Squat thrusts suck

My high school wrestling coach called them Up-Downs, and we did thousands of them. Seldom did we finish a practice in which they weren’t part of our conditioning. I’d leave huge pools of sweat on the mat when we were done.

The awful Up-Down has returned to my life with a new name: Squat thrusts. I did them this morning as part of a circuit-training workout. And they still suck.

In fact, they are worse now. Back in high school, we at least had a nice, thick wrestling mat on which to work out. At the Muscatine Community Y, we get to use a skimpy little blue Yoga-type workout mat.

And at 44, it’s much harder to throw my body down and pop back up than I remember it being in high school.

But there is an upside to all of this: Today, I am wearing pants that are two sizes smaller than the pants I have been wearing. And I don’t have to listen to Coach Wood blow his whistle and call me names as I hit the mat. (It’s kind of nice to workout and not be told you could be the poster boy for birth control. Ah, Woody. He was actually a pretty good guy.)

Guess I’ll keep doing squat thrusts no matter how much I hate them.