After being a group of five last week, this week’s workout saw only Peter and me coming – all the others had plenty of reasons to excuse themselves.

This workout came about without real planning, so we were going to work on the basics instead of handling fancy exercises. Peter has finally gotten his own 24 kg Kettlebell, so we based our workout mainly about this tool which still is a tremendous challenge for both of us.

After toying around a while with the Kettlebells (double Kettlebell work is tremendously challenging – I thought it to be easier, going even as far as thinking about doing metabolic conditioning work with it), we decided on a workout. The final result was:

Metabolic Conditioning

3 rounds of

24 kg Kettlebell Complex

• Push press
• One-armed swing
• One-armed high-pull
• Clean
• Squat

5 repetitions each, left + right

Each round was complemented with a approx. 200-meter-run.

This workout turned out to be a lot harder than I initially thought and I turned out to do a downwards ladder of 5-4-3 repetitions for the respective rounds, which was challenge enough. Peter was braver than me and completed the full five repetitions for each round. What proved hard to accomplish for me was maintaining the grip. I have to admit that my second and third round were shadowed with an extremely high frequency of resting the Kettlebell on the round – which defies the purpose of training with complexes, which is maintaining the grip throughout exercise execution.

Post-Fatigue

Peter came up with the idea of the ‘Man-Maker’. This is a complex consisting of:

• Push-up on the Kettlebells
• Renegade row on both sides
• Double clean
• Squat

Three rounds of five repetitions each were planned. I again reduced the number of repetitions due to pain and fatigue, Peter did the whole amount. This exercise is especially challenging for the abdominal section of the body. Doing the renegade rows, it’s the wrong question to ask which muscles of the body currently are working – the right question would be: Which ones of them aren’t working? This exercise feels just like the whole body being under tension. In this respect, I’d like to compare renegade rows with turkish get-ups.

The workout was completed with a few sets of push-ups plus renegade rows as finisher, before we packed our things and started the way home.

Lessons I learned from the workout today are the following

• A towel is an elementary piece of equipment – you can never know how much you will sweat
• A second pack of clothes also is a good idea if you have a long way home – especially for the upper body, which is usually soaked in sweat and cold
• Take something to eat with you for post-workout nutrition. I favor bananas for the job – as for protein, this is a good field of usage for protein powders – as they are easily transportable in a shaker. Add water and drink it.
• It is essential to train your grip strength. The grip is the first thing that lets loose and limits your abilities.

So far, so good. On to the next workout

Train on and stay strong,
Simon

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Breathe in - work out.

Whenever either time is scarce or your hunger for a extremely intense workout is impossible to satisfy, training with complexes is the right thing to do. We did lots of complexes with kettlebells during the last few workouts – but this workout surpassed the experiences we gathered up to now.

For this workout session, our CrassFit crew has gathered in complete – with the exception of Harald, who is working out with Till Sukopp this weekend. I, Dominik, Rainer, Peter and his sister Jozy – we did our best.

First off the facts:

Warm-up

Carrying the equipment to the place of the workout Farmer’s walk for half a kilometer with lots of weight is fine for a workout

Pre-Fatigue

4 rounds of

• 8 repetitions handstand push-up (assisted)
• 8 repetitions towel pull-up

If the prescribed repetitions could not be achieved, the maximum in repetitions was the goal. For those who had a hard time doing (assisted) handstand push-ups, they were substituted with push-ups with elevated legs.

Metabolic Conditioning

3 rounds of the following barbell complex

• Bent over row
• Clean
• Military Press
• Front Squat
• Back Squat
• Good Morning

8 repetitions per exercise

The experience of such a workout is bar description. At each and every point you either approach muscular or grip failure – although normally the grip is the element that fatigues earlier. It was a real relief that we could ‘rest’ the barbell from the back squats on – otherwise, the load would have been too much of a challenge.

We adapted the load to the strength and endurance level we could sustain. Rainer and me, we used 20 kg of weight, Peter 40 kg and Dominik stunning 50 kg, which were operated in a machine-like accuracy and speed. Impressive! Jozy started with 20 kg and did a reduced workout – which is perfectly alright. It’s important that you sustain a distinct workload that fits to your abilities in order to progress.

Post-Fatigue

Kettlebell complex work

• 10 one-handed swings (each side)
• 10 snatches (each side)
• 10 cleans (each side)
• 10 overhead presses (each side)
• 10 forward lunges
• 10 both-handed swings
• 5 snatches (each side)

Focus was on work for time with a specific load – a skill that we already trained with the barbell complexes. Jozy used a small dumbbell, Peter, me and Rainer used the 16 kg kettlebell and Dominik challenged himself with my green monster (24 kg).

Here, the grip also is the limiting factor – next to the fatigue that limits what is possible over time.

Finisher

As we were not destroyed yet ( ), Dominik decided on a finisher exercise: Farmer’s walk! We did circles around a sandbox – for those challenging themselves with 2 x 24 kg (kettlebells), 2 rounds were assigned (Jozy did 2 rounds with 2 x 16 kg), those who went for 2 x 40 kg (16 + 24 kg kettlebell per hand), one round was sufficient. I personally did one round for two times (sets) with 80 kg of load – a new personal best

Now we were really done – and had our problems carrying the weights back to our cars. No wonder I felt extremely tired this evening and went to bed relatively early.

Conclusio

What a great workout! All of us enjoyed it and we learned a lot from it – and hopefully progress in power and endurance by doing workouts like this one



Dancers in the dark



Dancers in the dark




























Breathe in – work out.



Our dancer in the dark :)










Instructions















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The question, which exercise is the best, oftenly arouses. There are proponents of many exercises but generally the choice can be narrowed down to a few basic compound exercises: The clean, the snatch, the squat, the deadlift, the overhead press, either dip or bench press.

But nothing beats the power of a complex. A complex is a continuous compound consisting of a number of exercises that are done consecutively. By doing this, you can combine the advantages of a squat with the benefits of the overhead press by incorporating them both in the exercise complex. I was inspired to do this by my comrade Dominik, who has done a great blog post on his work with complexes. Once again, his source of inspiration is the legend Dan John.

The CrossFit crew also works with complexes and has created a workout of the day (WoD) for this purpose: The Bear.

But there are countless other options how to design a complex. For instance, I tried out a downward ladder complex (starting from 4 repetitions) of clean, push press and front squat with two 16 kg kettlebells

Compare my efforts to Dominik’s training partner Willi. He is doing this exercise with the barbell and from 5 repetitions down (beast ).

I can tell you that this workout brings you to your limits in an extremely short span of time. It is not only the exercise itself that is so exhausting, the grip challenge is even more of a battle. Especially with kettlebells, it’s hard to maintain a firm grip over an extended period of time. Keep in mind that your grip is pre-fatigued with every step down the ladder. I had to fight hard with the grip already at the 3 repetition ladder. Hard to imagine how the 5 repetition downward ladder must feel like – I look forward to trying it!

From what I have experienced, I can wholeheartedly recommend complexes for training. They train the body as one unit and every musle of the body has its share in successfully surviving the workout.

Train on and stay strong,
Simon

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