and "shredded". He is also on his high school's track team, which is one of the most elite in the state, and runs one hell of a 100-meter dash.

Garrett's impressive back development can be seen during a set of barbell curls

Looking Forward

In posts to come, I will have several entries dealing with both of my sons' training styles. Matthew is pure, old-school bodybuilder—get as massive as humanly possible, while also having the strength to boot. Garrett is all about building the most strength and power as can be built, while maintaining a lean, good-looking physique.

Matthew will get back to writing some posts, on occasion, while I will write others dealing with his training.

Jared Smith—long-term contributor here—has had some life transitions which have limited his training, and his writing, but he has recently told me that he has some stuff in the works, and he would send me plenty of new material soon. In addition—and this might be one of the most exciting things here at IS—Jared and I have co-written an article outlining a new, unique form of training we have developed that is specifically for building muscle. It will be first in an on-going series between the two of us. I think it will be both instructional, and entertaining.

My writing for 2017 will focus on four areas: old-school bodybuilding and power training (per the usual), training for the over-40 crowd, journal entries that outline my life as it pertains to diet, exercise, and spiritual practices, and, lastly, some posts that are pure integral philosophy.

2017 is going to be one for both erudite learning and bad-ass training here at Integral Strength!

C.S.'s Note: The following is a training program that Jared Smith and I have had in the works for some time. It's Jared's brainchild. He came to me with an article that outlined the program. I made a few tweaks here-and-there, added some notes on classic bodybuilders, and what you are reading here is the end result.

In honor and promotion of our new program, the template here at Integral Strength has changed—as you may have noticed—to a more ghoulish and ghastly image.

If you have any questions or comments regarding the program, please post them in the "comments" section instead of emailing me. That way, Jared can reply as well.

And just why are we calling this program "Cemetery Circuit Training"? Read on, discover, and (hopefully) enjoy!

Cemetery Circuit Training

Pump-Inducing, Hellish Training for Muscle Building Heaven!

C.S. Sloan and Jared Smith

Most of us who have attempted to build muscle for a significant length of time can attest to the fact that muscles often respond to a variety of methods. There will come a time when simply adding weight to the bar will not work. There are also times when increasing volume is an awesome, kick-ass way to get your muscles to start growing again. And, there will inevitably come a time when you realize that one cannot spend every-waking-moment in the gym. The point is that nothing will make you grow forever, no matter how efficient or scientifically sound you think the workout regimen might be. With that in mind, the following is an 8-week program designed to shock you into new growth if you have stalled or have simply become bored with what you’re currently doing.

First, however, we’ll have to walk you through the various methods behind the madness!

King TUT

Before you get the bright idea that we’re going to rant about ancient Egyptian rulers, allow us to explain. (First, and foremost, we just thought that “King Tut” sounded awesomely cool!) To understand how this program works, you must first understand the mechanisms we will be “tapping into” that make this program effective. The first of these is muscular damage. You will be using a 6-count negative and positive in some sets of this program. This portion— especially the negative phase—is where the vast majority of muscular damage is caused. The increased time under tension will cause the muscle damage essential for making gains. The small micro tears in the muscle will have to be repaired so that the muscle can grow back thicker and stronger. This portion of the workout will also burn and it will like the fires of hell. This painful feeling needs to be embraced if you intend to push past any plateau you have reached and/or you just want to induce maximum hypertrophy. Because, when it comes to hypertrophy, time under tension is king!

The Nile Runs Red

Blood volume is also a huge contributor to growth. Nutrients and oxygen are carried to the muscles via blood. The more blood one can force into the muscle, the more volumized the cells will become, which in turn will cause hypertrophy. As a matter of fact, cell swelling is more correlated with growth than muscular damage. Here, we have in mind old-time bodybuilders such as Sergio Oliva, Reg Park, John Grimek, or Serge Nubret (the list could go on-and-on). They understood the importance of pumping—or flushing a muscle, as it was often called back then. They knew that a muscle that pumped up easily was more likely to grow than one that didn’t. It was nothing for bodybuilders of the ‘50s and ‘60s to do 30 sets of bench presses or barbell curls—whatever it took to get their muscles swollen like balloons. In our Cemetery Circuit Training, we want to induce just such a mind-blowing pump, only we’re going to achieve it with far less sets. (In fact, this workout program might even make the likes of Mike Mentzer proud—we envision him smiling down at us from his Ayn Rand/H.I.T. training heaven! [C.S.’s note: I always like to imagine that God has reserved a special place in hell for Ayn Rand and followers of her “objectionist” ilk, and perhaps Mentzer, tormented by real philosophers such as Plato, Plotinus, Aristotle, and Epictetus there in that little corner of Hades, can find some measure of amusement and relief by this article. But one can only dream.])

While doing this type of training, it is important to stay hydrated and keep nutrients flowing to the muscles during your workouts. When you are utilizing a blood-volume style of training, your intra-workout nutrition is extremely important. When at rest, there is very little blood in skeletal muscle, but the amount is increased tremendously during training. So if your blood is saturated with nutrients, you will shuttle them directly to where they need to go. While training, consume some simple carbs, as they will get into your system quickly, and—if possible—utilize creatine and BCAAs. This combo will make certain that you will expand your cells and saturate them—priming them for the pump.

There are other theories associated with blood volume training such as hyperplasia or cell splitting—the forming of multiple muscle cells from a single cell. Another thought on blood volume work is that it will fill the muscle with blood to the extent that the fascia—the connective tissue that keeps the muscle fibers in bundles—will be stretched, allowing for expansion and growth of the muscle.

You may wonder why we are pointing out theory rather than fact. The reason is that if you look at the evidence, you begin to realize that it is a real possibility. German Volume Training—Charles Polliquin’s ten-set-per-bodypart program that he first popularized 20 years ago in the old Muscle Media 2000 magazine—is an example—brief rest, lots of volume, and plenty of time under tension. Training programs such as Hany Rambod’s FST-7 is another example of the validity of such programs. Could it simply be the added volume? Sure. However, one cannot look past the fact that there are plenty of people who do the same amount of work but do not achieve the same fullness and density to the muscles than those bodybuilders who focus on engorging the muscle with blood.

The Training Dark Ages

The next eight weeks will be miserable, yet you will feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment upon completion of the workouts. Keep a workout log to track progress. Odds are, the first couple of sessions will leave you gassed if you haven’t been using such a system, and you may not be able to finish the last required reps. When you are able to complete all reps for all sets, then increase the weight. Although strength is not the cornerstone of this program, nor is it the goal, knowing that you have surpassed your previous performance will let you know that you are on the right track to growth! This is notthe dark ages, so write it down and keep up with the progress you make.

Number of the Beast

For the first set of all exercises, perform them with a “normal” cadence—a controlled negative, followed by a fairly “explosive” positive portion of the rep. The next set will be done with a 6 second negative, followed by a 6 second pause, then ending with a 6 second positive. Put it all together and you have the devilish scheme of 666—Iron Maiden would be so proud! These workouts will be done in giant set fashion—or circuits, if you will, hence the title of the program. That means no rest between movements, and ponderous amounts of lactic acid, which will lead to maximizing hypertrophy gains. You will rest for 3 minutes between each of these hellish giant sets!

The Cemetery Circuit Training Program

Brace yourself!

Weeks 1 through 3

Day 1

Squats: 1 x 6 reps at regular cadence; 1 x 6 reps of 666 scheme

Bench presses: 1x 6 reps at regular cadence; 1 x 6 reps of 666 scheme

Deadlifts: 1x 6 reps at regular cadence; 1 x 6 reps of 666 scheme

Standing Military Presses: 1x 6 reps at regular cadence; 1 x 6 reps of 666 scheme

Chins: 1 x 6 reps at regular cadence; 1 x 6 reps of 666 scheme

Dips: 1 x 6 reps at regular cadence; 1 x 6 reps of 666 scheme

Note: If you are unable to complete designated number of reps for dips and chins, simply cheat on the positive phase and do negatives until you can no longer control the negative phase of these movements.

Day 2: Off

Day 3

Bulgarian Split Squats: 1 x 6 reps at regular cadence; 1 x 6 reps of 666 scheme

Dumbbell Bench Presses: 1 x 6 reps at regular cadence; 1 x 6 reps of 666 scheme

Stiff Leg Deadlifts: 1 x 6 reps at regular cadence; 1 x 6 reps of 666 scheme

Skull Crushers: 1 x 6 reps at regular cadence; 1 x 6 reps of 666 scheme

Barbell Curls: 1 x 6 reps at regular cadence; 1 x 6 reps of 666 scheme

Day 4: Off

Day 5: Repeat Day 1

Day 6: Off

Day 7: Off

Weeks 4 through 8

Day 1: Chest/Back

Bench Presses: 1 x 6 reps at regular cadence; 1 x 6 reps of 666 scheme

Dumbbell Flies: 1 x 6 reps at regular cadence; 1 x 6 reps of 666 scheme

Dips: 1 x 6 reps at regular cadence; 1 x 6 reps of 666 scheme

One Arm Dumbbell Rows: 1 x 6 reps at regular cadence; 1 x 6 reps of 666 scheme

Chins: 1 x 6 reps at regular cadence; 1 x 6 reps of 666 scheme (If unable to complete all reps, cheat your way up on the positive and do negatives until you lose control or have a negative that lasts less than 3 seconds.)

Deadlifts: 1 x 6 reps at regular cadence; 1 x 6 reps of 666 scheme

Day 2: Off

Day 3: Legs

Squat: 1 x 6 reps at regular cadence; 1 x 6 reps of 666 scheme

Bulgarian Split Squats: 1 x 6 reps at regular cadence; 1 x 6 reps of 666 scheme

Stiff-legged Deadlifts: 1 x 6 reps at regular cadence; 1 x 6 reps of 666 scheme

Day 4: Off

Day 5: Shoulders and Arms

Standing Barbell Shoulder presses: 1 x 6 reps at regular cadence; 1 x 6 reps of 666 scheme

Dumbbell Lateral Raises: 1 x 6 reps at regular cadence; 1 x 6 reps of 666 scheme

Barbell or Dumbbell Curls: 1 x 6 reps at regular cadence; 1 x 6 reps of 666 scheme

Reverse Curls: 1 x 6 reps at regular cadence; 1 x 6 reps of 666 scheme

Dumbbell Skull Crushers: 1 x 6 reps at regular cadence; 1 x 6 reps of 666 scheme

Dips: 1 x 6 reps at regular cadence; 1 x 6 reps of 666 scheme

Day 6: Off

Day 7: Off

After week 5, increase the circuits to 3 at each workout for weeks 6 and 7. On week 8, perform a total of 4 circuits! After week 8, take a week off from training, rest, recover, and grow bigger than ever! At this point, you can switch over to an entirely different program, or have another go at one more 8-week training cycle.

This program might feel like hell on earth, but we are positive that your results will feel as if hypertrophy manna has rained down upon you from the bodybuilding gods!

It's been almost six months since my last post. Three months ago, if I am honest, I didn't think I would be sitting here now, typing these words.

I thought I would be dead.

I am not going to get into all of the details - not yet, anyway. I will save all of that for another post, when I am feeling more of a combination of elegiac and poetic, and when I think I'm ready to write about my declining health, and how it has affected my life in ways - often, amazingly - better, but bitter, as well, than I imagined such declining health could.

But my health has caused some real problems. Until only a few weeks ago, I haven't been able to write, and I haven't been able to do the one thing I almost love more than anything else I do on this green Earth of God's: lift weights.

But I am writing again.

And I am lifting again.

Hopefully my health will continue to improve even more, which means even more writing and more lifting. Often, the more I lift, the more I write. Or maybe it's the other way around. I don't really know. But I know that somehow the two are intrinsically intertwined with one another. It doesn't even matter if I'm not writing about "lifting matters" at the time - the two are still interconnected.

My son Garrett, taken a few month's back.

