Today we are going to learn the squat thrust to prepare for our Friday workout. The squat thrust is a powerful movement that requires core stability in the plank position to execute properly. Before beginning this exercise practice your planks without any thrusting motion until you develop excellent posture. Make sure to keep your head in line with your shoulders, hips and ankle. Also keep your glutes and abdomen tightly engaged to remove any unwanted pressure off the lower back. While your lower back muscles will be working to stabilize, they should not find themselves in an excessively shortened state while in the plank. The squat thrust is essentially a plank position on the ground and then shooting up to a standing plank position. Make sure that you stand as tall as possible with each and every repetition so that you are training your body to it’s neutral line of gravity each time.
Squat thrusts will develop power, stability and drive your cardio through the roof. They work well in sets with many exercises, as they don’t overtrain any one muscle group and leave your grip muscles alone. This means you can add deadlifts, swings, snatches, pull-ups (often referred to as a burpee) or rows to this exercise and not have to worry about your grip muscles failing. Take a few minutes to practice the prone plank position and the squat thrust so that you will feel comfortable using it in the future. I will be adding this move to this coming Friday’s workout and probably many more in the future. Try not to rush them, if you aren’t finding the proper plank position on the ground, you won’t get the benefit from this exercise.
Thank you for joining me for this quick lesson that will go a long way in the future as we utilize this great move in our training.
Peter Hirsh
[…] you should have become excellent with your technique in the clean, push press, swing, snatch and squat-thrust. Even though the techniques involved in this workout are not highly advanced, this is by no means […]