One of my Favourite and Most Dreaded Exercises!

I still teach a certain amount of group fitness classes at the Olympos Centres in Burgess Hill and Haywards Heath.

It's not massively uncommon for my poor lunchtime circuit training group to be moved about from time to time.

This happened to us yesterday at the last minute so i had to throw something together with less space but more kit than normal.

With access to some weights for a change, i thought i'd take the opportunity to throw in a Barbell Thruster! This is also known as (perhaps more descriptively) a front squat to push press.

This is a great exercise that i sometimes use myself, with personal training clients, and occasionally in classes.

It can be a brutal exercise if loaded quite well (20 - 40kg's) and pushed on to a slightly higher rep range (15 -20).

The two components of this movement - the front squat and the push press or over head press - are a great addition to a routine, and are a staple part of my training exercises.

Combining them for more of a metabolic effect has to be tried to be believed. It's a great athletic challenge for the entire body. You have to keep your body tight to effectively transfer the effort from the lower body through the core and into the upper body and weight.

Obviously this can also be done with Dumbells, Kettlebells, Sandbags, heavy enough medicine balls, or the right size cat or dog (joke)!

In the circuit class we paired this exercise with burpees for evil effect.

I usually like (and dislike) to combine the Thruster with a set of pull ups, which is a classic Crossfit workout (from www.crossfit.com).

Take on the challenge of some thrusters - you might not like me at the time but you'll love the results!!

And results based training is what it should all be about....

Steve Cork
www.everydayathletes.co.uk
www.sussexbootcamps.co.uk