The thruster is an explosive movement that combines the front squat and the overhead press. The thruster is a difficult exercise that is commonly seen in CrossFit gyms and at the Games. It requires a lot of strength and power, which is why many people dread doing it.

The thruster is a full-body exercise routine that tests your strength and power. It has been popular for years and with good reason. Even though it might make you scared, remember that the pain you feel from doing thrusters is worth it because of all the good they do.

How to Do the Thruster

If you are able to squat and overhead press correctly, the thruster should be a easy transition. Here is a step-by-step guide on how to perform the thruster correctly.

Step 1 — Assume a Front Rack Position

The barbell should be in the front rack position, with your palms facing the ceiling and your elbows at shoulder height. You will assume this position after performing a clean or a front squat.

Performing thrusters from a rack or by cleaning it from the ground are both options.

Step 2 — Squat Down

Keep the barbell in the front rack position and stand with your chest upright as you lower into a squat. Your hips should start the movement when you squat, with your weight evenly divided between your feet. To get low enough, push your knees out and forward.

For the lift to be most effective, make sure you squat with your legs upright. This will give you more power to lift the weight.

Step 3 — Drive Your Legs

Stand up from the squat position by pressing down on the floor and using the strength in your legs.

The leg drive is the key part of the thruster that gets the weight moving, and is especially important when you're using heavier weights or doing a lot of reps.

Step 4 — Continue Pushing

Stand up by powerfully extend your knees, hips, and glutes.

As you push the bar overhead, lock your arms out at the same time. The power you exert from your hips will allow your lower body to take most of the weight, instead of your upper body. Reach full extension with your elbows, then return the barbell to the front rack position. Get ready for your next repetition.

The barbell should go directly overhead to help reduce the chance of getting hurt. Some weightlifters will try to press the weight up too quickly, without using their legs to help generate power for the lift.

Quadriceps

Your quadriceps are the muscles in the front of your thighs. They help support your knees and are responsible for walking, jumping, running, and squatting. You need strong legs for thrusters, as the front squat forms the basis of the movement. Quadriceps that are strong are necessary in order to increase the power of one's thrusters, as well as their muscular size and their ability to perform well. If a person doesn't have well-developed legs, their overall abilities will be limited when doing a thruster.

Glutes

The glutes are a group of muscles that stabilize and extend the hip joint. This is important for lower body exercises, sport activities, and daily life. The thruster is a move that targets some of the strongest muscles in your body, especially when you're in the squat position.

Hamstrings

The hamstrings are a group of muscles in the back of the leg that are important for hinging at the hips and bending at the knees. The muscles mentioned in the text are used for walking and running. Therefore, keeping them strong can help to improve one's daily function. This exercise targets the hamstrings by involving the hips and knees.

Triceps

The triceps help the shoulders and legs during the thruster movement, and are mainly responsible for pushing the load overhead. The triceps is responsible for extending the elbows, which is often the limiting factor in thrusters. To improve your lockout strength, you can do exercises that target the extension positions of the elbow, such as the floor press or other partial presses with a limited range of motion.

Core

It is important to keep your core strong and upright when in a front rack position in order to minimize the stress on your lower back. A strong core can help you with safety outside of the gym as well. Working your core muscles on a regular basis can help improve your general strength and stability, making it easier to maintain a proper front rack position.

Who Should Do the Thruster

Thrusters are a type of exercise that can be beneficial for people who do Olympic lifting or CrossFit, as they are versatile and effective. Some groups of people who may find the thruster to be beneficial are those with heart conditions, the elderly, and those who are looking to improve their cardiovascular health.

Powerlifters and Strongman Athletes

The thruster can also be used to increase dynamic movement, caloric expenditure, and as a movement to squat before overhead press.

Olympic Weightlifters

The thruster is a weightlifting move that can help you practice the receiving position and recovery in the clean. The thruster can help an Olympic weightlifter increase the strength and speed necessary to rebound from a max-effort clean & jerk attempt.

The lifter is forced to fight to be as vertical as possible and finish upwards in the drive phase of the thruster, which is nearly identical to that of the jerk. Lastly, thrusters can be performed using the racks to help lifters who struggle getting out of the hole in the squat, or have trouble staying upright in the front squat.

