Introduction:
It would be borderline impossible to find a weightlifting program that doesn’t include complexes as a training tool. But how are weightlifting complexes decided? What purpose(s) do they serve? How should a complex evolve over the course of training weeks or months?
*If you’d like to listen to more about complexes, check out Ep. 10 of Weightlifting.ai podcast*
This article will arm you with the knowledge of what a complex is, why you would use it, how to correctly incorporate it into your programs, and how to overcome common trouble areas.
What even is a weightlifting complex?
A complex is quite simply “two or more dissimilar exercises with two or more reps.
As Max Aita and I discussed in Ep. 10 of Weightlifting.ai podcast, “you’re trying to use them in a way that’s building capacity, building technique, or building consistency — some kind of potential success with the classic lift.”
In its most basic form, it is the stringing together of exercises. A few simple examples include:
- No Feet Snatch Pull + Snatch
- Clean + Front Squat + Jerk Dip + Jerk
- Power Jerk + Jerk, Pause in Split
In its more nuanced form, a complex is still the above definition but extended to include two or more dissimilar exercises and a set size of two or more repetitions.
Meanwhile, a snatch triple and 1RM pause snatch are not complexes, as those exercises lack sufficient variation and number of movements. For the selection of exercises and repetition number, a complex should also serve a purpose beyond “Oh, I should do a snatch pull + snatch” logic. Proper implementation of a complex leads to effects within different time domains — creating acute, chronic, and compounded changes that ultimately can improve technique and work capacity.
Including complexes in your training
Sometimes a complex can serve a general purpose like satisfying the criteria of training variation. Other times, complexes are used, well, more complexly. This could include three to five different movement pieces strung together in a strategic way (i.e., push press + power jerk + split jerk, pause in dip + split jerk).
On the shortest time scale, complexes potentiate the movement that we want and follow it up with an exercise to overlay that change.
With effects taking days to weeks to develop, changes occur in technique and work capacity. Initially there is a learning effect, seeing the lift or string of lifts jump in performance. This is due to quick improvements in coordination. Someone that has never performed a hang snatch + snatch can expect that to climb dramatically in a short span of time.
For weeks to months (and beyond), adaptations may occur in muscle size, work capacity, technique, and nearly every other alterable quality augmented by total contractions over time, exercise variation, and the metabolic processes involved. This is because larger windows of time give space for delayed training effects to take hold
Why even do complexes?:
The impact complexes can have on technique, work capacity, muscle size, and ability to perform under fatigue all have major influences on your competition performance.
The understanding of technique, its adoption and expression under different conditions, and any potential change to what’s been established is made possible by information. From a psychological standpoint, this is conceptual information. From a physiological standpoint, this is movement feedback. Cues, drills, exercise variations, deliberate practice, all integrate into the movement system to create an executable technique. Changes in technique are made possible by exposure to new information that refines established movement. To be able to continually practice the sport, especially with meaningful weights, means gathering more and more feedback, then with the correct integration, more efficient movement.
Improve work capacity
One of the most underrated aspects of the training process is the development of the ability to do work. This matters because there is a minimum amount of training that must be done to improve, in any measurable way. As you become more trained, this amount can grow. To effectively accomplish all of that work, recover from it, then perform at a high enough level to continue driving adaptations, a tolerance to work needs to be created. A steady drip of training over a given timeframe will do this. Complexes are a mighty effective tool at improving work capacity. A quality closely tied to work capacity is muscle size, almost entirely with respect to heavier barbell training. A stimulus for muscle growth is mechanical tension, and increases in that across time. Most bodybuilding programs incorporate increases in rep or set number to build volume across training cycles. Similarly, complexes create stimuli for growth, supporting weightlifting performance long-term.
To create a bit of familiarity with the concept of work capacity, view it from a few different perspectives: Acute work capacity is synonymous with endurance. Intra-set there are adaptations taking place that allow an athlete to do more work with the same load. Then, more broadly, we see the ability to do more work with a specific exercise and load within a workout without accumulating significantly more fatigue (i.e. 3 sets of 5 reps at 60kg week one, then 5 sets of 5 reps at 60kg week four). A longer-term adaptation is tolerating more total work across weeks. This could mean increasing rep count from week one to week five without experiencing non-functional overreaching (e.g. 200 reps on week one, then 225 reps on week four).
