The Thruster
Tuesday, October 6, 2009 at 02:07AM 
CFLG coach Greg L teaches the Monday Wednesday 7:30pm class. Greg brings years of CF experience and high quality coaching to CFLG. Check out his late evening class!
Barbell training is, of course, nothing new, and resistance training is very old, but outside of CrossFit, the barbell is rarely used for non strength purposes (or bodybuilding). Something like the WOD Grace was pretty unheard of before CrossFit. In CrossFit, the barbell wears many hats, not just a strength building one.
The thruster, a CrossFit staple, possibly the most dreaded movement in its broad repertoire, is pretty emblematic for the way in which CrossFit uses the barbell. The thruster seems to be fairly unique to CrossFit. Although the movement is probably not a CrossFit invention, I am sure that it must have been seen at times in collegiate strength and conditioning weight rooms before the widespread proliferation of CrossFit, it was never assigned the importance that CrossFit has given it.
The thruster is rarely used with truly heavy weight, even “Heavy” Fran is only 135#, but the demands it places on the body are huge. Somehow it is so much more than just the sum of its parts, a front squat and a push press. The range-of-motion with a thruster is just about as big as any barbell movement, and the forward inclination of the torso as the barbell is driven out of the hole and overhead adds greatly to its difficulty. In fact, the aforementioned 135 pounds for repetitions will seriously tax people for whom 135 pounds is usually a light warm up weight. Done fast for time will put most people on the floor.
And that is unique to Crossfit.
Thoughts? Please post to Comments.
Workout:
Thruster 7×3
Then:
Tabata triplet (20 seconds on/10 seconds off for 8 rounds)
Kettlebell Swing 73/53#
Box Jump 24″
Plate Situp 35/25#
Post WOD completed and score to Comments.
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Reader Comments (4)
Huge class at 6am! Thank you all for coming and killing my work out! There were some great times and some even better performances/efforts! I know 9 in the cage with barbells and box jumps is tight but we will be expanding soon so even 15 will seem small! Keep working hard everyone, you will notice the progress along with everyone else!
Great workout this morning Shaun. Iit's good to see numbers like that at the 6 am class -- and we're all looking forward to expanding the cage! Any idea what the time frame for that will be?
Also, big congrats to Shaun and Kristen for completing their Level 1 certification this past weekend!
It should be soon, John. The end of the month, I hope. It is going to really change the whole feel of the Cage. I am very excited.
Sweet!