6 Week to Super Hero Crowded Gym

Bigger Stronger Leaner Christian Thibaudeau Coaching
1

Coach,

I am unable to complete a 5 complex in the gym, just too crowded. My options would either be smaller complex (2-3 exercises) or follow the exercises in a linear format, or a combination of both depending upon the day. I know it is not optimal. Can you offer any advice or suggestions?

Thanks

2

I’m puzzled. When I do complexes, I’m using the same bar for all the exercises. Sometimes I feel like I’m hogging the squat rack, but I don’t see how a crowded gym makes a complex more different to arrange.

3

https://www.t-nation.com/strength-training-topics/1119

1 Like
4

Thank you for the link

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5

There are two types of complexes… barbell complexes (like “The Bear” for example) which uses the same bar and the same weight for all exercises.

An example of a barbell complex would be:

5 power clean
5 push press
5 front squats

These would be done without dropping the bar (so move on to the push press after the 5th clean and on to the front squat after the 5th press).

And true complexes which are simply an arrangement of several exercises done in succession (kinda like the strength version of a superset, but with rest between exercises).

For example:

Back squat x 5 reps
Rest 90 sec
Jump squat (20% of squat) x 5 reps
Rest 90 sec
Vertical jump x 10 reps
END OF COMPLEX, rest 2-3 minutes before next round

Barbell complexes do not take more space, but complexes made of several exercises do.

6

Looks like the thread for the crowded gym complex is down, does anyone have this program? I would like to start this.

7

I wasnt a program per se, it was a modification to the original program (6 weeks to super hero)

The gist was that you picked 3 points on the “star”, trying to cover the full force spectrum still, and just did those instead of the full 5 point complex.

For example a full complex would look like this

Exercise #, Force/strength point being trained, Reps

  1. Top-half squat, Overload, 2 - 5 reps
  2. Front squat, Strength, 3 - 5, reps
  3. Power snatch from hang , Strength-Speed, 2 - 3 reps
  4. Jump squat with bar, Speed-Strength, 8 - 10 reps
    5: Vertical jump series, Explosive, 8 - 10 reps

This might require having 2-3 bars loaded at once (since the unloading of weight to get from exercises 1-4 would be both time consuming and tiresome)

The answer would be to pick 3 of the exercises that cover “everything” and just do those. So exercises 1,3,5, or 2,4,5 for example. But not exercises 1,2,3 (since you are not training Speed or explosiveness), and not 3,4,5 since you are obviously leaving out heavy strength work.

It becomes more apparent in other complexes that require multiple bars/dumb bells/medicine balls (I didnt realize this until after I spent more time on this post than I thought I would… youll have to do the work for the other ones :wink: )

8

Thank you very much. Ill give it a try