Last night - while my eldest son Matthew was at the local gym "priming" and "pumping" his chest and arm muscles with a cascade of cacophonously glittering machines - Garrett, my youngest son, and I decided to do nothing but an old-fashioned "grease-the-groove" deadlift routine in our dungeonous garage gym. It was hot as hell - to use a much cliched term - outside, and one of the overhead lights went out in the garage when we stepped outside, casting an eerie glow over the whole bar-bending event, as we quickly broke into high-humidity-induced sweats.

Iron Maiden serenaded us in the background as the deadlift bar clanged more times than I could count. Occasionally, the dog next door howled over the proceeds, whether it was from the iron, or the "new wave of British heavy metal" screaming through the speakers, or simply mine and my son's presence, I don't know.

The bottom line: it was good to be alive. And it was good to be lifting weights.

And it is good to write once more.

Dr. Kevin Fast is a 54-year old priest who once pulled a plane weighing 188 tons—a then world-record.

There are several different methods, workout programs, and tricks of the trade you can use to build an impressive amount of strength. Most of them I've written about here on my blog, so it's not that hard to find a good method or program to use. When you factor in not just this blog, but the rest of the good blogs and sites that are available these days, well, you have a plethora of methods at your disposal.

Maybe too many.

The problem is not in finding the right program, but in finding the right program for you.

The gist of this article is going to be about methods of strength training for the older athlete—along with an example program—but the methods employed could also be used for the younger athlete, as well, especially one who develops strength well on lower-volume programs (this would typically be larger athletes) or one who has a 9-to-5 job that is especially strenuous and physical (such as construction worker). But I think the majority of younger guys and gals would do better on a more voluminous routine composed of much more frequent workouts. If you are in your 20s, in good health, and basically sit on your ass most of the day, then you would be better off with Sheiko-style workouts, Bulgarian-style methods, or one of the "workout-every-damn-day" methods that I have written about extensively at Integral Strength. It's not that that this program wouldn't work for the younger athlete—it most certainly would—but the fact would remain that it wouldn't produce results as quickly as volume-oriented, daily training programs. Some of those programs produce such quick results that it shocks the lifter who uses them for the first time, and the lifter, in many cases, is incredibly surprised at the strength produced, especially if all that lifter has done—up until that point—are Western-style programs, and if the lifter has drank the Kool-Aid of American bodybuilding that still often claims—for no good reason other than ignorance—that the best results are obtained with low-volume, infrequent training.

Having said the above, let me emphasize this: the methods I recommend in this article are not the only methods that can be used for the older strength athlete. This is just one of a few. Now, keep in mind that, if you're an older athlete, you don't have the option of a multitudinous amount of programs at your disposal, but you do have the option of a few very good ones. This one just being one of those. In future posts, I'll give you what I think are the other two great ways for building strength in the older lifter. Keep in mind, too, that this is for the older lifter who still wants to strength train. If you are interested in bodybuilding or just looking good, then there are still several more good programs at your disposal.

The Art of Building Strength

Any good program available will always properly manipulate the three key variables of any program: volume, frequency, and intensity. When it comes to building impressive amounts of muscle, or a combination of impressive amounts of muscle with a boatload of strength to boot, then, typically, the program does well by always keeping the frequency high, and then properly manipulating the other two variables to suit its goals.

If strength, and only strength, is your goal, then the most important variable is intensity, with the other two manipulated properly depending on the style of program that is being used. To put it another way, the workout itself is what matters when your only goal is strength, not the volume or frequency of the workouts. It's not that muscle won't grow with these style of workouts, but when hypertrophy occurs, its simply a side effect, not a bi-product of the methods employed.

As a matter of fact, in the past, if I ever trained a lifter who had trouble staying in a weight class because he gained muscle too easily (yes, this is a problem for some lifters, believe it or not, all of you self-proclaimed "hardgainers"), then I would have him do a very high-intensity workout, with low to mid-volume and low-frequency. (For those of you who haven't figured it out at this point or who haven't read my past articles/posts, "intensity" here refers to the amount of weight lifted not how "hard" the workout is, so in no way does "high intensity" refer to "momentary muscular failure" or some other absurd Mentzerian nonsense that I pretty much abhor, mine and Jared Smith's recent "Cemetery Circuit Training" aside.)

For the sake of this particular program, we are going to employ high-intensity workouts combined with low-frequency and a volume methodology that will oscillate. (And for those of you familiar with both my early writing in the mid '90s—when I wrote tons for Iron Man magazine and MuscleMag International—and with my more recent ideas over the last couple of years, you may—or may not—find it a breath of fresh air that I still recommend, when the situation dictates it, low-frequency programs.)

The Methods of Low-Frequency Strength-Building

First things first: these are the methods of building strength that this program employs. These are not the only methods for building impressive amounts of strength. Do not see what I am writing here as contradicting other methods I have recommended. The situation, and the lifter himself, dictates the methods employed.

in Part Two of this series, we'll pick up right where Part One leaves off, with some specific methods, followed by an example program to begin putting the methods into practice...

Once again - as usual, it seems - it has been too long since I last posted here, but why I had a moment, I wanted to give a brief update:

If you are trying to email me at my old email address - cssloan@me.com - please don't!

Please direct all your questions, comments, or info you may have for me at csintegralstrength@gmail.com.

I love getting email, and answering questions, or reading how I may have inspired or made a difference in your lifting lives. I will no longer be able to receive email at my old address, so make sure you send all of your stuff to my new one.

Keep the email coming!

Bill Pearl is, without a doubt, in my top two or three list of "greatest bodybuilders of all time." In my opinion, he was the first bodybuilder to look truly massive while in competition shape, not to mention massive in all of the photos that you saw in the magazines.

Pearl was before my time. But maybe that's why I hold him in such high regard.

A lot of the bodybuilders and lifters that guys these days consider to be "old-timers" aren't old-timers to me. Hell, I'm considered an old-timer by many.

And maybe that's why he's always been so mythic to me.

I can still remember (sometime in the late '80s) thumbing through a stack of old Iron Man magazines that my uncle had kept from the '60s and the '70s. Many of the bodybuilders I first came across in those pages were impressive, no doubt. But THEN I came across Bill Pearl.

Bill Pearl as I remember seeing him for the first time

Everything was large on Pearl - his chest, his arms, his thighs, his back, and his shoulders. In the future, I'll add some articles detailing other bodyparts, as well. For now, here are some of his recommended shoulder workouts. NONE of them are for the faint-of-heart, but I have a good feeling that's exactly as it should be.

Enjoy...

Follow each program for three days per week for a period of six weeks. The programs below are for individuals who have been training for a period of years. Beginners should do only one set of each exercise on Routine One. After completing the six week period, start Routine Two and do two sets of each exercise. Do not do more than three sets of each exercise until you have been working out for at least a year or more.

Work within your own limit.

Routine One

1) Military Press 3 x 8-10.

This is the standard military press. Clean the weight to the chest, or take the weight from stands. Lock the legs and hips solidly. This will give you a solid platform from which to push. Keep the elbows in slightly under the bar, press the weight overhead, lock the arms out. When lowering the barbell to the chest, be sure it rests on the chest and is not held with the arms. If the chest is held high it will give a you a nice shelf on which to place the barbell and to push from. Inhale before the press and exhale when lowering the bar.

2) Upright Rowing 3 x 8-10

This is an excellent trapezius and deltoid exercise. Place hands on the barbell at roughly shoulder width. Keep the body erect and stationary and pull the weight to the top position at or above nipple height. Keep the barbell in close and pause momentarily at the top. Concentrate as you slowly lower the bar to starting position. Inhale up and exhale down.

3) Seated Dumbbell Press 3 x 8-10

Clean dumbbells to shoulders and sit on bench, placing one foot slightly ahead of the other to form a stable base. With the palms facing each other press the bells to arms' length overhead. Be sure to completely straighten the arms. Inhale before pressing overhead, exhale when lowering back to the shoulders.

4) Bentover Deltoid Raise 3 x 8

Lock the elbows and keep the arms straight. Bring the dumbbells to the top position and hold and contract the muscles. Do not swing the dumbbells up, keep the body rigid and strongly work the muscles of the deltoids and upper back. Be sure to bring the dumbbells straight out to the sides, inhaling up and exhaling down.

Routine Two

1) Standing Press Behind Neck 4 x 8-10

Stand with feet placed a comfortable distance apart. Use quite a wide grip, wider than shoulder width on the bar. Keep the elbows directly under the bar. Press the barbell overhead to lockout. Inhale as you press overhead and exhale as you lower to your shoulders. Maintain a solid foundation by keeping the legs straight and the hips flexed. Pause at the shoulder before pressing the barbell overhead. Make a full movement of the exercise by touching the barbell to the shoulders each time it is lowered and locking the elbows each time it is pressed overhead.

2) Bentover Barbell Row 4 x 8

Use a wide grip on the bar and a wide foot spacing. you can bend the knees or keep the legs straight. The important thing is to bend forward at the waist and maintain a straight back. Keep the arms straight, pull he barbell up to the chest and make a definite pause. Lower the bar back to arms' length. Be sure to work the muscle both ways when pulling up and letting the weight down. Do your repetitions slowly and smoothly. Do not drop the shoulders or round the back. Inhale on the upward pull to the chest. By keeping the waist drawn in and the chest out, it will be easier to touch your chest with the bar and maintain a flat back position. Exhale when lowering the bar back to arms' length.

3) Seated Alternate Dumbbell Press 3 x 8
Clean dumbbells and sit down. Start with bells at shoulders. Press dumbbell in right hand to arms' length overhead, keeping dumbbell in left hand at the shoulder. Lower right dumbbell back to shoulder and press right dumbbell overhead. Maintain a rigid body position doing all the work with the shoulder and arm. Do not lean from side to side while pressing. Inhale up, exhale down.

4) Barbell Forward Raise 3 x 8-10
Use a shoulder width grip on barbell and stand with it at arms' length. Rest bar on thighs. Keeping elbows locked and arms straight, raise barbell over head. Slowly lower bar back to thighs, keeping arms straight. Inhale at starting position and exhale as bar is returned from overhead.

Routine Three

1) Wide Grip Upright Row 3 x 6-8

This is a more difficult type of upright rowing exercise. The deltoids are worked more and much concentration is required to perform it correctly. Start with the barbell at arms' length, resting on the thighs, but with a wider than shoulder-width hand spacing. Pull barbell up to a position at or above the nipples. Pause while contracting strongly, then lower to starting position. Inhale up, exhale down.

2) Seated Press Behind Neck 4 x 6-8

This is performed as the regular standing press behind neck, only in a seated position. Rest the bar on your shoulders between each rep and set yourself for the press.

3) Crucifix 3 x 6-8

To handle a substantial poundage, stand in a solid position and press two dumbbells to arms' length overhead. Slowly lower them with straight arms and locked elbows to the sides at shoulder height. Attempt to hold arms in position for a count of 5 to 10. The purpose of the crucifix is to use the deltoids as a support and this places a stress of a different nature upon the muscles. Inhale while pressing the dumbbells overhead and exhale as they are lowered.

4) Seated Alternate Dumbbell Raise 3 x 8

Sit with dumbbells held at arms' length at sides. With dumbbell in left hand in down position, raise dumbbell in right hand to arm's length overhead. Lower right arm to position hanging straight at side, raise the left arm. Inhale upward and exhale when lowering dumbbell.

5) Incline One Arm Lateral Raise 2 x 8-10

Routine Four

1) One Arm Military Press 3 x 5-8

Using a dumbbell when pressing can allow you to get a lower position and fuller range of movement. Clean the bell to the shoulder. Keep the heels together and extend other arm for balance. Keep the body straight, press dumbbell to arm's length overhead. Work should be done entirely with shoulder and arm. Inhale and press overhead, exhale as you lower it to shoulder.

2) Incline One Arm Lateral Raise 3 x 8-10

3) Seated Military Press 4 x 5-8
This exercise is done exactly as standing military press, only in a sitting position, and in a stricter fashion. First, clean the barbell to the shoulders, sit down, and place the feet in evenly. Do not stagger the position of the feet in this exercise. Keep the chest high and back straight and press the barbell to arms' length overhead. Do the press slowly and steadily, keeping tension on the muscles at all times, except when barbell is resting on chest. Breathe the same as the regular military press.

