11 WODs With Thursters That Will Challenge You (+ Good Times To Beat)

23 Jul 2017

Thrusters

Thrusters! I don’t know about you, but I hated thrusters when I started CrossFit 5 years ago, and I still hate them. I bet there are some thrusters lovers but unfortunately, I am not one of them, but that doesn’t mean I don’t do thrusters regularly!

The only reason why I hate thrusters is that they are one of the hardest CrossFit exercises and I always breath heavy after every WOD that involves thrusters. They can be done at very high intensity, and they work almost every muscle in your body.

How to get good at Thrusters?

There are only two strategies how to get as quickly as possible through thrusters depends on how heavy thrusters are for you.

Go unbroken!

For example, let’s consider you are doing Jackie.

Jackie is WOD with 50 light thrusters that can be done with a fast pace, only limiting factors are fatigued quads and elevated heart rate from the rower but most of the people will be able to do all thrusters in 1-2 sets unbroken. Elite athletes will even speed up the squat and pull the bar back to the squat during thrusters to get through 50 thrusters quicker.

So, go through the thrusters unbroken if your WOD is similar to the Jackie or it has number of reps you know you can do unbroken quickly.

Split those sets more than you think!

For this example, I will use 14.5/16.5.

I have met many people who went unbroken in all the sets, and none of them was able to finish this WOD under 10:00 while when I have done this WOD in 9:50 only sets I have done unbroken were set of 6 and set of 3. I am not saying that going unbroken is the bad thing, but you need to have a capacity for that.

For me, the workout looked like this 21=8+7+6, 18=7+6+5, 15=6+5+4, 12=7+5, 9=5+4, 6=6 and 3=3. Why did this help? I have found out that splitting the sets but keeping rest short and trying to finish reps quickly leads to lower heart rate and higher average pace.

The reason why that works is that you can always pick up the bar immediately after the second movement as you know that there is an only small set of reps waiting for you.

By the way, I have used this strategy even in 17.5 (10 RFT, 9 Thrusters 95/65 + 35 DUs) where I went for 5+4 thrusters in all the sets, except last round where I went unbroken, and I have finished in 9:10.

Another example of when to go unbroken and when to split

Let’s consider a ~12-minute chipper that starts and ends with 20 Thrusters 95/65 lbs. First thrusters should be done unbroken as the weight is relatively easy and reps are doable unbroken. I would only split thrusters into two or three sets if next movement is focused on pushing, like HSPU but last thrusters should be split into 2-3 quick sets instead of going unbroken but slowly, go unbroken on them only if you still have the energy to go quickly.

And the last example is 5 Rounds of 9 Thrusters 135/95 lbs, and 18 Box Jumps 24/20″. There is no need to go unbroken on the box jumps, even in the first round as workout is focused a lot on quads. I would probably go for three sets of 4+3+2 with quick rest in the between, and I believe I will be faster than someone doing 5+4 or even unbroken set of 9.

11 WODs With Thrusters That Will Challenge You (+ Good Times To Beat)

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