Does anyone know what is the purpose of this exercise?

I was at the gym and there was a guy doing some really weird exercises with free weights I have never seen before. Most of them I could figure out what they were supposed to do, but a few of them, I just cannot figure it out at all. My initial impression is the guy is just crazy, but I am giving him the benefit of the doubt so I am going to ask if anyone has any clue what this was about and what purpose it serves:

- Lift the bar (regular olympic bar) , with no weights, holding the bar from below, as if doing a bicep curl, only lifting higher than you normally would, to about nose level (obviously at this point it stops being a bicep curl). Then, throw the bar upwards to the air. And I mean throw it about a meter higher, not just a tiny bit. Catch the bar as it is falling down, lower to initial position, repeat.
- Raise the bar above head with arms stretched. Start throwing the bar to the air, really fast, catch with arms still stretched, repeat. At really high speed. Imagine like playing with a voley ball, but with a bar instead of a ball.

Has anyone a clue what this was about? I have never seen anything like it, and it looked like he was about to either break his neck or kill someone. He sure cleared a really big area around him and got lots of puzzled looks.