4) Alternate Standing Dumbbell Raise 3 x 8
Assume a solid stance with a dumbbell in each hand. Inhale and raise the right arm overhead and to the front, keeping arm straight. Exhale as you lower the bell back to starting position. Raise left arm, keeping position stationary. Do not lean forward or backwards. Do the work with deltoid muscle and work each arm, one repetition at a time.

5) Seated Dumbbell Lateral Raise 3 x 8
Sit erect with arms extended by the sides. Raise them to just above shoulder height. The angle of the raise should be between the position of the regular lateral raise and the forward raise. Inhale before raising the bells, exhale as they are lowered under control.

Routine Five

1) Seated Press in Front and Behind Neck 4 x 8

This is one of the very best shoulder exercises. It must be done properly to obtain the full results. First, clean a barbell to your shoulders and sit down on a bench. Press to arms' length. Lower barbell to behind neck to the shoulders. Do not relax or rest at the shoulder, press the bar back to arms' length, lower it to the chest and repeat again. Keep the bar in motion throughout the exercise. This is a compound exercise and four presses to front and four to back are performed. Inhale up, exhale down.

2) Standing Lateral Raise 4 x 8

In a comfortable stance, start with dumbbells at arms' length, palms facing in toward the thighs. Slowly raise dumbbells to a position a little above shoulder height, pause and contract the deltoid, then lower back to starting position. Keep the arms straight and elbows locked throughout the execution of this exercise. Inhale when raising, exhale when lowering.

3) One Arm Rowing 4 x 8

Use a bench, placing one hand on the bench for support and spreading the feet wide. This will give you balance. Keep the back straight and extend the arm fully. Next, pull the dumbbell to the chest, keeping the elbow pointed outwards which will allow you to pull the bell higher and work the latissimus more fully. The dumbbell is pulled in a straight line. There is no rotating motion. Inhale on the upward pull and exhale when extending the arm to a straight position.

4) Bent Arm Lateral Raise 3 x 6-8

This is a standing version of the seated dumbbell lateral raise, exercise number 5 in routine 4.

5) Incline One Arm Lateral Raise 2 x 8-10

Q&A for the Month of October

I have decided to do something slightly different starting with this month.

Over the last couple of weeks - since I switched over to my new email address - I've received multiple emails. Not exactly an entire plethora, don't get me wrong, but enough that it's been hard - or, at least, very time consuming - to answer them all. And, so, I'm afraid that I simply haven't answered some that I otherwise would have - I apologize, right now, if yours is one that I haven't answered as of yet.

Several of the emails, however, while not being exactly the same, are at least in the same ballpark. Which got me to thinking: Why don't I return to writing a regular Q&A column (something I've attempted in the past). If this is successful, and if it gets enough views (some of my posts, depending on popularity, get decidedly more views than others), then I will continue to do this sometime around the first of each month.

I've changed each question around from the original(s) to make it more precise, and I've also gotten rid of anything that might have been personal in the original questions.

In the future, if I get specific questions, and the questioners don't mind me using their names or initials, I will include more personal Q&As.

Now, on to this month:

Minimalist Mass

Q: I know that you regularly recommend frequent workouts in order to gain as much muscle as possible in the shortest amount of time, however, I only have enough time to make it to the gym 2X a week. Can you give me a good workout program for someone with a limited amount of time to train?

A: Yes, I can.

But first things first, make sure that you really can't make it to the gym for frequent workouts. I have personally known some guys who have complained to me that they don't have time to train, and have asked me to write out programs that require minimal amount of time for training. (Which I, typically, never mind doing - I love discussing, and writing, about training.) But when I actually looked at these guys' lifestyles, it was clear that they had the time to train, but they would rather spend that time doings things other than training (taking naps, snacking while binging on Game of Thrones, hooking up with girls, or other fairly useless things). Now, I'm not saying you should spend more time in the gym than you do with your family. Your family, in fact, should be the one thing that takes precedent over training. But I am saying that you should prioritize training over being lazy. And you should, for the most part, prioritize it over work. Too many men and women work too many long hours in this country, when there's often no reason to do so. Many times, the extra hours are only in order to make even more money, or to climb the corporate ladder. Chances are, if you're this person, then you have enough money - more won't make you any happier - and getting a promotion will, in all likelihood, just make you unhappy. Work is important, yes - we all need a good work ethic - but make other things your priorities - namely, God, family, good friends, good food, good beer, and good, frequent training sessions.

With that out of the way, let's get down to the specific question being asked.

If you really can't find the time to train more than twice a week, and you have read my blog for any good period of time, then you probably have some idea the kind of training that I'm going to recommend.

First, make sure that the 2 training days per week are evenly split apart. You can't train on the weekends, for instance, and just relax Monday through Friday.

Typically, the two most favorite days for the majority of people are either Monday and Thursday, or Monday and Friday. Personally, I like Sunday and Wednesday. Training on Sundays always felt good as a way to prepare my mind and body for the coming week. And Wednesday was always the best for any sort of "mid-week blues" after going a couple of days without training.

Pick a handful of exercises (that means 5 of them) that you will train at each and every session. This is not the kind of program to use a "full-body split" as I often recommend for high-frequency training. My personal 5 favorite are squats, deadlifts, power cleans, chins, and bench presses. If you're one of the few people (such as myself) who have more lower body and back development than you do upper body and arm development, then pick squats, power cleans, bench presses, overhead presses, and barbell curls. Train each exercise for 5 progressively heavier sets of either 5, 3, or 2 reps.

Follow these guidelines strictly for several weeks, and you may just find that 2-times-a-week is plenty for building a nice combo of mass and strength.

Eating for Strength and Power

Q: You have a lot of recommendations for building strength and power in workouts, but what's your advice on eating when your goal is strength and power?

A: With this question, I am under the assumption that you only are concerned with strength and power, and not gaining muscle mass in addition to the strength.

As you may know, when it comes to strength and power athletes (powerlifters and Olympic lifters), the training is vastly more important than the diet. Now, this is the opposite if your goal, for instance, was to excel at bodybuilding. For bodybuilders, diet is 70-80% of the battle. Without plenty of calories, in the right proportion of macronutrients, you can hang up gaining muscle at a fast rate.

When it comes to strength and power, I advise a lot of protein and fat, while keeping carbohydrates relatively low. I'm not a hater of carbs - don't get me wrong. I think carbohydrates are of paramount importance when trying to gain mass, or a combination of both mass and strength, but, when it comes to pure strength, you can't go wrong with a diet heavy in fat and protein.

On a side note, when I was competing in powerlifting, and wanted to get down to the 165 lb class for a meet, I would combine intermittent fasting with a high-fat diet, and I always lost the weight while getting stronger at the same time.

Pat Casey: King of all Powerlifters

The massive Pat Casey performing shoulder presses.

When I first fell in love with powerlifting - and power training in general - in the mid '90s, I immediately had a few heroes. Some of the early 19th century strongmen such as George Hackenschmidt, Arthur Saxon, and Louis Cyr were all fascinating to me. As was my favorite power bodybuilder of all time, Marvin Eder ,and then, of course, there were guys like Bill Kazmaier, Don Reinhoudt, and Bruce Wilhelm. But, once I discovered him, Pat Casey might have - just might have - been my favorite.

Several different things fascinated me about Casey. First, was his strength (obviously). He was ahead of his time when it came to the bench press and the squat. Second, was his physique. He looked as if he could - at any time - strip some fat and step onto the bodybuilding stage. And third was his training. And it was this 3rd thing that I think I loved the most. A lot of his training influenced my own training at the time, since I was trying my best to find the most innovative, effective, state-of-the-art forms of lifting I could.

What follows are a few snippets from different articles written about Casey back in the '80s - long after he was retired. If you are a powerlifter - or just interested in increasing your bench press - you should find some interesting stuff here.

First off, here is a typical week of training that Pat would perform:

Monday:

Bench Press Lockouts: . Singles from 4 inches off chest. 3 singles from 7 inches off chest. After lockouts, 2 sets of regular benches with 405 x 3.

Dumbell Incline: 3 sets of 5 reps warmup. 120 x 10, 200 x 3 sets of 5 reps. Best: 220 x 6 @ 285 bodyweight.

Lying Triceps Extension: 5-6 sets of 3-5 reps.

Chins: 2-3 sets of 8-10 reps.

Curls: 3 sets of 5 reps @ 100 pounds. I feel that I should have done more curling.

Tuesday

Squats: 135 x 5, 22 x 3, 315 x 2, 405 x 2, 585 x 2, 650 x 5 singles, 515 x 10.

Leg Extension: 3 x 20 reps.

Leg Curls: 2 x 12 reps.

Deadlifts from below knee: (working on sticking point) 315 x 5, 405 x2, 515 x 1, 565 x 6 singles.

Wednesday and Thursday

Rest. I worked an 8 hour job during the day.

Friday

Bench Press: 135 x 20, 225 x 10, 315 x 5, 405 x 5, 515 x 1, 560/570 x 5 singles, 405 x 10, 315 x 20.

Seated Military Press: I had to turn my head to the side to get the barbell past my face. 135 x 10, 225 x 5, 315 x 3, 400 x 1, 315 x 5, 225 x 8.

Dips: Bodyweight x 3 sets of 5 reps, then 10 sets of 205 x 5 reps.

Saturday:

Lockout Squats: above parallel, squat down and stop on pins. Dead stop. No bounce at the bottom. 135 x 10, 225 x 5, 315 x 3, 405 x 2, 515 x 1. 585 x 1, 650 x 1, 750 x 5 singles, finish with full squat – 405 x 5 with a pause at the bottom. These lockouts were mainly for the feel of handling heavy weight.

Leg Extensions: 3 sets of 20 reps.

Leg Curls: 2 sets of 12 reps.
I would also throw in some bodybuilding movements and neck work.

One interesting thing about Casey was his emphasis on performing dips in his workouts. Marvin Eder, of course, was a huge fan of dips, and apparently Casey was influenced by Eder. Here is what Casey had to say about dips when asked in an interview:

Marvin was the reason I did dips. This movement works every part of the body, but most importantly it puts special emphasis on the triceps and deltoids. As I’m sure you are aware, triceps make up 2/3’s of the arm and that explosion off the bottom and continuous follow-through, especially lockout at the end of the bench press comes from triceps strength. The last workout I did on dips was one of my marathon workouts. At a bodyweight of 300 and using a 250 pound dumbell I did 200 repetitions. I started with sets of 5, then 4, gradually descending all the way down to singles. I did this over a 7 hour period of time and I can readily attest to the fact that I was totally thrashed. I felt shot for the next two weeks. But for some reason at that time I felt that they helped. On several other occasions I did over a 100,000 pound workload dipping, working over a period of 8 hours. I might add that while I was in this pre-power phase I truly trained to exhaustion. I really had to drag my butt home. In addition, I would also go on these marathon binges with the press behind neck. In looking back now, it was total insanity. It caused numerous injuries and I stopped this type of training in ’65. I can probably trace many of my shoulder injuries to this type of workout. Looking at the situation today, if I were training heavy now I would cut the sets back to probably 5 or 6 sets. I would still do dips, but no marathon sessions.

Casey performing one of his insane dip workouts.

In an interview with Bruce Wilhelm, here are some tips that Wilhelm garnered from Casey:

1.) Train twice a week, cut the reps and sets back

2.) Get more rest.

3.) On diet, he probably wouldn’t have consumed so much. He did, and still strongly believes in supplementation. When he was training heavy he would drink 6 quarts of mild daily plus ½ dozen eggs with protein. He would also take numerous vitamins.

4.) On wraps and supportive gear: Feels that the equipment today must be extremely helpful. If the bench shirt is only for joint protection, then why don’t the athletes build up their strength through hard work and lockouts and innovative training? It looks like it takes 2 very strong men to just put the bench shirt on the lifter. That seems like a lot of work for a piece of equipment that is only used for protection! The same goes for the squat suit and knee wraps.

