ShareToday, I have a new article and awesome workout for you to try from my bestie Shawna K. I love doing these workout complexes when on the road, because you only need a pair of dumbbells and it’s quick.
Also, I’ve been teaching her how to speak Australian… with interesting results. Give it a burl. 
Take it away Shawna K!
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G’Day Mate!
Kate and I speak different languages.
Seriously, half the time we need an interpreter to translate her Aussie/New York slang into Canadian lingo.
But recently, I found this translation guide to be very helpful when hanging around with Kate:
Even though we’re from different countries, we see eye to eye on training.
I’ve had opportunity to train with her on a number of occasions. One of our favorite things to do is the “Stairs from Hell” at the San Diego convention center.
Yes, you are correct, there is NO end to those stairs….
Another favorite style of workout is doing complexes.
You know that Kate is all about the studies, so you’ll be happy to hear that doing complex style workouts is fully backed by science.
Workouts are short and intense and they both burn fat and build muscle in record time. And if you don’t think you want to build as much muscle as possible, think again.
You want muscle, not just for muscle sake, but for it’s sexy good looks.
Skeletal muscle makes up around 40% of the body on an average person. When you add muscle to your frame, your body becomes a calorie-burning machine. You’ll burn more calories, even at rest.
Powers, Scott K. (Scott Kline), Exercise physiology: theory and applications to fitness and performance/ Scott K. Powers, Edward T. Howley. – 6th ed.
That’s the added bonus of intense short workouts too. It’s called EPOC or ‘post exercise oxygen consumption’ which is really short for ‘burn mega calories even when you’re done sweating’.
Yay to burning more calories at rest!
Okay, I know you’re chomping at the bit for a complex workout, but I want to point out a few things about complexes before that.
If you’re going to do a complex workout, make sure you follow these simple rules:
• Do your most difficult exercises at the beginning
• Make sure your form is perfect.
• Keep the rep range to around low, especially for tough moves like overhead squats and heavy lifts.
• Work to increase LOAD rather than increase speed during your complex workout.
• Keep a balance between upper and lower body moves.
• Avoid pure upper body complexes where grip strength may be the limiting factor.
• Have a lot of fun with changing formats from timed sets, to counting reps to using a different implement: a complex with a DB is much different than a KB or BB, but you can swap them out for great variety.
Here’s a dumbbell complex workout:
Start with a full body dynamic warm up.
Then do:
• Romanian deadlift
• High pull
• Front squat push press (goblet squat press with KB)
• Bent over row (do single arm row with KB if you only have one KB)
• Weighted burpee with push up (burpee on the floor when using KB)
Do 30 seconds of work with 5 seconds of transition.
Rest as needed between rounds.
Do up to 6 rounds.
Now, you can shake this up by doing 7 reps of each exercise for 3-4 rounds.
Or as mentioned, you could do three rounds of 7 reps using a BB, DB’s, and finally a KB for each round.
That’s three variations of the same workout, just by changing the tool, time and rep scheme.
Pretty cool right? And you can get it all done in less than 25 minutes.
If you’d like to have safe and effective complexes laid out for you and have a video tutorial of each, then you’ll love my Challenge Complexes program. I’ll walk you through 27 dumbbell and barbell challenge complex workouts.
You can use these workouts a stand alone program, or pull one out on the days when you want something quick to hit your entire body. You’ll also get eight video KB complexes that are a super fun way to change things up.
Complexes are rip snorting fun <= ha, great Aussie slang right there!
