What sort of exercises - Dumbells/Barbells

I discussed the types of BW exercises I like to do, and am trying to obtain.  And if I'm honest with myself, I think that I dedicate more time to my BW work then I do with the other forms of exercise.  I think this is because the BW work requires less equipment, can just about be done anywhere, it makes me feel strong, and I think it looks cool!

But as much as I love trying to obtain the BW strength feats, I do love the feeling of moving heavy weight around.  This is where my dumbells and barbell work comes in.  Using dumbells and barbells to gain strength is certainly nothing new, but just how long has been around?  I don't have a precise answer for you, but have a hunt around and you can find plenty of pictures and references to the strongmen of the "Golden Age of Iron Men"  The excellent website 'sandowplus.co.uk' (follow 'golden age' link) is a free and comprehensive website all about the old time strongmen.  These men were the original strongmen, and achieved some awesome feats of strengths.

Now there are a heap of different exercises that can be done using dumbells and barbells, but a lot of them have been conceived in the more modern era due to people focusing on bodybuilding, rather than focusing on strength and well being.  I'll add here, that the kettle bell can be used for the dumbells work, but the difference I find between the two, are different techniques, and weight.  I believe the kettle bell is more technique driven, and that more weight should be used with the dumbells.

As far as dumbells go, I train the following exercises;

Clean and Press
Side Press
Bent Press
Sots Press

With the barbell I do the following;

Deadlift
Ground to over head (this for me is typically a power clean and then press)

A few things about these exercises (from my point of view).  These are all compound exercises using the whole body.  I don't focus on one part of the body, I want total body strength and fitness and I want the ability of my body to work as one.  For this reason I tend to always do the whole exercise, rather than train one area of the lift.  For example, in the ground to over head, you could break it down into the deadlift, hang clean, full clean, power clean, shoulder press.  However, I'm not an Olympic lifter, so I don't focus on the individual components.  (Probably foolish on my part!)  Having said that, I love to deadlift!

A final note on this.  I don't have any real specific amount of reps/sets, and you can do whatever you like, but I do tend to do low reps and more sets, as I am training for strength and not size.  This means that I want a challenging weight, but nothing more than I can handle.