Pat may be somewhat envious here as he was never afforded the opportunity to wear such gear. It is beyond my mind to think what poundages he could have handled had he been afforded such opportunities. Also keep in mind that he never used a power belt, only a 4” Olympic lifting belt. I am sure that we could let our minds wander a little, and could really visualize some fantastic lifts. But then again, that is pure speculation and we want to keep away from that.

Bruce Wilhelm: Did you have any innovative or creative ideas?

Pat Casey: Not really, but I have always wondered why if they have a rule on 32” grip on the bench, why they don’t set a limit on foot stance for both the squat and deadlift. Hell, some of the squats, the lifter barely goes down. That is not really a squat. The same goes for the deadlift. I don’t really like the sumo style deadlift either. I don’t see it as much of a lift with that style.

BW: What is your opinion on performance enhancing drugs?

PC: I feel that it is a personal opinion and should be up to the individual. One has to weigh the potential side effects as well as the moral issue. Then there is also the issue of trying to be a role model for young kids. Kids should look up to you for the way you live your life. You want them to know that good things happen to those who work hard. Just remember – easy come, easy go.

BW: What do you think about the lifters of today versus the lifters of 20-30 years ago?

PC: That is a difficult question to answer. The one great thing that holds all lifters together is the pursuit of strength. The means and methods you use to get there vary as well as how you go about it. But most important, it is the quest for strength. It is really a great fraternity, but I feel that some of the lifters today are more self-centered. They have no respect for the past and the history of the sport. They are too self-centered.

Tips for Lifting

Bench Press: As far as performance on the bench, try and get everything into the start. Explode! Bring the weight down in a controlled manner, pause, then blast off the chest. This exploding, Pat felt, would carry you to the sticking point or a little past, and then the triceps would kick in. Position on the bench is also important. Feet tucked back, but not so far as to cause pain or cramping.

Squatting: Set up with the weight as quick as possible. Don’t waste time backing out and moving around. Inhale, descend under control, blast out of the bottom. Think explode. Head back as you fight through the sticking point.

Deadlift: Grab bar, drop hips and explode off the ground pushing with legs, keep arms straight like cables.

BW: I asked Pat about his heavy power rack lockouts. Why and how? What was the purpose?

PC: I needed something to jolt my body once I got past 500 in the bench press. I thought about doing the lockouts from two positions: 4” off the chest and 7” off the chest. The thought being that I would strengthen my tendons and ligaments. Then I could do more volume work in the other exercises without breaking down or getting injured. I was also after the psychological effect of lifting tremendous weights as well as thinking there might be some motor pathway carryover. (i.e. a muscle learning theory whereby the body takes a movement and incorporates it into a similar movement. For example: a partial movement in the bench press would correspond with a full movement. To reinforce such motor pathway transference, a last set would be done with a lighter weight doing the full movement.) When doing this type of rack training I would warm up very thoroughly, then go to doing 5 or so singles in these two positions. I felt that singles were best for building strength, but they also called on your fast twitch muscles to fire. So that was my theory and it worked well for me.

The 2^nd exercise I used was the heavy incline dumbell press. I’d do a warmup set and then go straight to a heavy weight for 3 sets of 5 repetitions. The reasoning for this exercise was to attack the chest muscles from a different angle as well as working the deltoid and general shoulder girdle.

The 3^rd exercise was dips. This developed tremendous overall body strength, especially when attaching a dumbell and doing reps. It really affected the strength of my triceps, but also worked deltoids and pectorals.

The 4^th important exercise was the lying triceps extension. As I said before, I would lean forward and take an Olympic bar with a narrow grip and hook my feet around the bench, then lean back on the bench. I would then do a pullover/triceps extension. I would do 5-6 sets of 3-5 reps. My best was 365 x 3 in this pullover and extension movement. This exercise really strengthened my entire upper body.

The 5^th and last exercise for improving my bench was the seated press. I would use a fairly wide grip and would press the weight, having to turn my face to keep from hitting it with the bar. This movement aided me in the bench press enormously.

These exercises plus the lockouts in some form were the key for me improving my bench. Almost all top bench press artists use some of them in improving their lift. These just happened to work for me and so did the sets and reps that I did with them. The great thing about training is that you can use ideas from other and “cut and paste” to get the “right” routine. So good luck in your endeavors to bench more.

This may be a bit of an odd post. It's basically whatever is simply swirling around in my head at the moment. I will try my best to make sense of it. Not for me. It makes sense for me, however abstract it might be. But for you.

I've often felt that what makes us good, makes us bad, as well. Let me explain...

A Saint Who Wasn't

When I was accepted into the Orthodox Church (or, as the Orthodox refer to it, the One Holy, Catholic, and Orthodox Church), baptized, and then chrismated, I took Saint Christopher as my patron Saint. It made sense to me, since my parents had given me the name Christopher (after the very same saint, Christopher the Christ-Bearer). (They also gave me two other middle names, one of them being Stuart, for those of you who actually give a damn. Hence, the name C.S.) But Christopher is not the saint I would have originally chosen. No, that honor would have gone to Saint David, or the Prophet David, to be precise. (Unlike the Roman Catholic Church, and forms of Protestantism that venerate saints, the Orthodox Church has always taken prophets of the Old Testament as saints).

The Holy Prophet and Saint David

You see, I always felt an affinity to David for one major reason: what made him good—nay, great—also made him bad. In fact, it made him very bad. The kind of bad that even gets one imprisoned in our world.

The Holy Prophet David had a love for the beautiful so strong that it made him write some of the greatest poetry the world has ever known. He wrote ecstatic love poems to the Divine so beautiful that we still sing and chant them in the Church, as do all other churches. But that same love for the beautiful (the Beautiful, we might say), caused him to look upon a woman while she bathed (an ecstatically beautiful woman), and not only did he commit adultery with her, but he had her husband killed so that he could have her all for himself.

Yep, what makes us really good makes us really bad,too.

I can relate to that.

On my best days, I'm capable of writing prose pretty damn good—even beautiful, I think, though I might be slightly biased. And it's my love for the Beautiful that gives me that power. (In theology speak, the Three Transcendentals—those very things that are God—are the good, the true, and the beautiful.) But here's the thing: my love for True beauty also causes me to do that very thing that David did—maybe not to the same extreme, but it's still the same thing. I may be married, but I still look upon a beautiful woman and want her, even if I don't take action upon it. And when I was single, I often would take action upon it, much to my detriment, and to the other involved.

If you're a man, then I bet you can relate.

What makes you good, makes you bad.

I'm a bit OCD. I think a lot of us are. If I can channel my OCD into working out, martial arts, spirituality, writing, work (among other things), then that's fine. But at times, I've simply channeled it into drugs, women, alcohol, and other vices. And, trust me, I'm just as capable (maybe more so), into channeling it into the latter rather than the former.

What's All This Got to Do with Lifting?

I've found that almost everything in life has a correlation in lifting, and vice versa. Lifting simply has many benefits to teach us about life that we won't know about unless we become serious lifters.

The very things that make you good at lifting will also make you bad at it if you're not careful.

Here's an easy example that a lot of you can probably relate to: Let's say that you're a really good bench presser, a natural at it, then the chances are that you are going to pour a lot of energy into training it well. But if you do too much of it, then you are going to suck at other lifts. The overhead press, for instance, will suffer greatly. Getting strong at overhead lifting will translate well to the bench press. But the opposite is not true. Not true at all.

A lot of the shoulder problems that lifters have these days, even serious rotator cuff damage in many cases, is caused from training the bench press while neglecting the overhead press.

What makes you good, makes you bad. It can even cause serious damage.

And, trust me, this is not just true of younger lifters. Even those with experience, such as myself, do it, even when I should know better.

Because I've always been naturally strong at lifts involving the back, hips, and legs, then I've trained these a lot—which is not the main problem. If you haven't already figured it out, or read enough of my articles, then you should know that 3/4 of your training should focus on the back and legs. But the problem was, because of my natural strength, I always trained heavy, even when I was still recovering from an injury of one type or another, or when I hadn't yet fully recovered from a seriously hard training session.

What made me good, made me bad.

So what's the answer? After all, there are those out there that we can say of: "What made them good, made them really good."

The answer is to emulate those people as best we can—in life and in lifting—and for us to know ourselves. Many of those that fail do so because they will simply not admit—once again, in both lifting and life—that they have a side that is bad.

So never forget: what makes you good, makes you bad.

A.K.A: Roscoe and His Backwoods Alabama Arm Power Program
Part ONE

I told myself, when I first began writing this piece, that I would no longer do any multi-part series on this blog. The main reason being that I never seem to get around to writing the 2nd or 3rd (or even 4th) parts. However, this piece was going to be SO long that I had to go back on my original intention.
I hope you enjoy.

A few years ago, I took up the last sport I will compete in. Unless my health improves, I seriously doubt competitive events are in my future, especially the kind that I have competed in over the years. (Towards the end of this post, I will even tell you about my only—and final—competition in the particular sport concerned with here.) Barring help from the Triune Absolute, I just don't see full-contact martial arts, bodybuilding, powerlifting, or arm wrestling in my future.
But enough whining from me. Here's a little snippet of what I learned about building arm strength and growing the biggest forearms I've ever had from training in arm wrestling with a guy named Roscoe and his motley crew of arm wrestling rednecks.

When my son Matthew was about to turn 15, he decided, for some reason unbeknownst to me at the time, that he wanted to take up arm wrestling. He read about a competition that was coming to Alabama in our local newspaper. He thought it sounded cool, he told me, plus, it would give him something to compete in since he broke his right arm. (Several months before this, Matthew broke his arm while swinging on a rope swing. It saddened him like hell since it meant giving up powerlifting and football for a while. And the strength in his right arm would never be the same afterwards.) Ever since he broke the arm, he had focused on a lot of one-arm overhead work and curling work with his left arm.
"I want to test my left arm strength," he informed me.
What the hell, I thought. Sounded as if it might be interesting. In fact, I decided—almost on the spot—that it would also be something I could compete in. After all, I'd had back and neck surgery which had kept me from getting fully back into powerlifting. So training the arms really hard, and competing in something that only involves the arms might be good for me. (I quickly discovered that arm wrestling involves a lot more than the arms.) One problem, however: I didn't know anything about arm wrestling and training for arm wrestling. I guess I should have known something. After all, my Uncle Kirk—who I trained with for many years—was one of the best arm wrestlers in the state of Texas in the early and mid '80s. But he did all of that before I was 15—the age when I took up lifting—and so he and I had never really discussed it since, when he put down arm wrestling, he took up powerlifting, and it was the sport of powerlifting that united me and my Uncle so closely.
We needed a plan.
"Here's what we'll do," I told my son. "We'll go to this arm wrestling meet, and see if we can find some local guys. Maybe one or two of them will even need someone to train with."
He loved the idea, so when the Saturday of the competition rolled around, we headed to Bessemer—the city where it was being held—to see if we could find a local arm wrestler or two.
And that's where we met Roscoe.
Roscoe's real name was Rocky. Which is weird. Roscoe is a bull of a man, stands about 5'11" with massive, veiny arms, and a beer gut almost as impressive as his forearms from—you guessed it—drinking too many beers. So you'd think Rocky would've suited him better, but, no, he went by Roscoe and only Roscoe.
Roscoe wasn't young when we met. He was 55. But he was still strong enough that he made it through half a dozen arm wrestlers in his weight class, before finally losing in the semi-finals to a man even brawnier than he that ended up winning the whole damn thing.
After the competition, he was holding court with—what I would come to discover were—several arm wrestlers from the same county I lived in when I introduced myself and my son.
After a few niceties and chit-chat, we were invited to train with him in five days time. "Once this blasted arm of mine heals up," he said, nodding toward his right arm that was wrapped heavily in ice.
Looking at just how much ice was on his arm, I assumed that he must have pulled a muscle or injured something during the competition. I would soon discover that arm wrestling would make you more sore than any other physical, anaerobic exercise ever. But that day I didn't have a clue, so I didn't realize that he really needed that many days for his arm to heal enough that he could train or "spar".
Matthew left the competition feeling pretty good about the new training we were about to start. I simply thought it might be interesting after all. Soon, however, I would discover a whole new world of arm strength, muscle growth, and pain.

