What a camera can see in a thruster
A thruster starts with the bar in the front rack, drops into a full squat and drives straight to an overhead lockout without pausing. That gives the rubric two independent range criteria — knee angle at the bottom and elbow angle at the finish — plus a rack check on the very first frame. From the side the camera sees all of them. The identity gate uses the same first frame to separate a thruster from a snatch: straight arms at the start mean the bar was not racked, so the clip is not a thruster.
How ScoreRep scores a thruster
The rubric declares 6 scored criteria. The strongest single camera angle is the left side view. From that angle 100 of the 110 declared points are available; the rest need a different view and are removed from the total rather than scored as zero.
The score is the points earned divided by the points the recorded angle could support, so a clip filmed from a limited angle is never quietly marked down for what the camera could not see. At least 60% of the applicable weight has to be measured before a result is ranked at all.
| Criterion | Points | Measured from the athlete’s pose | Full marks when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rack position | 10 | elbow angle in the starting position | 95° or less |
| Squat depth | 25 | knee angle at the bottom of the rep | 100° or less |
| Leg drive | 25 | time taken by the lifting phase | 0.9s or less |
| Overhead position | 25 | elbow angle in the finish position | 165° or more |
| Fluency | 15 | repetitions completed per second | 0.5 or more |
| Left-to-right symmetry | 10 | largest left-to-right difference in knee angle | 6° or less |
Criteria that depend on the camera angle
These criteria are excluded, not estimated, when the recorded angle cannot support them. That is why the same set filmed twice from different positions can produce two valid scores out of two different totals.
- Rack position — needs a left side, right side, left oblique and right oblique view.
- Squat depth — needs a left side, right side, left oblique and right oblique view.
- Left-to-right symmetry — needs a front and back view.
Does this thruster rep count?
ScoreRep answers that in two separate steps. First, the clip has to read as a thruster at all: every check in the table below has to pass, and a reading the camera could not take counts as a fail, never as a pass. A clip that fails is returned unranked with the reason attached, rather than scored low against the wrong rubric, and no template can override a failed check.
Second, the scoring criteria award points. Falling short of a full-marks threshold costs points, not the rep. Every number here is read from version 2 of the thruster rubric, the same file the scoring engine runs.
- Compare the thruster standard with the other 29 movements on the movement standards page.
- How the rep counter decides between a valid rep and a no-rep, station by station.
| Reading | Has to be | Otherwise rejected because |
|---|---|---|
| Vertical travel of the hips across the rep | 0.07 or more | no clear squat phase was detected |
| Whether the hip crease passes below the knee | yes | the hip crease never passes below the knee |
| Whether the hands finish above the shoulders | yes | the rep does not finish overhead, so this does not read as a thruster |
| Elbow angle in the starting position | 120° or less | the elbows are straight at the start, which reads as a snatch rather than a thruster |
| Smallest knee angle in the rep | 110° or less | there is no full squat, which reads as a push press rather than a thruster |
What the recording has to contain
Eligibility decides whether a result can enter a leaderboard. Failing it does not block the feedback — the clip is still scored and returned, but marked unranked with the reason attached, so a bad camera position never silently becomes a bad score.
- A pose has to be detected in at least 55% of the frames.
- The camera angle has to be one of: left side, right side, left oblique, right oblique and front.
- At least 1 complete repetition has to be detected.
What is deliberately not scored
Identity, repetition counting, eligibility and the score are derived only from the athlete’s pose. Measurements that come from tracking an external object — the path of a barbell, for example — are drawn on the review overlay but are deliberately outside the scoring contract, so they never affect the number.
Reading the result
Thruster scores in a workout usually fall at the top before the bottom. Athletes keep squatting to depth and stop finishing overhead, because the shoulders fatigue faster than the legs. If the overhead score drops while squat depth holds, pace the set rather than reduce the range; if both fall together, the load is too heavy for the rep scheme. The cadence criterion exists to make that pattern visible across a long set instead of averaging it away.
A technique score is educational feedback about visible movement. It cannot tell you whether a load is safe for your joints, whether pain means something, or whether a programme suits you. Those judgements need a coach or clinician who knows your history.