Tier System Impact on The Power Complex

Why am I writing this blog? I have found a new way to rotate and use exercises in The Power Complex. For those of you new to this blog, SCN, and me The Power Complex is something I learned from Coach Jeff Jones back in 2022 when I was head S&C at Towson and he was at Arkansas State. I have since then applied it with college football and track athletes who produced better than or equal to vertical jump and sprint performance. I have also presented on this topic at 10 difference clinics/conferences since 2024, including most recently at NSCA National Conference in 2026 at New Orleans. This has been adopted by coaches all over the country from here in Iowa, to Minnesota and Kansas, and even as far as Massachusetts and Mississippi. 

The power complex breaks down the clean into 3 parts which: 

Now that you know what the "vanilla" power complex is, let me show you how House's Tier System has worked its way into The Power Complex. I have written tons of blogs on the various spin offs of The Power Complex, if you click this link to this most recent blog you will be able to read them all here. 

With the Tier System there is rotation from total body, lower body, and upper body exercises. The image below from his 2002 Hammer Strength Clinic Presentation at Cincinnati, Ohio which was the first major presentation on the Tier System.

As you see there is rotation of the exercises from session to session. 

You might be thinking, ok sweet Justin, that is The Tier System but how on Earth does this have ANYTHING to do with The Power Complex there is no upper body movement in The Power Complex. 

I am glad you asked. 

For The Power Complex I shared with you the fact that movements are:

In The Power Complex with Tier System effect on it you rotate between Bilateral, Split Stance, and Unilateral movements of the above qualities. The way I like to rotate them is after completing from the hang and from the floor. See my TeamBuildr BUILD calendars for examples:

Then next week I take A1 from the ground

Now the exercises get rotated to split stance is first

And again the rotation to the floor for A1

Now it is time for unilateral to be first

And to take it from the floor

So as you see I took what House did with rotating Total, Lower, and Upper with Bilateral, Split, and Unilateral. He did it across A, B, C, D, and E block - I kept it all within the A block for The Power Complex. 

Now for those who see SL skater squat and say "thats not from the ground Justin, see you are full of it" I mean sure, it is not, but it is more knee bendy than the SL good morning, I guess I could do SL deadlift on straight bar or trapbar. And will do that too. Chill out tho and see where I am going with this.

I like this because it allows development of all stances. Dr. Matthew S. Ibrahim Cheeky Mid Weeky came out exactly 7 days ago from this blog release. In the episode he and I talked about the fact that there is different stress and training load placed on the body when there are one or two legs on the ground. We also talked about the effect of moving laterally or rotationally when lifting with one or two legs on the ground. This version of The Power Complex accomplishes those things. Athletes express strength and power on a single leg, double leg split and bilateral, and you can move lateral/medial (as you see I did in the above pictures). 

You can also add in isometric or eccentric work in these if you want. You can add in dynamic reversal if you want. You can add chains or bands too. You have the imagination to do what is best for your athletes. As I have shared with you all before - I even think you can and should add in the sprint form of this with the sprint taking out the altitude landing. Remember, the alt landing was for GRF production. Why? So when athletes sprint they have experienced high level of force and GRF from training. Well, now let them sprint. You can do Cole's 3 or 5 yard sprint test like we talked about in his Cheeky Mid Weeky. 

You need to mess around with this on your own before you use it with your athletes. You need to do that with all the things you learn. Especially this. If you want specific help on this, well that is what the SCN membership is for. You can ask me, and coaches all around the world for help on this and other things in our members only forum. You will also have access to 193 webinars with a 194th being added in December 2026. That presentation is from Jake Tuura and the topic is tendons. Oh, did I mention that annual members get access to NSCA and CSCCa CEUs from the course Performance Coaching. December 31, 2026 ends this 3 year NSCA CEU reporting period. Get inside SCN and learn how SCN can help you with this recertification, set it and forget it. You can also get your entire staff their own membership when you bundle and save with the institutional memberships. When you have an institutional membership it comes with the admin dashboard where you can assign learning and track staff development. Learn more here.

Dr. Justin Lima, PhD, RSCC*D, CSCS, SCCC, is the President and CEO of Strength Coach Network with over 17 years of experience in strength and conditioning, including coaching roles at Iowa, Maryland, and Towson University. A national conference speaker, he actively serves both the NSCA and CSCCa through leadership and committee roles. He is the author of Navigating a Career in Strength and Conditioning (Cognella, 2026) and is currently contributing to a textbook with Human Kinetics. His work focuses on advancing the profession through education, research, and practical coaching applications.