Roscoe was slinging big-ass tires into the bed of an old Chevy truck when Matthew and I pulled onto his gravel driveway after going half-a-mile down a dirt road.
"You found it easy, boys?" he asked, as we stepped out of my Silverado.
"Yes, sir," I said, spitting out the wad of Skoal accumulated between my cheek and gums, and then swigging on a Gatorade for hydration.
"Don't call me sir. I ain't that much older than you. Only little punks call me sir, and you and your son don't seem like ones."
"No problem, Roscoe," I said. "I apologize for the insult," I added with a grin.
Matthew didn't say anything. He was a little intimidated, I think, by what he thought was a crazy old man. (When you're 15, 55 seems ancient.) In his mind, a man 55 just shouldn't be this jacked or strong.
"What're you doing with the tires?" I asked.
"Part of my training. Not all the time, mind you. I mainly just do my two other exercises, but ever so often I get a hankerin' to sling these tires in the back of this old truck. It's the only use I get out of the truck these days."
Two exercises? I thought that sounded like very few for building such arm strength as this guy had. I should have known better, of course, since I used about that few myself over the years, even when competing in powerlifting. To top it off, I've even written about using only two exercises many times in many articles. But for some reason, I thought Roscoe would probably do more.
"No need for y'all to sling these tires today," he added. "Just do the rest of my regular workout with me."
We began with fat-grip one-arm dumbbell deadlifts. Roscoe had one weight, and one weight only, that he used for these: an old, rusty 150 lb thick bar dumbbell. The dumbbell was really thick—thicker than when you put a pair of "Fat Grips" on a regular dumbbell.
"At one time, this was the only exercise I'd ever do," he said.
"How long did you just use this exercise?" I asked.
Roscoe scratched his head. "I dunno. Probably 20 years. Now, keep in mind, I worked on the ranch that whole time too, workin' cattle and haulin' hay, and a bunch of other crap that probably helped my arm strength."
Still, that's impressive, I thought to myself.
He continued, "Also, and this is a big also, remember that I was arm wrestling during that whole time about every two to three weeks."
That doesn't seem like much, I thought. I would discover how wrong I was shortly.
Roscoe probably did 10 to 15 sets that day of one-arm deads for no telling how many reps on each set. He just repped out each set until he began to tire slightly, never taking any of the sets close to failure. At least, that's how it looked from my perspective.
I had trouble managing one rep with his dumbbell, thinking, "damn, I've gotten weak!"
I finished the rest of my sets—only 4 or 5—with a pair of 100s that he had. Matthew worked up to the 100s as well.
"Boy, you are strong," he told Matthew. My son was proud of the compliment, I think. And he was strong, considering the fact that he still had one week until he turned 15.
Once the one-arm deads were complete, Roscoe took (what appeared to be) a leisurely stroll with the pair of 150s. Just as with the deadlifts, whenever he appeared to get a little tired, he would stop. After a few minutes, he would resume. And, as with the deadlifts, he stopped after about a dozen sets.
And that was the workout.
I was a little surprised that one of the two exercises wasn't some sort of curling movement. And I told him as much.
"I don't think there's any need for curls. There are plenty of guys in arm wrestling that do them, don't get me wrong. But you get all the curling you need while arm wrestling. Besides, the next day after arm wrestling, it's always your forearms, and everywhere around your elbows that are sore. Not your biceps."
At this point, let me tell you what I learned after several more weeks of training, and after really getting into the sport for several months: competitive arm wrestlers have the most varied, non-consistent training of any athletes you will ever find. Period.
Some arm wrestlers train like Roscoe with a lot of thick-bar work and carrying exercises. Some train just like the average bodybuilder, with 4 to 5 exercises, performing 4 to 5 sets per exercise with reps in the 8-12 range. Some just do one exercise at each workout for tons of sets and really low reps. Some only do strongman-style workouts, lifting odd objects, and dragging a lot of crap. Some actually do Crossfit-style workouts. I even met a hell-of-a-arm wrestler who won every competition I saw him compete in, and he did hand-stand push-ups as his only exercise, aside from running and jumping rope. And, as you may have guessed it, I met several who only arm wrestled in order to prepare for a competition.
"Y'all want to hit the table?" Roscoe asked. "Since y'all haven't really arm wrestled before, I can give y'all some tips before Monday, when I got some of the guys coming over."
In his garage were several arm wrestling tables, custom built the same as the tables used in competition. He and I dragged one away from the wall it was set against, and set it in the middle of the garage. "Who's first?" he asked, putting his elbow on the pad of the table, grabbing the table's outside handle with the other hand, and pulling his body tightly against the side of it.
"Me, I suppose," I said, feeling a little unsure at this point about what I had gotten myself into. Just a few days earlier I had seen this man slam multiple men in only a couple of seconds—hell, maybe less—from the moment he clasped hands with them.
But Roscoe wasn't in the least interested in slamming my arm to the table. He demonstrated body position to me, placement of elbow on the table, and the two main "styles" or "techniques" used in arm wrestling. He did the same thing with my son.
After that, we "sparred" Roscoe, and then each other. After only a few matches with both Roscoe and Matthew, I was already feeling a "burn" and a "pump" and a "tightness" in parts of my arm—particularly around the elbow—that were different from regular workouts. Matthew and I could also tell that we were going to enjoy this training. It was fun to test your strength against others.
"Don't overdo it today," Roscoe said. "Ain't no telling how damn sore you're gonna be on the 'morrow."
I thought I might be a little sore, but I was never prepared for the pain when I woke up the following morning. My arm was sore in a way it had never been before. And it didn't feel as if it was just the muscle. You could feel the soreness in the tendons and ligaments.
When Matthew woke a couple hours after me (it was summer; he was out of school) he couldn't believe how sore he was. "Daddy, I'm so sore I think it's gonna make me sick."
I gave him 4 200 mg ibuprofen, which he promptly swallowed along with a pint or so of whole milk.
About 30 to 45 minutes later, he said the pain was a little better, and that the anti-inflammatory must have helped some.
"You sure you want to continue doing this?" I asked.
He grinned what we call in the South a big "shit-eatin'" grin and said, "Oh, yeah. I love it. It'll be fun to see how we do against a bunch of other guys."
"Okay," I replied. "Sounds good to me."
I had my doubts as far as just what we were capable of at this point, given the fact that arm wrestling Roscoe was about like arm wrestling an immovable object, but I also thought, along with my son, that it would be an enjoyable pastime, if nothing else. And, as it turns out, it was pretty damn cool.

Shortly, you will see a big change at Integral Strength.

First off, I'm back to writing with a volume that I haven't attempted in many years, which means a lot more posts. But Integral Strength is also going to change in a large way.

For the last several years, my health has sucked, to the point at which I even thought I may only live a few more years. This has severely limited the amount of training I could do (in lifting or martial arts), and it has hindered the amount of writing I have done, whether it was articles for magazines or posts on my blog. But I am now feeling like my old self for the last several weeks. And I'm not just talking about feeling a little better, I'm talking about feeling better than I have felt in about a decade (when I was at my peak strength and conditioning in my mid 30s). I'm currently lifting (or performing bodyweight workouts) 3 days per week, in addition to regular martial art workouts such as I haven't done in almost 2 decades!

In future posts, I will discuss my health problems, and how my practice of kan-geiko helped me immensely as a supplement to the medicine and therapy I received from a great neurological team, but for the sake of this post, I want to focus on what is to come.

The past is done. If I would have known before what I know now, there is no doubt that I wouldn't have suffered for as long as I did. But there is no need to even think about the past, much less dwell upon it. Use the past to teach you lessons for the future. Nothing more.

So I will look ahead to the future.

Soon you will be able to read the topic you want at Integral Strength by clicking on the "header" for that particular subject.

I will be writing on 5 separate, but interrelated, topics. At first, you may not even see how they are all related, but it will become clear if you choose to read all my posts. But you don't have to. For instance, if you love powerlifting or bodybuilding but could care less about Greek Philosophy or Zen Combat (something I don't personally recommend, since both aid the lifter immensely, but it's not my choice, and, besides, if you are not ready to hear, you will be incapable of listening) then all you have to do is click on the "Lifting" header, and you can read as much old-fashioned, classic lifting as your heart so desires.

In no certain order, my future posts will be on the following subjects:

Lifting. This will include old-school approaches to powerlifting and bodybuilding for the modern lifter.
Zen Combat. Unless you have read and understood a book written by Jay Gluck in 1963, then you will not understand (yet) what is meant by Zen Combat. Obviously it has something to do with both Zen and the martial arts, but that is not to understand it. It is about the "jutsu" of training - even if that training is powerlifting - and how you, the practitioner, must discover the do for yourself. Clear as mud? Cool. You'll get it - or you won't - in the future.
Ancient Philosophy. This will primarily deal with ancient Greek philosophy. If you want to read the Asian stuff, then most of that will be under the "Zen Combat" heading, but it's the ancient philosophy of the Greeks that has affected me more than anything. Its also the philosophy that I can believe best help the modern man.
Asian Cinema. The one thing that I have loved in my life as long as I have loved lifting and martial arts is Asian cinema. From the time my father first made me watch The Seven Samurai as a child, through the '80s and my love of Shaw Brothers kung-fu flicks, and on through this decade and my newfound love of Thai and South Korean cinema, I have never stopped loving Asian Cinema. On this topic, I will primarily write movie reviews, but I will also write some essays on the influence of different genres of Asian cinema in both my life and the greater world.
Fiction. And, lastly, I will include some of my fiction writing. At one point in my life, I stopped writing non-fiction (bodybuilding) articles altogether in an attempt to become a serious novelist. It was pretty much a bust because - although I was published - I just couldn't make enough money as I could in non-fiction, even after I had my first novel published. Originally I wrote under the name Christopher Sloan when publishing my novels and short stories, but I prefer to write under the name (and be called) C.S. so, from now on, C.S. Sloan will be the name under which I pen all of my work. Most of my fiction is "military" in nature, so you will find the obvious influences from my martial arts training and my lifting in my works.

In short, Integral Strength is about to become truly integral.

If you haven't noticed, the blog has a new look. You may have also noticed a new Header, with a subheading that explains the fact that this blog will now focus on essays - as opposed to traditional articles - on a wide range of subjects.

I thought it fitting, then, that the first essay with this new focus would actually concentrate, in some way, on all of the topics that I will be writing about.

***

"Damon of Athens said, 'when modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the State always change with them.' Artists cultivate our culture. Politicians can write as many laws as they wish, but they will never change the heart of the culture. This belongs to the artists - we do battle for the soul of society." -Jonathan Jackson in The Mystery of Art: Becoming an Artist in the Image of God

The above quote by the Nashville actor Jonathan Jackson covers fundamentally what I'm going to cover in this essay, only with more detail. But if you understand the above quote, then there probably wouldn't be much need in reading this, and, in fact, you would probably understand already how this even applies to lifting (whatever form this might be) or the martial arts. For the martial arts are arts, even if our society has lost the true understanding of the word. Unfortunately for most, even for those who call themselves martial artists, when I write that the martial arts are arts, most think that the words mean that the martial arts can be artistic,"artistic" in this sense meaning that they can look "pretty" or even "flowery."

I mean no thing of the sort. In fact, that line of thought is so flawed that if you think that, you may not even be capable of understanding what is written here. But I'm betting that's not the case for everyone, especially for anyone who read the title of this essay, and thought, "hey, that could be an interesting read".

The impetus for this essay came after I had read the above quote to a co-worker after we had a brief discussion on how well politics and laws help our society. I pointed out that those things are, of course, important for our society, but that they do not change society. She thought it an odd assessment, at which point I quoted the above. After further discussion, she agreed that the quote was correct.

