[Ben]

Anyone know any decent ones?

An example would be CrossFit's Barbell BEAR complex

Deadlift -> Clean -> Front Squat -> Press -> Back Squat -> Press



Cheers in advance

[Gubernatrix]

Slightly off topic but does anyone know where the bear comes from? Is it a Crossfit thing or did they just adopt it?

I am curious because I remember seeing two guys in my gym do this a few years ago (2005-ish). Neither of them knew anything about Crossfit at the time, AFAIK.

[Will Walshe]

Not sure I follow, Ben.

The bear isn't really designed to make you stronger, it's metabolic conditioning. If someone isn't very strong to begin with, they might very well get stronger from doing it, but in a more advanced athlete once you introduce any major element of fatigue into a set you're not really working on pure strength anymore. In practise this tends to mean doing more than 5ish reps or taking short breaks between sets.

Gubes, not sure about the full history of the bear, but I don't think it's a crossfit original at any rate. I dimly remember there being a guy out there with an amazingly badly formatted website who claims to have invented barbell complexes some time in the 60s...must see if I can track that down.

[Ben]

Will Walshe, on Sep 22 2008, 01:51 PM, said:

Not sure I follow, Ben.

The bear isn't really designed to make you stronger, it's metabolic conditioning. If someone isn't very strong to begin with, they might very well get stronger from doing it, but in a more advanced athlete once you introduce any major element of fatigue into a set you're not really working on pure strength anymore. In practise this tends to mean doing more than 5ish reps or taking short breaks between sets.

That is a very good point!

Not too sure what i was thinking about at the time, must of been one of those moments. I'll change it to just "complexes" =)

Thanks haha

[Schwinners]

Will Walshe, on Sep 22 2008, 01:51 PM, said:

Gubes, not sure about the full history of the bear, but I don't think it's a crossfit original at any rate. I dimly remember there being a guy out there with an amazingly badly formatted website who claims to have invented barbell complexes some time in the 60s...must see if I can track that down.

I think you might be referring to Istvan Javorek?
http://istvanjavorek.com/

I remember seeing The Bear in MH mag years ago when I was at uni (about 4-5 years ago I reckon)...

[Will Walshe]

That's the one! It's actually better-looking than I remembered, even though it still hurts my eyes a little...

[Gubernatrix]

Judging by what he says on the website, he's a bit miffed that most people have forgotten where complexes came from! Sorry Javorek!

[RossMc]

Really stupid question - what's a complex and what do they do?

[Matt M]

It's when people talk behind your back and you think they're doing so.

In this regard, it's simply a group of exercises performed one after the other with the same bar with the same weight with little rest. Typically low reps for each movement for X minutes. Another variation is to perform X reps of each exercise on the minute, etc.

[RossMc]

I get it, cheers Matt So it's sort of like a tabata with weights...?

I'm currently doing a 5 day workout, split between metcon and strength days. If I wanted to introduce complexes would I put them into a metcon or a strength day? To my uneducated mind they seem like they'd be good for either.

[Will Walshe]

Complexes probably aren't optimal for strength gains for 2 main reasons:

They're long, so you'll be fatigued and unable to express maximal strength on any given movement.

They're limited by the weakest exercise. In the example of the bear complex, it's probably going to be shoulder press limited for anyone who isn't on some insane adaptation curve all of their own and can press more than they can deadlift or backsquat.

So my vote is for metcon, Ross.