MySQL select takes 0.2 sec; equivalent UPDATE takes 1.5 minutes!
I don't know the answer to your question, but you might try a regular update like:

UPDATE skus S
    SET S.active = 0
      , S.updated_by=101355
      , S.updated_at = NOW()
WHERE EXISTS (
    SELECT 1 
    FROM group_frames GF 
    WHERE GF.frame = S.frame
      AND GF.groupNum = 204 
      AND GF.frameDesc LIKE '%lumbar%'
);


Indexes like:

CREATE INDEX ... ON skus (frame);
CREATE INDEX ... ON group_frames (groupNum, frame, frameDesc);


will probably help