Squat Clean Thruster

The Starting Position
Begin by standing over the bar with your weight on your heels and your shoulders directly over the bar. Your arms should be locked out, your chest up and your feet hip-width apart. With your lower back nice and tight, take a big breath and lead with your chest.
Khalipa Cue: “Be sure to use a hook grip. This will give you a solid grasp without death-gripping it. Squeezing too hard makes you use your biceps and arms too much.”

Setting Up the Jump
Raise the bar by extending your knees. The ratio between your hips and your chest should remain the same as in the starting position. Bring the bar up in a straight line, keeping it very close to your body. The arms are still long and the chest is over the bar. At this point, you are getting ready to jump.
Khalipa Cue: “The chest and hips rise at the same rate. You don’t want your butt or chest to fly up. This is about where you’d be if you were about to try to dunk a basketball.”

The Extension and Second Pull
As you jump and come off your heels, explosively extend your hips so that your upper body becomes vertical. Then violently shrug your shoulders so the bar continues to travel upward, staying close to your body. As the bar ascends, lightly pull on it to help get your body underneath it in order to catch it.
Khalipa Cue: “Pulling yourself down to get under the bar is one of the most athletic movements you can do. Jumping up and then rapidly redirecting the movement and coming back down is very difficult.”

The Catch
Drop into a full squat and catch the weight in the rack position with your fingers underneath the bar and the bar resting across your front deltoids. Your elbows should be high, your lower back tight, and most of your weight should be in your heels.
Khalipa Cue: “Get used to catching this in a low position because as the load increases, you’re not going to be able to receive it high.”

The Drive
Explosively extend your knees and hips to drive out of the hole and push the bar off your shoulders. Engage your posterior chain and push off the heels, which is acceptable as long as you are driving through your heels.
Khalipa Cue: “As you come up, the bar rolls from your fingers onto your palm. You want ‘more meat on the bone.’ The more structure you have to support a load, the better, so you don’t want the weight on your fingertips. Your forearms help support the load vertically.”

The Finish
Finish with fully locked-out arms, maintaining good midline stabilization. Your shoulders should be active and your head should peek out slightly from between the arms.
Khalipa Cue: “Do not get in an overarched position. The rib cage should be down and nice and tight.”