I'm a person who goes to a gym to do his fitness training because I generally do better than training at home. Late last year, however, I purchased a pair of rubber-coated 35-lb. dumbbells and discovered the wild and crazy workout world of dumbbell complexes. Lately, I've been doing these dumbbell complexes at home in my garage on non-gym training days and they're doing their job of keeping me on my toes.
A dumbbell (or a barbell) complex is a type of strength circuit where you complete two or more exercises with a dumbbell back to back with no rest and where the dumbbell does not touch the ground until all exercises have been completed. You have completed one round or set once you've performed all the exercises that make up the complex.
A typical complex prescription will consist of "x" number of exercises that you perform for "x" repetitions for "x" rounds. Sometimes a weight is prescribed or the number of minutes that you should perform the complex. It's a general rule that you should scale all complexes to take into account your abilities and conditioning so that your efforts are productive and safe.
According to the website of Istvan Javorek, he was the first in the world to develop the concept of dumbbell and barbell complex exercises and asks that you "give credit to the creator." There are a number of dumbbell and barbell complexes that bear his surname and a quick search on YouTube will allow you to view a demonstration of them; they're all good.
My good friend, America's most decorated and successful Olympic weightlifter Tommy Kono, recently commented to me upon learning that I had dumbbell complex fever that the great bodybuilding legend John Grimek used to perform complex workouts many years ago and that there's nothing new under the sun. So this begs the question of who is the creator to whom credit should be given. That's not for me to answer.
Well I've currently got dumbbell complex fever and have designed several of my own versions tailored to my middle-aged man abilities. The criteria I use in designing my dumbbell complexes is that I like ones that consist of five different exercises where each exercise is performed for five repetitions for one round.
I like my dumbbell complex to consist of five rounds with a weight and intensity that requires me to work very hard to complete all five rounds in 15 minutes or less. This makes me work in my anaerobic heart rate zone of about 90 percent of my maximum heart rate. It's hard work but it doesn't take long to finish and then I'm done. I probably spend more time psychologically preparing myself for the hard work than the time it takes to do the hard work.
So let me introduce you to one of several dumbbell complexes I intend to share with you in the near future. This one works my lower body and provides a nice core challenge because it consists of exercises you perform with one hand. I call this one the Pierini Lower Body Dumbbell Complex #1. Why #1? Because there's a #2 that I've designed and will share with you in the near future.
Here's a video demonstration of it for your viewing pleasure:
Give it a test drive and tell me what you think of my Pierini Lower Body Dumbbell Complex.
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