Functional Fitness Athletes

Thrusters are a move that CrossFit and competitive functional fitness athletes use to build strength. The move can be done with dumbbells, kettlebells, or barbells. Even though some people may not like them, thrusters are a key part of gaining work capacity, leg endurance, movement coordination, and sport-specific efficiency.

Essential Barbell Exercises To Get Stronger

The Benefits Of Barbell Exercises

says personal trainer Tom Wright, the best tool you can use when strength training is the barbell. “Nothing else comes close. Compound lifts, which work multiple muscles and joints simultaneously, are the best exercises for increasing strength. These lifts create tension throughout the body and stimulate thousands of nerves, both of which are necessary for increasing strength.

” No other equipment allows users to improve their strength so dramatically. Choose a weight you are comfortable with to start, then increase the load each week to see your numbers improve rapidly.

How And When To Use These Exercises In Your Training

You'll find seven of the best barbell exercises below. However, you shouldn't just go to the gym and complete them all in order as your new workout routine. When using heavy barbell lifts as part of your workout routine, it is important to be thoughtful in order to get the most benefits and avoid any potential injuries.

Wright believes that starting training sessions with movements that recruit a large number of motor units and provide a big stimulus to the central nervous system is beneficial. The main lifts are typically two exercises that work complementary muscle groups, like the squat and deadlift for lower-body, or the bench press and barbell row for upper-body.

We are not suggesting that you start your lifting journey by immediately trying to lift heavy weights. Do this gym warm-up to prepare, then use an empty barbell to do some warm-up sets. Add weight gradually until you get to the weight you're trying to lift.

A set of moves that targets both the upper and lower body can be done in one session.

According to Wright, this type of upper/lower body training can help you get more work done in less time, since you don't need as much recovery time between exercises for different body parts. Another advantage to this method is that your heart rate goes up as your body moves blood around, which makes your metabolism work faster and causes you to burn more fat.

I To start, your arms should be locked and the bar should be above your chest. In order to work your glutes, you should press your shoulders into the bench, plant your feet on the floor, and squeeze your glutes. To complete this move, lower the weight to your chest by bending your elbows. Then, press the weight back up to the starting position.

Targets: chest, triceps, front shoulders

The bench press is the best exercise to do if you want to impress people with your upper body. To Wright, this compound pushing movement that works the pecs, shoulders and triceps is one of the best ways to test strength. Along with the deadlift and squat, it is a difficult movement that requires a lot of strength. You can put more weight on your triceps with this exercise than with other exercises such as dips or press-downs.

BENCH PRESS

Beyond The Chest

The bench is all about your pecs, right? Wrong. Wright says that to join the “big boys”, you'll need a strong upper back. This will not only result in keeping your chest up but also ensure that your shoulders stay healthy.” Make sure your shoulder blades are fixed on the bench in order to control them. This will result in keeping your chest up and ensuring that your shoulders stay healthy. The tension will keep your body stable and in one position while you are lifting a heavy object. This will stop you from moving around and increase the chance of successfully lifting the object. When powerlifters bench, they use their hips to lift their body off the bench and plant their feet firmly on the ground. They do this by squeezing their muscles from their shoulder blades to their lower back.

Be Single-Minded

If you have strong chest muscles but you’re weak in your shoulder stabilisers, you won’t be able to lift as much weight on the bench press. If you want to keep your shoulder joint healthy and have the best chance of lifting heavy weights, try this assisting exercise. “This allows you to focus on one arm at a time, which is especially good for beginners.” To vary your bench press routine, Wright recommends the single-arm dumbbell press, which allows you to focus on one arm at a time. ” It requires great control over one's shoulders as well as a strong central body to stay balanced. If you think you might have one side of your body stronger than the other, you should do this exercise once a week. Your imbalances will soon become a thing of the past.

Use Your Body

Controlling your bodyweight is a great way to prepare for lifting heavier weights with external resistance, like a barbell. Wright says that the best way to supplement a bench press would be to do dips or a close-grip pressing exercise, which work the same muscles but in a different movement pattern. Start by doing ten reps with just your body weight. Once you can do that, add some extra weight by wearing a weight belt or holding a dumbbell between your feet.

To start position yourself by holding the bar with a grip that is shoulder-width apart and Bend your knees slightly, then bend at the hips until your torso is at a 45° angle to the floor. Lift the barbell up until it grazes your abdomen, then lower it in a controlled manner. You shouldn't be moving your upper body to shift the bar – this means the weight is too heavy.

