Mostly cause they suck……
- Why would you do a lunge and a curl?
- What benefit do you get out of doing these together that you wouldn’t get out of doing them apart?
I honestly can’t think of one…
Why not just squat then press?
Now I’m not talking about dumbbell or barbell complex’s, one exercise after the next with the same barbell or dumbbell, those have a purpose.
Example: Same weight, same bar, no rest….
Complexes, unlike combination lifts, move in a logical order from one lift to the next with the order of the lifts being dictated in large part by the accumulated fatigue of the exercise(s) before. Complexes are really just a circuit with the same weight and no rest between exercises..
But Combination lifts, like we see here:
Deadlift to Bent Over Row: Sumo Squat to Biceps Curl:
Just don’t make sense because of two inherent problems:
- The weight used for at least one of the exercises is inappropriate. It’s either too much or waaaay too light.
- Most people are not that good at one exercise at a time, let alone two, together, at the same time.
For Example:
Sumo Squat and Curl
I’m hoping your lower body is MUCH stronger than your biceps. If it’s not you’re going to be in the market for a nice hoveround scooter soon.
This is the result of stupid programming…and Twinkies.
So let’s assume you’re going to use a weight that challenges your biceps (for the average run of the mill woman), say 15lbs an arm. When you do the squat you’re legs get 30lbs of external weight…..which is……virtually NOTHING…
Let’s flip it.
You choose a weight that challenges your lower body, let’s say 100lbs ,this is NOT a lot of weight for most, especially trained females to “sumo” squat, but I don’t know ANY who can curl it…hell, that’s outside what most guys can curl.
Or
Deadlift/Bent Over Row Combo:
Lets say you can row 30lbs dumbbells, this is a free-standing, bent over row….so, no support. That would be a pretty good number for most women to do correctly.
If you can bent over row this I’m guessing you have some pretty good posterior chain (Butt, hamstrings, Low back,) and core strength…That means deadlifting 60lbs would be a joke…
The row would get trained but there would be NO TRAINING EFFECT for the deadlift.
See the problem?
Only half of what you’re trying to accomplish gets done if anything at all.
You’re wasting a lot of time and effort when you could just do a set of squats with a challenging weight then a set of curls with a challenging weight and…I don’t know….
build muscle,
burn fat,
get stronger and….
IMPROVE……
There is one common defense of these “combination exercises” which may seem valid until you think about it in the context of the user.
This defense usually goes, “They are good for beginners. Combination exercises help them learn the movements.”
With very out of shape and raw beginners it may, in fact, be possible to challenge them with combos like the ones above.
They probably will get challenged with a set of squat and curls with 10lbs weights because just body weight alone is enough to “smoke” them when doing lower body movements, adding 20lbs of external weight will really make things difficult…
And that’s ok, until you think about something..
they’re beginners…
Beginners SUCK….they’re not good, if they were, they would not be beginners, and combination exercises would not be effective muscle builders.
This goes for ALL things in life..it’s just a fact. We ALL SUCK when we start, maybe get a little better and with enough time, work, and perseverance we end up above average or acceptable…
- Shit
- Suck
- Good
- Great
Dave Tate
Only 1% reach Great…Most stay stuck at Shit or Suck…
Point is….If they aren’t very good at this whole “exercise” thing why in the world would we ask them to do 2 separate exercises, that they will struggle with, at the same time?
Me thinks this to be somewhat illogical…
That’s why I think these combination lifts are in the same category as unstable surface training: they’re difficult to complete and you don’t get much out of them……except maybe tired…
Great for the circus..bad for just about everything else.
Honestly, I think they’re used by magazines as filler and trainers as a way to make things more “difficult” but not necessarily challenging (physiologically speaking).
Next time you come across an article and it has these types of combination lifts in it think about the reasons you’re doing exercise X,Y,Z and what outcome you’re trying to get.
If the exercises were separate would you use that weight for both of those lifts?
Will using that weight and rep range get you the outcome you’re looking for?
Doe’s the pairing make sense?
Is a step up with the same weight you can press really going to get you where you want to be?
Me thinks not…
That said, there are some combination exercises that make sense in certain situations, but on the whole, if you’re using or worse relying on these, you’re wasting your time.
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