.jpg)
June 11, 2025.
From the Author:
This book is a follow-up to my first book in this series, "Ultimate Mass and Power." That book is primarily a collection of different training programs to help you get incredibly strong and massively big. This book is concerned with the same topics - building massive amounts of strength, power, and hypertrophy - but it is a collection of essays instead of programs. Oh, there are some programs thrown in here and there. But this is for anyone who wants to be informed and (hopefully) entertained with some of my thoughts and ideas when it comes to building the ULTIMATE in Mass and Power.
If you enjoy reading the likes of "old school" writers such as Bill Starr, Bradley Steiner, and John McCallum, or modern-day writers such as Dan John or Pavel, this collection of essays should be right up your alley.
Note: Oh Hell Yeah! I loved the first book this fine gentleman published, and come Saturday when the above arrives, I can pretty much guarantee you I'll be all smiles.
If you like this blog, you'll love C.S. Sloan's work.
Here's a sweet layout that features overhead pressing and curling on two days, with the remainder of the work being done three days a week. It's very adaptable to each individual, and respects the lifter enough to allow for fine-tuning, tweaking and makin' that routine-suit fit just right.
Okay then . . . back to the real deal:
Anyone familiar with the writings of Bradley Steiner (and I'm sure you readers of this blog are), might be surprised that he actually recommended a form of split training. He called it the "Rugged Size and Strength Split Program." I have a good feeling that it was the only split program he ever wrote about.
So, what's this program look like?
We'll take a look at the major tenets of the routine, then I'll offer some suggestions for making the routine work for you. These suggestions will be based on both my own observations and those of Bradley Steiner.
Steiner said that this routine might be better described as a "divided" workout schedule instead of a "split" program because you divide up a total body workout and you don't use anything close to what's normally considered a split routine. Here's how the thing works:
On three non-consecutive days each week you perform the following:
Bench press
Bentover row
SDL
Squat
An ab exercise
On two other days during the week you perform the following:
Behind-the-neck press
Barbell curl
That's it. Pretty conservative for a "split" routine, isn't it? It can work wonders for your strength, however, if you follow these guidelines:
1) Don't perform the exact same set/rep scheme every training day and every week. Change things up! Some days (or weeks) use a 5x5. Some days, a 3x3. Other days, use heavy singles. And on some days you might want to go with 5/4/3/2/1.
You don't have to use the same set/rep scheme on each exercise. For instance, you might use the 5x5 on bench presses and bent rows, then use heavy singles on the deadlifts, and triples on the squats.
2) Make one or two days each week "light" days. This DOESN'T mean using high reps. It means cutting back on the poundages you are using. This helps recovery and keeps you from burning out.
3) Steiner recommended taking a week layoff every five weeks of hard, steady, progressive workouts. I think it is a good idea to take a break every five weeks, but I don't think you should take a complete layoff. Layoffs of an entire week tend to breed bad habits of being inconsistent with your training. Instead, have a down-week every five weeks where you cut back on the number of sets, the number of reps, and the amount of weight you are lifting. This will prevent overtraining while still not allowing you to miss workouts.
4) After every five-week cycle, don't be afraid to change the exercises around. Instead of bench presses, incline presses. Instead of SDLs, rack pulls. Instead of PBNs, standing overheads. The only exercise I don't want you changing, and Steiner and I would agree wholeheartedly on this, are the SQUATS.
5) Eat appropriately and rest well.
Is it Saturday yet?
Enjoy Your Lifting!
Wood
ReplyDeleteAh, that threadbare chair where
he sits whittling, just
high enough to believe
himself again.
"Thoughts on all things welcomed,"
he thinks to his selves
who are loved.
Would comedy even exist
without sadness?
Could we live
without laughter?
Know now, no
then
and how
sad-happily
night rambles on.
You're a poet and you didn't know it! But seriously though, my favorite article by C.S. Sloan is titled, "How You Feel Is A Lie". I have never so strongly agreed on an author's opinion than that subject.
ReplyDeleteEvery time I have to use my mind to overpower my body to get out in the gym and workout I end up having a terrific session. I usually am tired, sore or don't feel like lifting but when I get in there and start lifting my body wakes up and I am strong on all my lifts. On the other hand, when I'm fully rested and enthusiastic about lifting I usually have a lousy session and lift poorly.
In my opinion, my body thrives on adrenaline created by a fight or flight response which happens when I force myself to lift when I don't want to. After about 10 minutes into the workout my body comes alive and I am then so happy I decided to lift that day. So yeah, how you feel is a lie! When I'm exhausted I hit new highs on my lifts and when I feel great my strength is poor. Isn't life funny?!
https://cssloanstrength.blogspot.com/2023/07/how-you-feel-is-lie.html
DeleteYeah! Life's funny and I like it. I had one-a those workouts this afternoon. Whine, whine, I don't feel up to it, blah blah blah. After my usual one minute warmup and two warmup sets of incline DB presses it was wunnerful and I wanted to do more and more and more, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.
DeleteI'm a poet and some nights I wish I never knew it. But then, see above. It's the same deal. Once we get out of our own way it's a much smoother trip alright.
Delete...Or, perhaps how y'feel mentally (oh darn - - will that be flagged as a politically-incorrect trigger word which might ruin a person's entire life??...) might be a lie relative to what the body is capable of doing on that day?
DeleteI've experienced that lie in two directions during my 54 years of hoisting iron.
Have experienced days I've begun a workout genuinely enthusiastic and feeling strong only to discover I'm reduced to baby poundages and/or low volume; and days I've begun a workout like described, with my head elsewhere or claiming "not today", yet I discover I'm enhanced on super-soldier serum.
But, more often, how i feel mentally and what I'm capable of that day do equate. Plenty of times, I have gone in feeling exhausted and my lifts do in fact falter; and plenty of other times I begin a workout feeling strong and my lifts are in fact strong.
My lesson learned decades ago from all that is, "Unless I'm injured, don't let how I feel decide whether to do a workout. A good-enough-as-I-can-do-today workout is a good workout; consistently keeping a workout schedule, not consistently perfect workouts, means I'll progress".
Well, DID mean. After about age 65, "progress" has changed to mean, "slowing the inevitable aging-induced REgress"!