Targets: biceps, lats, core

The amount of time you spend training your back should be equal to the amount of time you spend training your chest. The key move is the bent-over row. “The barbell row is an excellent way to strengthen your upper body and increase the size of your back. It is the only exercise that works all of the different muscles that make up the rear of your torso,” Wright explains. To perform this move, you must not only be able to exert a lot of force to pull the weight, but also have the strength to keep your body in the bent-over position, which requires strong muscles in your back.

BENT-OVER ROW

Keep Your Shoulder Blades Engaged

The positioning of your body when you start to lift a weight is very important if you want to be able to lift a good amount of weight and have the target muscles groups be effective. When you row, you should always start by setting your shoulder blades. This is according to Wright. ” To do this, squeeze the muscles between your shoulder blades and expand your chest, then let your elbows follow through to your sides. It is better to think of your hands as hooks, which exist only to support the weight, rather than trying to use them to lift it. You can even try a thumbless grip. This will help target your lats and allow you to get a better contraction in the muscle.

Use The Right Muscles

There are some common mistakes you can avoid when performing this seemingly simple move. Wright says that the first mistake people make when doing this exercise is not using their back muscles and instead relying too much on their biceps. ” The muscle you want to use must first be activated, and then you must move through the full range of movement. If you put too much weight on the bar, you will start to lose control of your movement and the bar won't go as high. Performing reps too quickly can also hinder progress. You should keep the tension on your muscles for approximately 40 seconds if you want them to grow. Control the weight to help you with this.

Underhand Tactic

You can start messing around with variations of the move once you have the perfect form down. This will change up the training effect. According to Wright, the best way to build your lats is by using an underhand grip with a narrow hand placement. This will target your lats and lower back. ” This exercise not only recruits more latissimus dorsi muscles, but also employs more of the biceps. In other words, rows are better than lat pull-downs when it comes to targeting your latissimus dorsi (or lats, for short).

Add In Dumbbell Rows

Want to get even better at rows? Then do this assistance move. According to Wright, the braced dumbbell row is his favourite assistance exercise for the barbell row. “Place one hand on a bench and take a wide stance with your feet, bracing through your trunk. Let the dumbbell hang down, then, keeping your elbow close to your body, pull the dumbbell back and up so it travels along a curved path to the bottom of your ribcage. Rowing with one arm gives you more room to move and helps tone your side abdominal muscles and lower back.

DEADLIFT

To complete this exercise, stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and grab the bar with your hands just outside your legs. Lift the bar by moving your hips forwards while keeping your back straight. Slowly lower the bar under control. It is okay to drop the final rep when you are using really heavy weights.

Targets: whole body

The deadlift is an excellent exercise for increasing raw strength. “It primarily works the muscles on the back of your body to move the bar from the floor to your hip,” says Wright. The deadlift exercise is the best way to develop your overall strength and power because you can lift more weight than with any other barbell exercise.

Brains And Brawn

Deadlifting is a exercise that requires a lot of strength and good technique. Wright states that there are many things that can go wrong when pulling weight off the floor, even though it may seem like a simple task. ” If you don't have good technique, you probably won't be able to lift as much as you want to in the gym, and you might get injured. When you set up for your lift, you should remember to pull your shoulders back and your chest out, locking your shoulder blades into place. The following text discusses how tension in your back can help you prevent rounding your lower back or having your hips come up too early. To perform the move correctly, lean back and press your hips toward the front wall. Squeeze your glutes tightly and press through your heels into the floor.

Hard And Fast

Even if you are starting with no weightlifting experience, you can quickly work your way up to lifting 100kg on the bar. This is because when things start to get serious, you will want to use proper technique when lifting. If good technique is an issue when trying to perform this lift, then Wright suggests starting with rack pulls. Rack pulls are executed by setting the bar up in a rack around 30cm off the floor. You will become stronger faster if you train in a shorter range of motion. If you have to struggle to finish every repetition, you may want to work on lifting the weight more quickly.

Kettlebell swings aren’t only a great conditioning drill, but they also help you develop the hip snap needed for a quick and powerful deadlift.” Doing heavy kettlebell swings will help you build the speed you need for your deadlifts. Kettlebell swings are a good way to condition your body and they also help you develop the hip snap needed for a quick and powerful deadlift. You will improve your deadlift power by firing your hips forward against the weight of the kettlebell. This will also help build stronger glutes and hip drive.