I’ve had a lot of great workout weeks lately. I’ve been so happy with the progress I’ve been making and it really has made me feel amazing about myself. But this past week of workouts, I didn’t really have anything amazing happen. In the past, this probably would have gotten me down. But now, I’m just still so happy that I’ve been doing what I can and I know that it’s still better than where I started from.
Monday’s workout was a bit of a tough morning for me. My hips were bugging me (although nothing as bad as the week before) and it was an endurance day so we were on the treadmill for a longer time. The blocks were all pretty short at 6.5 minutes each, but I knew that it was a day that I was going to do power walking only and trying to run was just going to be too painful for me.
Each block had a similar format with starting with a longer push pace followed by a 90 second base pace. Then we had a 30 second push pace, 90 second base pace, and a 30 second all out pace. The first block had a 2.5 minute push pace as the long one and each block went down 30 seconds. I kept my incline for all my push paces at 6% and I did do my all out paces at 8%, but it was a struggle for me that morning. But I’m glad I just stuck with walking and didn’t try to run because I think that would have made things worse.
On the floor we had 3 blocks that all had the same pattern. We had 3 exercises plus burpees. The first block had rocket pushups, bench tap squats, and bench hop overs. The second block had regular pushups, skier swings, and low rows on the straps. And the last block had atomic pushups, ankle reach crunches, and swimmers. For the burpees I was able to jump my feet back and forth by using the bench for my hands. I’m really enjoying doing my burpees that way and I feel like I’m getting much more power out of the move. For the other work, I was toward the middle of the weights I usually use. We had a lot of reps for many of the exercises so I had to be careful about not doing too much weight. The floor went better than the treadmill which was nice since I ended with floor work.
Wednesday’s workout was a 3 group workout and it was a switch format. We had a round of 5 minute blocks, a round of 4 minute blocks, and a round of 2 minute blocks.
On the treadmill, the first block was a 2 minute push pace to a 1 minute all out, a 1 minute walk, and a 1 minute all out pace. I ran the first minute of the push and then walked the second so that block ended up being 1 minute run/walk intervals. The second block was a 1 minute push pace, a 1 minute all out, a 1 minute walk, and a 1 minute all out pace. I walked the push pace so I had 1 minute intervals again. And the last block was a 30 second push pace, 30 second all out pace, 30 second walk, and 30 second all out pace and I ran all the push and all out paces. It was a good amount of running considering I’m still getting back into it.
On the rower, the first block started with a 300 meter row and then 30 squat to presses with the medicine ball. Then it was a 150 meter row and 15 squat to presses. The next block was just repeating the 300 row with 30 squat to presses and the last block was repeating the 150 meter row with 15 squat to presses. My rowing was pretty slow and I’m not exactly sure why. I felt like I was going quickly but I wasn’t getting a lot of power and I couldn’t seem to fix that. So I tried not to focus on my times and just focused on getting the rows done.
And on the floor each block was 2 moves. The first block was incline chest presses and squats. The second block was incline chest flys and half get ups. And the last block was 1 minute of a side plank on each side (I guess technically that’s only 1 move but it counted as 2). I was going heavy on the weighted work although not the heaviest weights I have used. But for some reason the incline chest work compared to when you are flat on the bench are harder for me so I didn’t feel comfortable with the heavier weights. And because we were moving so quickly through the blocks I didn’t get a ton of rest time so I had to take it while doing the floor work.
Friday’s workout was an endurance day and I really thought I’d just do all walking because of that. But when I saw the format of the workout, I realized it would be a good running day for some of the blocks. And it ended up being a good basic workout to be my first workout of being 35!
All of the treadmill blocks had a similar format with repeating push to 1 minute base paces. The first block was 30 second push paces, the second block was 45 second push paces, and the last block was 1 minute push paces. The first and second block were good ones to run since they were short intervals, but by the last block I was getting a bit tired so I did that one walking for the entire block. But I still ran more than I honestly thought I would going into the workout so that was still good for me.
The first two floor blocks were using the mini-bands. The first block was squat front walks and bench tap squats. The bench taps were a bit tough since I would have liked to not have had to squat as low, but I challenged myself and did it. The second block was hip bridges and knee tuck abs. And the last block was ab rollouts using the ab dolly and rolling sit-ups on the bench. My floor work wasn’t anything spectacular, but I worked hard and felt good about all my efforts.
Saturday’s workout was a strength based one and I knew that I would be doing all walking on the treadmill so I could do the hill work. But it also allowed me to try some things out that I haven’t really done in a while.
Since I got back to the treadmill, I have been using a slightly reduced speed. Before, I was walking at 3.5mph. Since going back I have been walking at 3.4mph. But this workout, I decided to bump it up and go back to my old speed. It’s weird that I can feel the difference even though it isn’t much, but I’m glad I did it because I proved to myself I could!
And I continued to do some great work when it came to the hills too! All of the treadmill blocks were the same with progressive hill work. Each block had hill work that was supposed to be between 6%-9%. I rarely go above 8% but I decided to go for it and try the 9% incline too and while it was hard I did it! I even was able to do some of my all out inclines at 10%! I don’t know if I will keep doing the higher inclines when we have hill work because a lot of hill work has longer intervals than what we had in this workout, but it’s something to keep in my mind.
The floor work was interesting. We had different exercises to try lower weights with and higher weights with. In the first block we had bicep curls and tricep work. For the lower weight for my bicep curls and triceps, I did 15lbs and for the higher weight I did 20lbs. The second block was the same idea with doing bent over low rows. For those I did 30lbs as my higher weight and 20lbs for my lower weight. In that block was also had ab work. And the last block was 200 meter rows with lunges between each round of rowing.
Overall, I’m happy with what I did in this past week of workouts. I would have loved to have had something amazing to write about with a crazy accomplishment, but that wasn’t what was in store for me this past week. But I still did great work and that’s something to be happy about.
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