What I had to say was essentially this:

Politics and laws are fine, even necessary in our society. Now, don't get me wrong. Laws are for those who cannot govern themselves. For instance, when I'm driving, I rarely observe the speed limit. I don't need to observe the speed limit because I simply drive at a speed that I know to be reasonable. Sometimes this means that I'm going well under the speed limit, especially in places where there might be pedestrians or kids playing. But in a society filled with those who can govern themselves, laws - speed laws, or any laws - are just not necessary.

Now, however much laws are needed in our society, they are not what changes society. That is left for the artist. Don't believe me, then think about this: music has much more of an effect on our society than laws. Movies and television quickly follow suit. If you're a teenager, for instance, then I can guarantee that you are not altered by laws, but I can also guarantee that you are altered by the music you listen to.

What we watch, listen to, and read on a regular basis fundamentally changes us.

Martial arts are no different than any of the other arts. Cultures such as Japan and China, where more traditional martial arts are still practiced, have a much deeper martial arts culture than in a country like the United States, where the primary martial art that influences society is MMA. This is not to say, necessarily, that there is anything wrong with MMA. What takes place in the ring or in the octagon during the fight would be perfectly capable of producing a good martial arts culture, but it's the crap that takes place before, after, and in between the MMA fights that are the real problems.

And, of course, there is nothing wrong with a society that enjoys watching MMA fights, but the problem is when you think that MMA represents the highest of what the martial arts has to offer. I sometimes enjoy mindless action films, particularly martial arts films, but I never think that these movies are great movies. There is a big difference between Road House and The Seven Samurai. I actually enjoy both of them, but I realize that the latter film is a truly great film, perhaps the best cinema has ever produced, whereas the former is essentially a piece of junk.

Unfortunately, many martial artists get into martial arts, and then stay in the martial arts, for the wrong reasons. (Now, it's one thing to get into a martial art because you want to be a bad-ass, but it's another thing entirely if that's the reason you actually stay in the martial arts. If you do this, then you become "tough", and you may be capable of winning almost any fight that you find yourself in, but you will never be a true martial artist.) In order to be a truly great martial artist, then you stay dedicated to the path of the martial artist for no other reason than to practice the art and to perfect yourself. If you are dedicated to the path in order to win trophies or titles, or to be the toughest man walking, then you will never understand the martial arts. You will also fundamentally change yourself and the culture around you in all the wrong ways.

You don't have to look too deeply to see how lifting is very similar. For the true lifter, it's not ultimately about how much you can lift or how aesthetically pleasing you make your physique, it's about honing the craft of lifting for the sole reason of honing your craft. Nothing more. Nothing less. This is not to say that you won't develop a lot of muscle or a lot of strength - you most certainly will - but if you stick with it solely for these reasons, then you will end up transforming yourself into the wrong sort of person, the sort of person our society simply doesn't need.

Lately, my life has been pretty awful, and yet pretty awesome at the same time. And, although most of the awfulness in this case is because of my own stupid choices, I think most of our lives are like this most of the time. But that doesn’t mean that my life is just a mixed “blob” of these two ways of living - in other words, I truly mean that it’s both awful and awesome at the same time.

Many years ago, and in much better - not to mention cleaner - prose than I could ever hope (in the first case) or want (in the second case) to ever write, the pretty-much awesome writer of great Catholic apologetics, GK Chesterton, wrote that Christianity loves red, and it loves white, but it has a healthy hatred of the pink. You see, good, healthy religion - and I think this can apply to Zen as well as Christianity, although Christianity at its finest is the best example - is never a blending together of opposites. Nor is it a rejection of one pole in favor of the other. (This is in spite of the fact that most religions in our world today do choose one or the other - in one case religions becoming a liberal “everything is nice, all paths lead to God, let’s just love everyone at all times” crap or, in the other case, it becomes a form of fundamenatlism that sees all other religions and ways of being - here I’m thinking about good atheism/agnosticism or humanism - as enemies to be avoided at best, or crushed down at worst ). You see, great religion is never an “either/or” affair, but, rather, it’s always a “both/and” vision that sees the sacramental wholeness of this world and the world beyond. But I’ll get around to some more of that “sacramental wholeness” stuff in a later post. For this first entry in what I hope turns out to be a series on Zen and God, I just want to discuss the “both/and” of Zen and Christianity, and get around to some of the crap about how sucky my life can be - and somehow be totally awesome at the same time.

From God to Zen and Back Again

This first part is sort of like when Bilbo first emerged from that hole in the ground, took a very long journey, only to once again return to the comfort of his hole. But once back in the hole, he could never really leave that other world behind, and he never did. (On the subject of Bilbo, I much prefer the vision I had of him when I first read The Hobbit as a child or watched the original animated Lord of the Rings as opposed to Peter Jackson’s vision. Sure, the Lord of the Rings films are pretty good - especially the first one - and I even like his way-too-long, way-too-violent Hobbit films. And, yeah, the animated movie kind of sucked, but it nailed the hobbits as they were in the book. But anyway…)

I was raised in a Southern Baptist Church in the south. This is nothing new. If you’re my age, and you grew up in Texas, Arkansas, or Alabama - as I did - then there’s at least a 75% chance that you grew up in a Southern Baptist church. As a child, there was a lot of stuff I liked about going to church. Jesus seemed pretty damn cool to me, and he was an-easy-to-talk-to God when I lay awake in my room at night, staring out of my window at the stars, and just trying to figure life out. But then there was some of the stuff that I was taught in church that I grew out of as I got older. I was never much of a hellfire-and-damnation fan of any sort, and I just thought something was a little bit off with the whole “getting saved” approach to Christianity. Years later, I heard a Benedictine saying that always rang true for me. The Benedictine monks, when they approach each other, will often say, “Pray for my salvation, and I will pray for yours.” Of course, if you grew up Southern Baptist, or are Southern Baptist, then this saying will seem a bit odd to you. Aren’t the monks already “saved”? The answer - and this shouldn’t surprise you based on how this post began - is that they are “are/aren’t”. For, you see, salvation is an ever deepening journey into the depths of your soul. It doesn’t just “begin” and it can’t just “end.”

When I became an “adult” - although I was by no means an adult when I turned 18 - I stopped going to church. College was the end of all that. And, no, Conservative Christians, it wasn’t because of all my liberal, hippy teachers who seemed to prefer socialism bordering on Communism instead of any of the more conservative values I was raised upon. No, I didn’t need any of that stuff to stop attending church. All it took was beer, women, and drugs. A lot of beer, quite a few women, and the occasional drug when I felt the desire.

But there was always, how should I exactly put this, an urge for something more, something transcendent to this world that I still longed for, even if I didn’t think it could be found in most of the Southern United States forms of Christianity in which I grew up belonging.

And Jesus never really left me, either. He was always there, somewhere in the background of all the noise I had drowned Him in, just waiting for me to discover Him once more.

Fast forward several years from College, stuck in a miserable marriage that I didn’t see any escape from, and I needed something to help keep me afloat, and, lo-and-behold, I thought religion might be just the sort of thing I needed. But I didn’t want a belief system, I wanted a way of being and living that could help me gain some basic sanity, and find some sort of peace in a life that was never peaceful.

I turned to Zen.

Zen seemed cool, and this was before the word had become so saturated in our society that “Zen” just became a word for anything that was “peaceful” or “stress-free” or helped you to “live in the moment”. No, I’m talking about a Zen that was none of that crap.

I was sort of lucky in, that, I had practiced a very traditional form of Karate ever since I was a child. And we sat zazen (seated Zen meditation) for at least a few moments at the end of every class. And my teacher, a Chinese man who was a master of a Japanese martial art and who spoke with a deep southern drawl (only in the South) would shout things at as such as, “You must learn to think without thinking, to fight without fighting.” So I kind of knew what the heck I was getting myself into.

But I didn’t know that Zen was so damn Buddhist. I thought the Buddha was pretty cool even as a child, especially the seriously bad-ass Shaolin Buddhist monks who kicked all sorts of tail in the 1970s Hong Kong films I endeared myself to as a kid, and still love with plenty of nostalgic joy as an adult. But the fact that Zen was so Buddhist took me more than a little to get accustomed to, which was, once again, due to my upbringing. My parents would have seriously “flipped-out” if they ever saw some of the statues of the Buddha I eventually started placing around my house or as part of an altar in front of my zazen cushions. But after reading more than a few books, listening to some talks, and even attending a local zen community, it dawned on me one day that I was very comfortable referring to myself as a Buddhist. I was Buddhist.

But, for whatever reason you might want to believe it was, I kept coming back to Jesus. I started reading books about the “quest for the historical Jesus” from authors such as Marcus Borg and Dominic Croissan. And even though the Jesus pictured there wasn’t exactly the one I grew up with, and even though neither of those authors really thought that Jesus was Divine, he was still appealing.

And then I discovered the Saints and mystics of the Church, primarily the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox ones, but some of those quaker mystics interested me too. Why in the world did I never hear about any of this or any of these people in the church of my youth?

Maybe, just maybe, I thought, there might actually be something to this whole Christianity thing after all.

And after a few more years, I was comfortably back in my Hobbit hole, even if it was a different hole than the one I left. My hole had grown larger, and deeper, and wider. But Jesus was still at the center of it, only now He was way cooler and way more awesome than the one I was fed 30 years before, in a Sunday School class where one of my teachers told me that “Good little boys just don’t ask those sort of questions.”

But I could never leave Zen and Buddhism behind, no matter how hard I may have tried. You can’t rid yourself of something that was part of your life for over a decade. And so I have learned to live what is often called a “double-belonging”. I have seen the truths - deep, abiding truths - of two different (often very different) religions, and I hold both of them in tension. I will never accept an “either/or” where I would have to pick one or the other, and I will never accept a “blending” of the two, where both of them end up losing their unique insights in some mush of my own making. No, I will always be “both/and.”

In the Muck and the Mire of the Awful and the Awesome of the Divine

Back to how my life is both awful and awesome at the same time.

I will get around to more details in later essays. But, suffice it to say, I’ve learned that life - and I don’t just mean my life, I mean all of life everywhere - can rest comfortably in opposites. There’s no reason that life only has to be one way.

Look at the natural world. It can be fantastic and beautiful, but it can also be awful and dreadful, and, yes, it is all of these things all at once.

Look at the world that mankind has created. It’s the same way. You will find beauty everywhere if you only look. But you also find darkness, and plenty of it.

The key, I think - and this is where a steady practice of zazen can really help - is for you to let life simply rest as it is. The glass, for the zennist, is neither half-full, nor is it half-empty. It just is where it is.

Our minds, for all their potential greatness, are constantly dwelling on the past or thinking about the future. We really suck in the modern world - a world full of distractions that don’t allow the mind to rest comfortably in its natural state - at learning how to simply rest in the beauty of the present moment, and to let our minds, and our lives, simply be.

Director Ke Zhou’s second directorial effort (the first being “The Master”) is more stylish than it is good, but it has enough drama and decent martial arts action to please aficionados, while the casual viewer would probably be best suited watching something else.

I can remember the joy as a kid - and already a martial arts practitioner at the age of 9 - when I first saw Hong Kong kung-fu films. There was something so different about them, and I’m not just talking culturally, I’m talking about the martial arts themselves. It wasn’t until I was older that I realized just what that “something” was: the martial arts moves were fast. This was in stark contrast to the martial arts films of Jean Claude Van Damme or even earlier ones starring Chuck Norris. (And they were even more of a far cry from watching “Kung-Fu” as a kid, with the non-martial artist, non-Asian David Carradine!) In American-made martial arts actioners - what few there were - the action was purposely slowed down so that the viewer could see the move easier, or a lot of slow-motion effects were utilized during the fight scenes.

Fast forward a few years to the Hong Kong actioners of Jet Li, especially the “Once Upon a Time in China” trilogy, and you saw fast-as-hell kung-fu at its finest.