The actual physiological changes behind alterations in work capacity can quickly get in the weeds, but roughly the short-term endurance changes include an enhanced buffering capacity, efficiently eliminating the metabolic by-products of muscular contractions as they accumulate. For longer-term changes we see a tolerance of, and an increased ability to recover from, physically fatiguing training. So, there is less damage occurring because of a particular amount of training and an enhanced recovery from, due to increased capillarization of the tissues, a greater supply of blood and nutrients to, and an enhanced removal of by-products.
Improve fatigue management
Acutely, technique and fatigue are most augmented. Think of it like you’re trying to remember a phone number: You quickly look at it, rehearse it, and then go type it into your phone. With a complex, you’re trying to do the same thing: You perform a movement that forces you to use better technique, then you try to quickly “remember it” as you perform the next lift or sequence of lifts.
From a fatigue standpoint, complexes essentially do the same thing. Fatigue accumulates during a set, then we must recall optimal technique under more difficult conditions. If we can lift tired, we can lift more when fresh (at least in theory).
Another shorter-term consequence of complex training is the ability to replicate lifts under varying levels of accumulated fatigue. A clean + front squat + jerk complex is largely used to generate fatigue before the jerk without taking the bar back down to the floor. If technical and efficient jerks can be performed when tired, distracted, near the edge of blacking out, not much can shake you at a competition.
Fatigue can be both acute and chronic, creating different conditions at which the right technique must be recalled. Our first example was acute fatigue, but chronic fatigue is the result of training across a broader span of time, seeing potential reductions in force output, alterations in mood, feelings of tiredness, soreness, and a host of other changes. Both conditions challenge movement, creating a stimulus for more solidified change if it can be executed correctly.
Together, you see increased efficiency of movement, developments to work capacity and full body muscle mass, along with replicating that dialed technique in many different conditions. These enhancements can all be chalked up to the correct use of complexes within a training program.
When to incorporate complexes into programming?
Generally, it’s difficult to say exactly when you should be doing complexes, but here are some rough guardrails to play around with.
Context matters the most. It should already be decided that you want to use them as a means of targeting the above qualities (work capacity, technique, etc). Once that’s established, you can start to populate them into training, with decided volumes and intensities.
For a competition calendar, complexes can be used throughout. There are no hard and fast rules stating they must be used during general blocks and absent in more specific or competitive blocks.
Generally, coaches follow the concept of training specificity tightly, using larger volumes of varied training earlier on, and medium volumes of specific training later. Of course, there is plenty of nuance, with examples below to showcase different ways of approaching this. Our guardrails would more so dictate the exercises and size of the sets. But a competition prep could look something like:
Work Capacity Block
Clean + Jerk + 2 Hang Clean
Specific/Intensity Block
NF Clean Pull + Hang Clean + Clean + Jerk
Competition Block
Clean + Front Squat + Jerk
Each phase includes complexes adjusted to fit the needs of the training block.
How to write complexes into a program
Now we can get into the Xs and Os of programming. While complexes can be performed any day, any week and during any block, the construction of each complex will almost entirely decide placement.
Blocks furthest out from a meet can entail more variation in exercise selection and placement, larger training volumes, and lower to moderate percentages. When programming for this block, ask
- What does the athlete need?
- How is the complex best constructed to match the purposes of the block?
- What are the volume and intensity progressions?
- How will it change across blocks to best sequence training?
