GRACE: CrossFit Girl
Grace is another purely barbell CrossFit Girl WOD . A benchmark to demonstrate skill with barbell cycling, which makes him a WOD of the fans of moving kilos.
What is Double Grace?
Double Grace is nothing more than a variant of Grace, but in this case, as its name indicates, the number of repetitions will be double:
60 Clean and Jerk (61/43kg)
What is Heavy Grace?
This version of Grace is heavier without determining the exact weight. It can be anything that exceeds the 135 lb / 61 kg of the original.
What would be a good time for Grace?
– Beginner: 6 - 7 minutes
– Intermediate: 4 - 5 minutes
– Advanced: 3 - 4 minutes
– Elite: less than 2 minutes
Source: Wodwell
If you want to record your marks and keep track of your progress I recommend My WODs notebook. You will be able to organize your workouts and have all the benchmarks like this one at hand.
Strategy for Grace
Movements: Clean & Jerk
Power clean or full clean is allowed.
Any type of jerk is allowed.
The important thing is that you know yourself and have a plan before performing this WOD.
If you are not able to go unbroken (only the pros consider it), you should think about breaking the 30 reps into smaller sets. Proposals:
- 6 sets of 5,
- or 5 of 6,
- descending ladder with a longer first run and decreasing repetitions in each set.
Many people do a long set to start with and then start doing what they can. This option ends up resulting in the worst of your Grace times, as without a plan, it's easy to throw the bar early and make the breaks longer than you should.
Adria Martin does Grace
In the video, Adria does a first long pull of 18 unbroken reps + 7 unbroken + 5 reps to finish under 2 minutes.
Scaling options
Grace together with Isabel is one of the fastest benchmarks out there. 30 Clean & Jerks may look easy, but only a few can finish with a fast time considering the weight.
And although it is apparently a barbell WOD, there are many repetitions so the heart rate will rise and this can negatively affect the execution of the movement. Hence the importance of adapting the load.
Objective: to complete the WOD in less than 5 minutes. Adapt the load to achieve this.
30 Clean & jerk (52/34 kg)
And if necessary you can lower the weight further. We all start at some point.
30 Clean & jerk (34/25 kg)
Common errors
We all want to do the shortest time possible, but we must be aware that we must do the work with the standards set by CrossFit. The repetitions must be correct so as not to waste time and energy on a non-rep.
False Start
This is probably the most common mistake that exists. Starting early instead of standing upright until the chrono begins.
If the athlete is already crouched down before the time starts, he/she gains an advantage over the athlete who starts standing.
We have seen endless penalties in the Open for this reason, even in the most experienced athletes.
Do not fully extend the hip in the jerk.
Another common mistake made by wanting to do it as fast as possible is not fully extending the hip before the end of the jerk repetition.
When linking the jerk to the next clean it is easy to miss the hip extension.
It is very easy to make this mistake in a WOD with so many repetitions in a row of the same movement where you are looking to go so fast.
History of the Grace WOD
This workout was first published on the official CrossFit website on June 24, 2004 (040624).
In 2004, they mention the Isabel WOD in one of the CrossFit Journal publications, referring to it as the best friend of another benchmark: Grace (30 Clean and Jerk for time at the same weight).
Grace's WOD was published prior to Isabel in the same year, 2004.