Which makes the martial arts of Path to the Dream a little odd. Sometimes ultra-fast, sometimes slow-motion, it has the effect of being somewhat of a distraction for the kung-fu fan. Part of the problem may lie in the fact that the movie was going to be too short without all of the slow-mo effects (coupled with the often long shots of the two cities in which the film is set). Even with the sometimes slowed down pace, the film still clocks in at around 90 minutes, which is short for a modern Asian action film. (In many ways, I must say, I’m not entirely complaining. If you’re a fan of Korean cinema, which I am, then you know that it’s hard to find any of their films that are under two hours these days. And don’t even get me started on Bollywood!)

The film centers around two brothers, played by Hongbo Shi and Junkang Wang, who have been separated since their youth. As children, both of them dreamed of winning the National Chinese boxing tournament, but as adults, the elder (Shi) has lost his way in a criminal underworld where he is the top henchman. The younger brother is still fighting for his dream of becoming “the champ”. After years apart, they are finally reunited when a friend of Wang’s is attacked by the older brother’s gang.

I won’t get into all of the melodramatic details. Even at its 90 minute running time, the drama, for what it is, gets a bit dull and staid. Luckily, there is enough martial arts mayhem to keep the viewer entertained between lackluster arguments and emotional speeches. And the final fight scene almost makes the entire enterprise worthwhile.

Not great, but by no means bad, Path to the Dream is a fine addition to a kung-fu fan’s Friday night rental quee, while those of less discriminating martial arts tastes would do well to probably stay away.

For those of you who are my age or older, you can probably remember well the first time you saw the amazing physique of Serge Nubret: It was in the pseudo-documentary we all now know and love as “Pumping Iron.” With the director and writers of Pumping Iron attempting to make out the film as a “David vs Goliath” with the young (but massive) Lou Ferrigno taking on the older “Goliath” in the form of Arnold Schwarzenegger, they had no idea that their whole half-true enterprise would crumble a bit with the entry of Serge Nubret.

You took one look at Nubret and you knew there was no doubt that Ferrigno was out of his league with both Schwarzenegger and the Frenchmen. (Nubret was French.) Nubret - to this day - had one of the most classically beautiful physiques of all-time. Arnold, of course, won the whole thing, but Nubret easily came in 2nd.

By the time I watched Pumping Iron sometime in the mid to late ‘80s, there was very little information that I could find on Nubret’s training methods. The sole source for bodybuilding information, of any sort, in those days were your major bodybuilding magazines, and Nubret, being already retired by that point, wasn’t in any of them. It wasn’t until I read a lot of articles in MuscleMag International - primarily by Greg Zulak and Robert Kennedy - that I began to understand Nubret’s sort of unique training. I say “sort of” because what Nubret did wasn’t anything particularly new, but he took it to unique heights, heights that were only surpassed by his fellow amazing Frenchman, Thierry Pastel.

To be honest, good information on Nubret’s training is still fairly scant, even with the advent of the internet. If you do a search, for instance, on “Serge Nubret training” you basically get one article that has been rewritten or “re-worded” - or just plain copied - on a number of different websites.

Nubret’s training was actually fairly simple when looked at from an outsider’s point of view, but it doesn’t really take into account the mindset of Nubret or the amount of “instinctive” training he used, a technique used by many other bodybuilders of the “golden age” that trained with higher reps and higher volume. So, what was his training? In a nutshell: a lot of sets, a lot of reps, a lot of exercises, which means a lot of volume.

There. You happy? I didn’t think so.

Anyone who simply tries to duplicate his training, even if you have his more detailed plan that floats around the internet, is going to run into issues. Just so you don’t have to do your own search, here is the training program of Nubret’s that is on a number of websites:

Serge Nubret’s Routine:

Monday:

Quads

Squats – 8 sets of 12 reps

Leg Press – 6 sets of 12 reps

Leg Extension – 6 sets of 12 reps

Chest

Bench Press – 8 sets of 12 reps

Flat Bench Flye’s – 6 sets of 12 reps

Incline Bench Press – 6 sets of 12 reps

Incline Flye’s – 6 sets of 12 reps

Dumbbell Pullovers – 6 sets of 12 reps

Tuesday:

Back

Chin-ups – 6 sets of 12 reps

Behind the Neck Lat Pulldowns – 8 sets of 12 reps

Lat Pulldowns to the Front – 6 sets of 12 reps

Barbell Bent-over Rows – 6 sets of 12 reps

Hamstrings

Lying Leg Curl – 8 sets of 15 reps

Standing Leg Curl – 8 sets of 15 reps

Wednesday:

Shoulders

Behind the Neck Barbell Press – 6 sets of 12 reps

Alternate Dumbbell Front Raise – 6 sets of 12 reps

Barbell Upright Row – 6 sets of 12 reps

Cable Lateral Raise – 6 sets of 12 reps

Arms

Barbell Curl superset with Triceps Pushdowns – 8 sets of 12 reps

Dumbbell Curl superset with Triceps Dips – 8 sets of 12 reps

Calves

Standing Calf Raises – 8 sets of 12 reps

Seated Calf Raises – 8 sets of 12 reps

Thursday:

(Same as Monday)

Quads

Squats – 8 sets of 12 reps

Leg Press – 6 sets of 12 reps

Leg Extension – 6 sets of 12 reps

Chest

Bench Press – 8 sets of 12 reps

Flat Bench Flye’s – 6 sets of 12 reps

Incline Bench Press – 6 sets of 12 reps

Incline Flye’s – 6 sets of 12 reps

Dumbbell Pullovers – 6 sets of 12 reps

Friday:

(Same as Tuesday)

Back

Chin-ups – 6 sets of 12 reps

Behind the Neck Lat Pulldowns – 8 sets of 12 reps

Lat Pulldowns to the Front – 6 sets of 12 reps

Barbell Bent-over Rows – 6 sets of 12 reps

Hamstrings

Lying Leg Curl – 8 sets of 15 reps

Standing Leg Curl – 8 sets of 15 reps

Saturday:

(Same as Wednesday)

Shoulders

Behind the Neck Barbell Press – 6 sets of 12 reps

Alternate Dumbbell Front Raise – 6 sets of 12 reps

Barbell Upright Row – 6 sets of 12 reps

Cable Lateral Raise – 6 sets of 12 reps

Arms

Barbell Curl superset with Triceps Pushdowns – 16 sets of 12 reps

Dumbbell Curl superset with Triceps Dips – 16 sets of 12 reps

Calves

Standing Calf Raises – 8 sets of 12 reps

Seated Calf Raises – 8 sets of 12 reps

Sunday: Take it Easy

First off, I seriously doubt that was the routine that Nubret followed every week. As with many of the programs I have posted here in the past, that is an example of a Serge Nubret routine, but not the end-all, be-all that created his majestic physique.

Let’s break down his training a little bit, so that - if you so choose - you can actually use his techniques for yourself.

Nubret liked to use moderately light weights for all of his sets. He would focus on form, and use what we might say in a cliched way to be “mind over muscle.” He would really focus his mind so that he was concentrating on the muscle being used, and ensuring there was tension throughout the set.

The weight also had to be light because he believed in using minimal rest between sets. 30 seconds between sets was nothing for Nubret! His training, in this way, is very similar to Vince Gironda’s “6x6 Program”. Gironda used this program to train several great IFBB bodybuilders in the ‘70s and early ‘80s, including Chris Dickerson when he won the title in 1982. For Gironda’s program, you typically picked 3 to 5 exercises per bodypart (depending on the size of the muscle), and picked a weight where you would probably fail around the 10th to 12th rep if you were training to failure. You then did 6 sets of 6 reps on every exercise, taking only 30 to 20 seconds of rest between sets. The pump and soreness you get from this program is out of this world. Dickerson, when he won the title (so the story goes), reached the point to where he was only resting 15 to 20 seconds between sets!

Gironda called this sort of training - as did others from his era - “chasing the pump”.

Nubret’s reps are (obviously) higher than 6 on each set, and Nubret reportedly like to train to failure on all his sets. I don’t advise that sort of training until you reach an advanced level. Keep in mind that, when designing a program, you need to properly manipulate volume, intensity, and frequency. It’s best, for a program such as this one, to keep volume and frequency high while keeping intensity relatively low. Only highly advanced bodybuilders, such as Nubret was, can use high volume, high frequency, and high intensity. My advice is to keep your reps in the 10 to 12 range but pick a weight where you typically fail somewhere around the 20th repetition. By keeping rest between sets to a minimum, your intensity will be plenty high enough. Trust me.

If you insist on training with the amount of intensity that Nubret used, then don’t train so frequently. For example, let’s say this is the chest program that you use:

Flat Bench Flye’s – 5 sets of 12 reps

Incline Dumbbell Bench Press: 5 sets of 12 reps

Incline Bench Press – 4 sets of 12 reps

Incline Flye’s – 4 sets of 12 reps

Dumbbell Pullovers – 4 sets of 12 reps

You will notice, first things first, that there are less sets than what Nubret used. Good. 22 sets is still plenty! And if you take every set to failure, or damn close, then you still shouldn’t train your chest (or other muscle groups using the same philosophy) every two to three days. Which means that I would recommend a split that looks something like the following:

Day One: Chest, Back

Day Two: Legs

Day Three: Off

Day Four: Shoulders and Arms

Day Five: Off

Day Six Repeat

This gives you four days of rest between obliterating your muscle groups with 20 sets (or thereabouts) of failure training. This means that your volume and intensity will be high, while your frequency is low. As you adapt to the training, and find that you are not as sore the day after a workout, then you can consider repeating the workout on Day Five instead of Day Six. Eventually, if you want to reach the volume of Nubret, you could even consider cutting out the day off on Day Three altogether.

I'm excited to announce that I have a new book that has just been published by Regimen Books.

For regular readers of this blog, some of the chapters were previously published under some posts entitled "Ultimate Strength", as well. There is also some additional content that was never in my original posts.

You can currently order the book from Amazon. Here's the link:
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=sloan%2C+ultimate+strength

I will also post a link in the next day or so where you can order copies directly from Regimen Books. Anyone who is interested in a signed copy, then email me and let me know. I will gladly send you one.

From the Ashes of Misfortune Emerges a Monster Forged in the Flames of Hardship.

by Jared Smith

There are times lately when circumstances in life have left me feeling a bit bedraggled, broken, and beat up. A combination of people in my life that lacked integrity and the unwillingness of people to act with decency had left me broken and miserable, with a heap of stress that felt almost crippling. Having to leave a place I called home, and wondering how my family would eat the next week has a way of bringing out the best and the worst in people. For myself, the best was not within reach just yet...

With just enough money in my pocket to get my family fed for a few more days, I took a new job that paid next to nothing. This new job - however low-paying - had one decidedly bad-ass advantage going for it: I got to lift and tote some heavy shit. With no wiggle-room in the budget, I had no money for a gym membership. To make matters worse, the owner of the gym I had trained at for several years decided to alter the terms of my existing contract without informing me. This left me without the one place I truly felt at home: the metal-music-filled dungeon of a place called a gym. I was at rock bottom. I had barely trained in weeks, and to say I was on edge would be an understatement. I was bursting with frustration, and I had lost sight of all that I felt was positive in my life.

The Switch

Sometimes all we need is one small act of kindness to fill our souls with hope and purpose. I was delivering a bed to an elderly gentleman, and as I walked through his double doors with a queen size mattress on my shoulders, he spoke. With a huge smile on his face, he informed me that I was a “great big ‘ol fella”. This man was genuinely grateful that someone could move these things for him. He began asking me questions about how I had grown to such a size. I must admit, it felt great just to have someone treat me with such respect and kindness. As soon as I got off work that evening, I cleaned off the rudimentary, ancient, and poor- quality equipment that sat on the porch of my parents’ home.

All I now had at my disposal was an old adjustable bench, a thin bar that only had a capacity of two-hundred pounds, a set of adjustable dumbbells that held up to seventy pounds, and a few attachments for the bench (lat tower, preacher pad, and a leg curl/leg extension attachment). All this shit had sat on that old porch for years, and while it wasn’t the greatest thing in the world, it gave me what I needed to hammer out some workouts. That nice, elderly gentleman didn’t realize it, but his kindness filled me with a passion and desire to attack the iron in a way that I hadn’t felt since I was a newcomer to the iron world.