Some answers may look like:
- The athlete needs a better explosion phase, and more active arm action in the squat under
- The complex should target technique weakness and general work capacity
- Initial intensities are: W1 70%, W2 75%, W3 80%+
- The set size for a general block is 3-4 reps per set
- This will move from general work capacity to specific, with reps per set decreasing, and intensity increasing
Put together we get:
Work Capacity Block
Week 1: NF Clean Pull + Clean + Jerk + Hang Clean Above the Knee (ABK) at 60-70% for 3-4 sets
Week 2: NF Clean Pull + Clean + Jerk + 2 Hang Cleans ABK at 65-75% for 3-4 sets
Week 3: NF Clean Pull + Clean + Jerk + 2 Hang Cleans ABK at 70-80+% for 4 sets
Week 4: NF Clean Pull + Clean + Jerk + Hang Clean ABK at 70% for 3 sets
Specific (Intensity-focused) Block
Week 1: NF Clean Pull + Hang Clean ABK + Clean + Jerk at 65-75% for 5-6 sets
Week 2: NF Clean Pull + Hang Clean ABK + Clean + Jerk at 70-80% for 5 sets
Week 3: NF Clean Pull + Hang Clean ABK + Jerk at 75-85+% for 5 sets
- Note: Feel free to drop the jerk and max your hang clean
Week 4: NF Clean Pull + Hang Clean ABK + Clean + Jerk at 70% for 3 sets
Competition Block
Week 1: Clean + 2 Front Squats + Jerk at 70-80% for 5-6 sets
Week 2: Clean + Front Squat + Jerk at 75-85% for 5 sets
Week 3: Clean + Front Squat + Jerk at 90+%, drop 15% and do 3-4/Clean + FS + Jerk
- Note: Drop the front squat and max your clean and jerk
Week 4: Taper (approaches here will vary substantially based on the coach’s preferences)
This is a neatly laid out progression, but it could be nuanced based on the situation. There is a lot of wiggle room with how complexes are constructed and distributed, but if you follow the criteria of more complex -> less, lighter -> heavier, higher reps per set -> less reps per set, you’ll be on the right path.
What can go wrong with weightlifting complexes?
Although improved work capacity is a natural by-product of higher training volumes, complexes designed to develop capacity can morph into more work for the sake of doing work. Deciding that a program should have a snatch + 3 overhead squats can make sense, but it can also be overkill.
Along with overloading work for work’s sake, arbitrarily picking exercises errs in the same direction. Saying “I think we need more low hang snatches” misses the point. A few broader criteria deserve priority when constructing a program, one of those criteria is exercise sequencing with another being remediating technical inefficiencies. Both rest entirely on the appropriate exercises and their changing over time. Low hang snatches for someone who struggles with the transition makes sense, but it wouldn’t for someone who can’t direct the bar properly after contact (actually it might, but that’s a nuanced conversation).
The next struggle could be missing the adaptation “boat” with exercise selection. For more difficult training days, i.e. sessions using higher percentages of a one rep max, using light exercises in a complex will limit the absolute intensity. Muscle snatches to start a snatch complex are inherently very limiting. Doing clean + low hang clean + power jerk when your power jerk is significantly worse than your clean may limit the weight you can use for the complex and sacrifice a bit of the training intensity needed for the clean. Pick the correct exercises to satisfy a suite of criteria, including desired training intensity.
While there can be strategic exercise selection, volume management, and sequencing, failure to prioritize what the exercises are meant to accomplish can lead to a smoothie complex. Say someone struggles with the bar rolling forward off of the floor, along with pushing long enough through the transition, and then directing the bar up with the arms and shoulders. You might program:
Deficit Snatch Pull to Knee + Deficit No Feet Snatch Pull + Deficit Snatch + Hang Snatch
There isn’t anything inherently wrong with that complex for developing general work capacity. But if it’s meant to target a single error or a more concentrated approach to technique refinement, it contains far too many working parts that are all somewhat similar, but just varied enough. Hence, instead of a strawberry drink, we get a chocolate, pineapple, spinach, and oats smoothie. It’s healthy… But it doesn’t taste great.
Using complexes to improve work capacity, muscle and technique
In general, complexes are an incredible tool. As with all tools, they can be used incorrectly. Have you ever tried to hammer in a nail with a wrench?
For the most part you’ll be on the right path if you use complexes to develop work capacity, build sport specific muscle mass, improve technique, improve performance under fatigue, and/or sequence training. The stock training strategy of more volume, lower intensities, greater exercise variation -> moderate volumes, higher average weights, lower exercise variation does hold. Complexes accomplish this in a more effective, interesting, and nuanced way.
“We use complexes as a way to develop capacity, to target and emphasize… specific aspects of the lift we want to improve… and then we think about how we assemble these complexes to capture one of those goals.” - Max Aita, Ep. 10 of the Weightlifting.ai podcast
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