Barbell Complexes

I know most of us don’t set new year's resolutions.  We’ve talked about it before, it’s a lot of build up and not a lot of follow through.  I know that Goal Setting is something a lot of us shy away from.  For various reasons, Goal Setting, or verbalizing our goals, isn’t a driving force.  I also know that for a lot of us the goal is to just be consistent, keep training and not let our nutrition fall off the rails. This is a good place to start and I think each of us, if we allow ourselves, can dig a little deeper.

We’ve seen a lot of barbell complexes over the first half of the year, and we’ve got another one this month.  The Incredible Hulk.  So what’s with all these complexes, why are we doing them?  

In our experience, we’ve found complexes are great ways to train strength, stamina and cardio all in one.  Training needs to have a blend of single movement focus and multiple movement combinations.  It needs to vary in stimulus to help you reach your desired outcomes.  Barbell Complexes are a nice tool to pull out and utilize.  

They challenge you both mentally and physically and dare you to hit the easy button.  They are also great ways to break down more complicated movements into manageable pieces and help you become more confident with the overall movement.  With each of our complexes, we’re taking moderate weight and moving it through multiple movement patterns including hinging, squatting and pressing. Each of which can be challenging on their own and when you combine them can have very potent and beneficial results. Complexes improve your strength endurance and ability to move varying loads for extended periods of time, your grip strength and the cardiorespiratory benefits that compound movement require. 

Yes, they can be awkward.  If you’re new to compound movements, complexes can be intimidating or confusing.  There’s a lot of working parts and you might get confused about what goes where.  That’s ok.  We’ve all been there before and many of us are still there now, even after years of training.  The important thing to remember is that as you are getting used to the movements, we want you to be safe and approach them with an open mind.  Be ready to accept the coaching, be willing to try things differently, be willing to be a little uncomfortable. 

• Barbell Complexes are challenging.  They require a lot from you, which has it’s costs, but are far outweighed by the benefits.

• Barbell Complexes are efficient.  They allow us to hit multiple things in one move and turn up the dial. 

• Barbell Complexes are fun.  Whether you love the barbell or are intimidated by it, complexes bring a level of excitement to training that you don’t always get with single movement lifts. 
  

They might not be the most popular form of barbell work that we have, but barbell complexes do add a nice seasoning to our training menu.  I hope you’ve enjoyed the ones you’ve seen so far and continue to challenge yourself with the ones yet to come.  

As always. 

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