After cleaning up the old equipment, I ran an extension cord out to the porch and plugged in an old CD player. I popped in a Trivium album and proceeded to torch it. Knowing I was dealing with limitations in terms of poundage, I made sure to drive as much blood as I could into the muscles. When the workout was finished, I felt as if I was a new man. With an insane pump and a fresh outlook on things, I was ready to stare adversity in the eye and beat it into submission!

The Awakening

With that first workout, my body seemed to awaken from a slumber. I once again felt as if I was myself. I had trained hard and heavy for some time before the layoff, and during that time I had performed very few “pump” workouts in favor of a more power-oriented approach. I didn’t realize it at the time, but being forced to train with limited equipment and weight reminded me of just how awesome it feels to have a giant surge of lactic acid!

There were no shiny machines, no scantily-clad “cardio bunnies”, but I was having a blast. There was only me, some heavy metal, and some insane training. For many, heaven may be thought of as pearly gates and golden streets. But for me, it is some sweet tunes and some sick pumps!

Paul Dillett was a '90s bodybuilder who built his massive physique using really high rep training.

The Training

I’m sure by now you have grown tired of reading about my spiritual revitalization. I know why you’re here. You want the meat and potatoes. What follows is the program I followed to recharge my soul and smash doubt and frustration with a ten-ton hammer! While I have prescribed some hellish programs before, this will take it to a new level. The pre, intra, and post workout nutrition will insure that you get the most out of this program and it will prevent you from gassing out halfway through the workouts. A technique you’ll see used here is a spin-off of what C.S. Sloan and I once called “neural training”, wherein we replicate the reps done with the rest period. For our purposes, we will call them Neural Enhancement Sets, or N.E.S. for short.

Note: When performing these workouts, I advise that you follow the nutritional protocol that I outline later.

Workout 1: Chest/triceps

Low-incline Dumbbell Presses 6x30,25,20,15,10,10 Resting 1 minute between sets.

Flat dumbbell Presses 6x 5,10,15,20,25,30 Replicate the reps with the rest period. Keep the weight the same. Example: 5 reps/rest 5 seconds followed by 10 reps/10 seconds rest.

Incline fly 6x 10,15,20,25,30,30 Performed exactly like the flat dumbbell press.

Reverse-grip bench press 6x 30,25,20,15,10,5 Resting one minute between sets.

Rope Pushdown (I used a chain I found in the yard and attached it to the lat tower) 6x 10,15,20,25,30,30 N.E.S.

Dumbbell overhead extension (One dumbbell in each hand) 6x10,15,20,25,30,30 N.E.S.

Workout 2: Back/hamstrings

Barbell Bent Row 6x 30,25,20,15,10,5 Rest 1 minute between sets.

Underhand-grip Barbell Bent Row 6x5,10,15,20,25,30 N.E.S.

Wide-grip Pulldown 6x5,10,15,20,25,30 N.E.S.

Stiff-leg Deadlift 6x30,25,20,15,10,5

Lying Leg Curl 6x5,10,15,20,25,30 N.E.S.

Workout 3: Shoulders/biceps

Dumbbell Shoulder press (seated or standing) 6x30,25,20,15,10,10 Rest 1 minute between sets

Lateral Raises 6x5,10,15,20,25,30 N.E.S.

Barbell or Dumbbell shrug 6x5,10,15,20,25,30 N.E.S.

Barbell Curl 6x30,25,20,15,10,10

Hammer Curl 6x5,10,15,20,25,30 N.E.S.

Workout 4: Quads/Calves

Squat 6x30,25,20,15,10,5

Bulgarian Split squat ( Check out the John Meadows Youtube clip and check out how this should be done. If done to exactly as he lays it out the pump is mind boggling!) 6x5,10,15,20,25,30 N.E.S.

Leg Extension 6x5,10,15,20,25,30 N.E.S.

Single leg Calf Raise 6x30,25,20,15,10,5

Nutritional protocol:

Pre-workout: 40 grams of carbs

40 grams of protein

Toss in some almond butter or any kind of good fatty acids, as this will slow the absorption of the carbohydrates, which will keep your insulin level more stable so that it is not spiking and then dropping.

Intra-workout:

40 grams of carbs

Essential Aminos

Post-workout:

40 grams of carbs

40 grams protein

Remember: no matter what life throws at you, the iron is always there for you.

“Hard work pays off. Dreams do come true. Bad times don’t last but bad guys do.”-Scott Hall

About the Author:
Jared "J.D." Smith is a longtime bodybuilder and contributing writer for Integral Strength. You can find several more of his articles on the blog, including his and C.S.'s "Cemetery Circuit Training" for something truly "Halloween-ish" this bodybuilding season.

To practice Zen or the Martial Arts, you must live intensely, wholeheartedly, without reserve - as if you might die in the next instant.
-Zen Master Taisen Deshimaru

Korean Zen Martial Artist

This is the first in what will be a series of entries on “Zen combat”, as well as a basic explanation of what the term actually means here at Integral Strength.

The term comes from a book of the same name by the historian Jay Gluck, first published in 1963. For early Karate-ka in North America, the book was exceptional reading, and it still remains so until this day. For some reason, it hasn’t always remained in print, despite the fact that - unlike the entirely useless and pretty much awful book “Zen in the Martial Arts” by Joe Hyams, which has, for some odd reason, remained a seminal favorite - Gluck actually knew something about Zen and the martial arts. Not to fault Hyams entirely, I suppose, since almost all martial artists I’ve come into contact with - even those who are Japanese, sad to say - know next to nothing about the actual philosophy, not to mention practice, of real Zen. But if you’re going to actually write a book with the title “Zen in the Martial Arts” it would be nice if you weren’t entirely ignorant of Zen in the first place. But I digress… moving on:

Zen Combat as Opposed to Bushido

“Bushido is a word known to many outside of Japan. It means literally ‘warrior way’, purported to be an ethic, a way of life. It does not mean a martial art in the sense of being a technique for teaching. ‘Zen Combat’ refers to these techniques, these jutsu. The Way, or do, one must make for oneself.” -Jay Gluck from “Zen Combat”

The writings in this series will focus on these techniques, what Gluck refers to as “Zen combat.” First, however, it’s important that the reader understand a little about the philosophy known as Zen in Japan (also known as Chan in China, Thien in Vietnam, and Seon in Korea, although most Western books written by authors from these countries still refer to their writings as “Zen”).

Understanding Zen

If you were to leave this page right now and google the word “Zen”, about ¾ of what you would find in your search under the title Zen would have next to nothing to do with real Zen. Zen has, in our country, become, sadly, eponymous with such things as “peace of mind”, “going with the flow”, “simplifying things”, or other such stuff that can be accomplished entirely without the use of real Zen. Take, for example, the website “Zen Habits” that is hugely popular (or so it would seem). The website seems to be about simplifying your life, becoming more organized, settling for some peace of mind, becoming “successful”, and other such crap. But it ain’t Zen. To use a bit of homespun phraseology, it would appear that the author of the website, Leo Babauta, wouldn’t know Zen if it walked right up and bit him in the ass.

But “Zen Habits” is far from the only transgressor of crappy, fake, pseudo-Zen. In doing only a cursory search, I even came across a video on Amazon for “Naked Zen Yoga” (or something such as that). It goes without saying that nothing in that video would actually be Zen.

To make matters even worse, once you find “authentic” Zen, even there you are going to find a host of things that, in my humble opinion, are not real Zen. Take, for example, the fact that most of American Buddhism (or so it would seem based on a few readings of popular Buddhist magazines such as Tricycle or Lion’s Roar) seems more like modern liberal Christianity, than it does Buddhism, just without Christ. But at least the Zennists practicing this form of Zen (Zen is a form of Buddhism, for those of you who didn’t know) seem to be, for the most part, rather sincere. Sure, there are some hucksters, but I’m guessing they are the minority and not vice versa. Most of the folks I’ve met who take Zen practice seriously, even if I wouldn’t buy into what can best be called their “metaphysics” or “epistemology”, do so with the best intentions at heart.

For the sake of this lone post, I don’t have enough space to get into all of the different “versions” of Zen that pervade the American marketplace, but perhaps I can do a post in the future on the different versions, which ones I like, which ones I despise, and which ones I think are pretty darn good even when I don’t agree with the authors’ view of Zen entirely. Let me add one caveat, as well: you can have very authentic, very real Zen of opposing viewpoints. The Soto Zen of Dogen, for instance, is authentic, I would say, even though it, at times, seems diametrically opposed to most of the teachings within Rinzai Zen. To take a more modern example, I’m not particularly fond of the flavor of Zen taught by the hugely popular Vietnamese monk (and prolific author) Thich Nhat Hanh, but to say that he’s not authentic would be entirely without truth, not to mention hugely arrogant on my part.

So in order to keep things lean and focused for this post, I have chosen one modern author that I think represents an authentic school of Zen, and a school that can speak to the martial artist, since “Zen Combat” will often represent a form of sudden awakening for the practitioner when performed with sincerity and with the right attitude during martial practice. This author is the late Korean Zen Master Seung Sahn.

Seung Sahn was the founder of the “Kwan Um” school of Korean Zen. Kwan Um combines elements of both Rinzai and Soto Zen (though primarily Rinzai in teaching, since it relies a lot on koans - kong ans in Korean) as well as elements that seem to be primarily Korean in nature. I mention this only at the outset so that you may do more external reading after this post if you are interested.

Zen in a Nutshell

Can Zen actually be put “in a nutshell”, so to speak? I don’t know. Perhaps it can at least be intellectually understood this way, which is what I’m going to attempt here. The realization actually comes during practice, whether that practice is while “on the cushion”, doing laundry, washing the friggin’ dishes, or performing Zen Combat - the techniques that will be discussed at length later on in future posts. The main point is that the Zennist must practice.

Coming empty-handed, going empty-handed - that is human nature. When you are born, where do you come from? When you die, where do you go? Life is like a floating cloud that appears. Death is like a floating cloud which disappears. The floating cloud originally does not exist. Life and death, coming and going, are also like that. But there is one thing that always remains clear. It is pure and clear, not depending on life and death. Then what is the one pure and clear thing?

-From a favorite teaching of Zen master Seung Sahn

Zen means understanding my true self. “What am I?” Everyone says “I am.” Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am.” We always say “I.” But what is this “I”? Where does this “I” come from? When you die, where does it go? These are the most important questions you can ever ask. If you attain this “I”, then you attain everything. That is because this “I” is part of universal substance. Your substance, this desk’s substance, this stick’s substance, the sun, the moon, the stars - everything’s substance is the same substance. So if you want to understand your true nature, first you must attain your original substance. This means attaining universal substance and the substance of everything.

-From The Compass of Zen

At this point, are you still asking yourself: Sloan, I just don’t know what this Zen Combat is anymore than I did when you first began this post. That’s okay. Seung Sahn would simply tell you to hold on to this “don’t know”, and not to let it go until “not knowing” explodes into All That Is.

In the meantime, read the above quotes over and over, in an almost contemplative, meditative manner. Don’t think about them. Just let them seep into your being. And in the next post on Zen Combat, we’ll learn a little more about Zen and how it truly ties into the martial arts.

Building Massive Forearms

The Soul of the Lifter

2016 Year in Review

Cemetery Circuit Training

Death and Iron

Building Impressive Strength in the Older Athlete, Part One

New Email

Classic Bodybuilding: Bill Pearl's Shoulder Training Programs

Minimalistic Mass, October Q&A

Classic Bodybuilding: Pat Casey's Powerlifting Routine

What Makes You Good, Makes You Bad

Massive Forearms, Building Tremendous Arm Strength, Training with Arm Wrestlers, and Roscoe

Coming Soon...

Lifting, the Arts (Martial Arts), and the Culture

Zen and the Hobbit-Hole of Christianity

Movie Review: Path to the Dream (2018)

Classic Bodybuilding: Serge Nubret's "Chase the Pump" Training

New Book: Ultimate Strength

Rock-Bottom Beast-Building

Zen Combat