Lots Of Different Workouts (or Struggles and Successes)

I did a 4 workout week for the first time in a while, and it was a pretty awesome week. I did have some not-so-fun moments, but overall the workouts were pretty great. I think what helped the most is that each day was significantly different from the others. The workouts at Orangetheory are never the same, but I think this week had more variety than ever.

Monday was a bit of a tough day for me. It was a strength day, so that meant extra hills on the treadmill. I’m not sure why my body was struggling so much, but it became extremely difficult for me to do the hills. I really wanted to push myself more, but my body was just not having it. So I kept my inclines low (lower than I normally would) and just focused on getting through the treadmill time without too much pain. It’s so frustrating to have a morning like that, but I don’t really know what caused it so I really couldn’t do anything to prevent it. Since the treadmill time was a bit of a disappointment, I worked extra hard on the floor. I was using 20 pound weights for my arms (it’s starting to feel more normal to do that) and even though my arms felt like jello after each set, it was exactly what I should have done. We also had to do some hip bridges during the floor work. I usually avoid hip bridges because they cause me so much pain. These were supposed to be done on the TRX straps, but I know that there was no way I could do those. So I tried doing them on the floor and to my surprise not only could I do them, they weren’t painful for me at all! I think some of the stretching work I’ve been trying to do at home is finally helping my hips loosen up and maybe breaking up some of the scar tissue I’ve got.

Wednesday was actually pretty awesome. We had a partner workout that day and it feels like we haven’t had one of those in a long time! Fortunately, my friend Dani was in Wednesday’s class so she was able to be my partner for the workout.

Normally during the partner workouts, the person on the floor controls the pace. The person on the treadmill will do the treadmill portion and then normally row until the floor person is done with their round. Then the floor person taps out the cardio person and they switch. But this time, the treadmill person controlled the pace. It was a run/row (most partner workouts are that way) and some of the cardio segments were really long! I felt guilty that Dani was stuck on the floor while I was finishing them (Dani felt the same way so it ended up being ok). The row parts were all 100 meters, so I was able to sprint through those. The treadmill parts got a bit long, but I did every part at 3.5 miles an hour and at 6% incline. With the partner workouts, we had the entire class without any breaks so it was non-stop work and I was exhausted by the time it was done.

With Wednesday being so much fun, I had high hopes for Friday. But Thursday night/Friday morning, I got really sick. I’m guessing it was food poisoning and by Friday mid-day I was feeling almost normal again. So I figured I could go to my workout (if nothing else, maybe sweating would help me get better). It was a switch day so that helped to make the treadmill time a bit easier for me. And even though there were only 2 groups in the class, we had a mini-tornado format (where you rotate between treadmill, floor, and rower). I tried my best with the treadmill, but I was feeling pretty nauseous during class (my friend David who works at Orangetheory commented that I looked like I had no color left in my face after class). Even with feeling sick, the floor work wasn’t too tough on me. The only thing that was making me feel sick was going from laying down on the weight bench to sitting up or standing. So I took my time but while I was working tried to use really heavy weights.

Since I made the deal with myself that 4th workouts of the week wouldn’t be on the treadmill, I did my Saturday workout on the bike. It was not a switch day, so I’m glad I stuck with the bike. It was an interesting format to the workout. There were 6 blocks, but really only 2 types of blocks. We would do a long push pace to an all out pace and then we would do an all out pace, walking recovery, and an all out pace to follow. The first round of the push to all out was a little more than 4 minutes and got shorter for the other 2. And the all out, walking, all out were 1 minute each, then 45 seconds each, and finishing with 30 seconds each. On the floor, we followed a similar pattern. We had something specific to do for the longer blocks and then the shorter ones we did rounds of squats. My legs were shaking by the time we were done, but it felt great to get through the workout and feel so much better than I did the day before.

I’ve got another 4 workout week planned for this week. Rumor has it that the first week of April we will have another Peak Performance week, and right after that will be my next 5K. That means that I might not be able to do as much during Peak Performance week as I would like do (depending if the week is the same week as my race), but hopefully that will put me in a good spot with how I’ll do with my 5K. As much as I would like to PR at my race, I don’t know how realistic that will be for me. But for these next few weeks of workouts, my goal is to push myself as much as I can to give myself the best chance to have an awesome race!

You Might Also Like

A 4 Workout Week (or Only A Few More Weeks Of 2015 Workouts) Lots Of Running and Rowing (or Proof Of My Progress) 12 Days Of Christmas Workouts (or This Feels A Lot Like Hell Week) New Challenges In My Workouts (or Breaking Some Of My Own Rules) Lots Of New Records (or Killing It In My Workouts) Lots Of Morning Workouts (or Maybe I Can Be A Morning Person)