Perhaps in honor of Thanksgiving time, new gym decided to put up "Grace" as the workout of the day. Grace is 30 clean and jerks for time- but these weren't Crossfit clean and jerks, these were Olympic clean and jerks- the kind where you do a full squat. I've never been lucky enough to partake in Grace, but I love oly lifts, so I was pretty excited about this workout. All I have to do is move weight from the ground to overhead 30 times? No running? No pull-ups? No burpees? Awesome!
Ok, well, whoever says that "lifting weights is not cardio" is full of crap. When I thought that or even said that out loud as recently as 2 years ago while doing bicep curls and quarter squats, I had no idea what I was talking about. That is also when I thought cardio was necessary for fat loss, and didn't wreck havoc on your body. HA! Little did I know. After performing 10 full squat clean and jerks as fast as I could muster, I thought I was going to die. Sweat was pouring off my brow, and my oxygen? Where had it gone? I still had 20 more of these beastly moves to do, and the clock was ticking fast. My stomach was turning, so I tried to settle into a rhythm of just getting them over with. I might as well have been doing 100 burpees, cause I felt the same.
Eight minutes to do 30 squat cleans at 75#? I never would have predicted that- I would have thought 5 minutes, maybe. I'm so glad I didn't go with the recommended weight of 95#, while I'm sure I could do it, I would have been there all night!
Example of a squat clean and jerk:
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