I had a pretty amazing past week of workouts this past week. I accomplished things that I didn’t think I would be able to do, and I got to go to a new Orangetheory location! But the best part was that with the new location I think things are going to be so much better for me now!
Monday’s workout was at the location I’ve been going to since I started going to Orangetheory and wasn’t what I was hoping for. We were dealing with rain in LA, and when it rains I sometimes have hip issues. I hadn’t had any during this rainstorm, but on Monday morning my hip was not doing so great. I was hopeful that once I got to the workout things would be better (sometimes I am just a bit more sore because I slept funny), but I knew it wasn’t going to be feeling the way I want my body to feel. I was optimistic and tried starting on the treadmill, but I ended up heading over to the bike during the warm-up because I knew that I didn’t want to feel worse.
It was an endurance day and the cardio was all shorter push paces with a 1 minute base pace after each one. I was working on getting my resistance up on the bike for each of the push paces and when we had the shorter pushes I was able to get the resistance up much higher. And with the base paces, I focused on have a steady cadence while pedaling. Having a steady pedal speed did help me get my breath down after each push pace so that worked to my advantage. Since my heart rate and breath were almost back to normal before each push pace, I could go harder during the pushes than I thought I could.
On the rower, we had one long block. We started with 3 rounds of 1 minute all out rows. After the first row we had squats with the medicine ball, after the second row we had overhead presses with the medicine ball, and after the third row we had squats to overhead presses with the medicine ball. After those 3 rows, we did another round but instead of rowing for 1 minute it was rowing for 45 seconds (with the same exercises in-between each row). I did pretty decent with the rowing considering how I felt. I know I could have gotten further with each time, but I did my best. And when I was on the floor, both blocks were focused on using the Bosu. The first block was kneeling scaptions on the Bosu, Bosu push-ups with one hand on the Bosu and one hand on the floor, and squats with one foot on the Bosu and one foot on the floor. And the second block had kneeling shoulder presses on the Bosu, scissor kick crunches, Bosu burpees, and Bosu running man. It was a hard floor block and I had to do some of the work not using the Bosu, but I was feeling a bit better by the floor block so I was doing more than I expected.
Wednesday’s workout was my first one at the new location near my house. Ever since I started at Orangetheory, I have gone to the same location (except for my pre-Thanksgiving workouts). With no traffic, I can get there in about 10 minutes. In traffic (like when I drive home after my afternoon workouts) it can take an hour or hour and a half to get home. I’m fine with that since I work from home and don’t have a commute, but I’ve been wanting there to be an Orangetheory location near me. And finally this past week, Orangetheory Culver City opened!
It’s a 5 minute drive for me to get to and from my workouts which is incredible! I will still do some workouts at Brentwood, but I will be doing at least half if not more in Culver City now. And many of my friends from the Brentwood location are coming to Culver City too so I’ll still have many of my workout buddies.
I was so happy to get to go to the studio near my house, and that also means that I can change up my workout schedule a bit. On Wednesdays and Fridays, I have always worked out after work. That’s because I don’t want to do 6am workouts and that’s what I would have to do in order to work out before work and make in home in time. But now that I have a studio so close to my house, I did my first before work workout on Wednesday!
When I got to the Culver City studio, I had to sign their liability form and have them register my heart rate monitor in their system. I got there early to do that and had lots of extra time before class. The new studio is so nice and clean! There are more stations at the Culver City studio than at the Brentwood one which I’m sure will be needed when more people are attending classes.
They still have the same lockers and shower rooms as the Brentwood location does, but I doubt I’ll ever shower there because it’s so quick for me to get home. But I’m grateful that they have the same lockers as the Brentwood one does because some other studios only have cubbies and not lockers. While I don’t think someone would steal anything from me, I’d rather lock up my purse than leave it out in a cubby.
The workout was a strength workout. I started on the treadmill and was determined to stick with the treadmill for the class. There is still a bike, but since I knew my focus would be a bit scattered since it was a new studio for me, I wanted to be on the treadmill where I have much more of a routine. I didn’t really do the inclines the way that power walkers were supposed to. I pretty much stuck with my standard of 4% as my base pace, 6% as my push pace, and 8% as my all out pace. It was tough being on the treadmill and the treadmills are a little different at this studio, but I’m so glad that I stuck it out because I felt amazing when it was time to switch to the floor.
On the floor, the first block was lateral lunges with weights, triceps on the straps, seated rotations with a weight, and scissor kick crunches. The second block was hammer curls with weights, reverse flys with weights, and single leg sit-ups. And the last block was rounds of tricep kickbacks with weights and 250 meter rows. I was able to do my first row in 56 seconds which is pretty awesome for me especially considering it was at the end of the workout. It was a bit weird trying to figure out where everything is on the floor and having a different layout of the room, but the workout was familiar enough to me that I was easily able to adjust and I didn’t waste too much time figuring things out.
Friday was another morning at the Culver City studio. It really felt good to be able to get up and do my workout first and I’m wondering if this is going to be something I can keep up for the long run. Once the studio is open for a bit of time they are probably going to be adjusting the class times, so I’m hoping that when that happens I will still find a good time in the morning to go before work. But for now, I’m going to keep trying to go in the mornings when I can.
The workout on Friday was endurance, strength, and power based and it was a run/row. It was actually the first run/row for the studio so things were a bit less complicated than I’m used to. But that was good because it gave me time to focus on form and not what the plan is for the workout. The run/row had a pretty basic format with each run portion getting a bit shorter but higher on the incline each round and each row was 200 meters. I was on the treadmill again and did the inclines for power walkers on the plan so I was at 4, 6, 8, and 10%. I’m glad that I’m getting back on the treadmill more often and it was a good workout to be on it since I was never on the treadmill for more than about 5 minutes at a time. The first time I was on the rower I did go all out with my 200 meter row and got it done pretty quickly. But I was starting to feel exhausted (the combination of working hard and having such an early workout) so I took it a bit easier for the other rows I did. I still was always under the goal time, but I focused more on being steady with my pace on the rower.
The floor had 3 blocks and each block had 3 things in it. Those included sumo goblet squats, Spiderman planks, reverse crunches, lunges on the straps and without the straps, supermans, burpees, pop jacks, and upper cuts. It wasn’t the most complicated floor work, but I took the opportunity to work on my form and to use heavier weights. I was using 25lbs while doing my squats and now thinking back I could have probably gone heavier. But I would usually pick up 20lbs so at least it was a little improvement. And when we did the supermans, I really focused on making sure I felt my muscles working instead of making the movements more fluid. I could easily do those without working hard so I took my time and made sure that I was maximizing the movement.
Overall, it was another really great class. The coach is someone new to me but she was really amazing and encouraging! And I’m sure it’s weird having me do all my random modifications on my own without her having to check in on me so I was grateful that she let me do my own thing and wasn’t questioning why I wasn’t doing the exercise the way it was demonstrated. I’m trying to not be a know-it-all or anything in class, but it’s tough when with my other coaches they’ve known me long enough that I can do my own thing at times and it’s not a big deal. It’s a balance for me to figure out, but at the same time having new coaches gives me a chance to see what modifications they would recommend and maybe I’ll find a new way to try to do an exercise that my hip struggles with.
My 4th workout of the week was doing my first Dri-Tri relay, but that will have to wait until tomorrow’s post!
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