Tag Archives: struggle

Not My Usual Workout Recap Post (or I Survived A Bad Week)

Posted on April 8, 2019 | 1 comment

I know that for the past few years I’ve done workout recaps on Monday. I’m not planning on changing that, but this week I felt like I needed to do something different. I knew going into this past week of workouts that it was going to be my bad week. I’ve been trying to stay optimistic and hope that maybe my pain and nausea wouldn’t be as bad as it has been, but I also am realistic and prepare for the worst.

I did do my usual Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday workouts. But each day had its own struggles and things kept changing up. Monday was by far my worst day and Saturday was almost back to normal. I would say that Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday were pretty much what I expected to experience. It was Monday that really took me by surprise.

I had so many issues going into my workout on Monday. I was experiencing extreme pain and nausea. And I had spent the night before being sick every few hours so I didn’t get much sleep. Adding exhaustion to everything else really made it a bad day. And what made things a bit worse was that it was supposed to be a 3 partner workout. I really didn’t want to be partnered with anyone because I kind of needed to do my own thing. I ended up being paired with someone else doing their own thing too so it worked out well.

That workout was honestly about just getting through it. Even looking at the workout plan online, I can’t remember much of what I did. I was constantly having to take breaks to let nausea pass and to wait for my cramps to stop. The cramps were getting so bad that I was scared that maybe something else was wrong with me. But unfortunately they were just really bad cramps that my painkillers weren’t touching.

My last portion of that workout was on the floor and I was just miserable. My Monday coach has known me since my very first workout and he knows when I have bad weeks that I’m not my usual self. But he could tell it was much worse than normal and I was struggling so much. He came over to check on me and I burst into tears. It was a combination of pain, exhaustion, and frustration. I hate that I must have these weeks of struggle each month and I’m so tired of it. I can’t do anything right now to change it and sometimes it really gets to me when I realize I might have over a decade left of dealing with this.

I’m so lucky that my coach (and all of my coaches) are amazing. When I started crying, he just pulled me in for a hug and was trying to reassure me that I was going great and that it didn’t matter that I was having a bad week. He reminded me that a good week will come soon and for now I should focus on the fact that I showed up because not everyone would do that. While hearing that didn’t make things better or easier, it did give me the motivation I needed to keep going.

And most of my workouts this past week went the same way. My coaches all knew I was having a tough week (it’s pretty obvious when I do) and they all have coached me enough to understand that I have to do my own thing at times. I’ve been doing these modifications for over 2 years so I’m pretty good at figuring out what I need to do. I don’t need to be checked on when I’m having these tough days and they know it. I’m grateful that they aren’t hovering over me or making me feel like they are paying more attention to me than other people. I just want to be treated like everyone else and kind of blend in.

Part of the reason I didn’t want to do my normal workout recap was because there was nothing that great about my workouts. I don’t necessarily remember everything that I did and I think my brain is just blocking some of that time out of my memory to protect me from remembering how miserable I was. I really am hoping that this past week was just a random thing and not a sign of what future bad weeks will be like. Not only were my workouts affected during the beginning of the week, my entire life was affected. My normal remedies weren’t working and I was in a foul mood most of the time. Fortunately I’m doing so much better now and I know I’ve got a few weeks of freedom before experiencing a bad week again.

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Default ThumbnailI Hate Having A Hard Workout Week (or Not My Usual Workout Recap) Default ThumbnailAnother Hard Workout Week (or A Repeat Of The Last Week In More Ways Than One) Default ThumbnailStruggling Sucks (or Thank Goodness It Was A Short Workout Week) Default ThumbnailHills And Power Outages (or Not My Usual Workout Week) Default ThumbnailA Bad Workout Week For A Different Reason (or I Guess I Was Too Optimistic) Default ThumbnailWhy Can’t I Just Have A Normal Week? (or Another Bad Week Of Workouts)

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Feeling Understood (or The Relief Of Shared Problems)

Posted on April 5, 2019 | Comments Off on Feeling Understood (or The Relief Of Shared Problems)

There are a lot of problems I write about on here that I know other people struggle with. So many things can feel like you are the only one dealing with it, but when you talk about it with a friend you discover they have the same worries.  It’s always such an amazing feeling when you discover you aren’t alone and it makes you feel so much better about how you are handling it.

I’ve been very lucky that I have this blog because I have had so many people reach out to me after I write a post saying they have been experiencing the same thing. I don’t always write posts so that other people won’t feel alone, but I have noticed that I have been doing it from time to time. I have a platform to help someone discover that they are not the only person in the world experiencing something and I want to make sure I take advantage of that.

But even though I am open about a lot of problems on here, I’m not always as open when talking with my friends. This isn’t me trying to hide anything about me, I just don’t always think about talking about them. Many times getting them out in a blog post is enough for me and I don’t feel the same need to connect with someone else going through the same thing in person. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but it is how things are for me.

The problem is that I know that not all my friends read my blog, and that’s fine with me. I know not everyone reads blogs or they feel like they don’t need to read it. I don’t mind because I don’t expect people to feel like they need to read this. I’m still sometimes surprised that I get readers (although I am so insanely grateful for everyone who does read these posts)! But because some of my friends don’t read what I write, they don’t know some of the struggles I have and they might be battling the same thing and think they are alone.

And that’s exactly what happened earlier this week. I was talking to a friend and they were telling me how they were struggling with the balance of being social with taking time to recharge. This is a recurring battle for me too! I over-schedule myself and then when I take the time to focus on myself I feel like I’m neglecting my friendships and I crave social interaction. It’s a balance that I will probably always struggle to figure out and I wish that it was easier. Or I wish that being social was my way to recharge and get back to myself.

When my friend was telling me their struggles, I told them I battled the same thing. I could see the relief on their face that I understood what they were going through and it wasn’t a crazy issue. I wish I had better advice to give to them other than the few things I’ve been trying to figure out the balance. It’s such a personal thing to work through and what works for me is not necessarily going to work for anyone else. And I still don’t know what works for me so I’m even more useless with giving advice.

But even without advice to give, I think having shared problems was a big help for my friend. They felt like I understood what they were going through and that it’s ok to struggle with it. Sometimes all you need is to not feel alone to feel a bit better. And now that they know that I have the same problems maybe they will feel ok using me as a sounding board when they need to talk things out or just want to rant to someone who understands. Being there for a friend is something I want to do more often, but it’s not something I can necessarily control. I can control that they know they can come to me if they need help, but I can’t make someone do that.

And even though I have known for a while that I was not alone in the struggle of finding the balance of self-care/being selfish and being social, it was still a relief for me to know I have another friend going through the same thing. If I need someone to talk to, I have someone else to reach out to that will understand exactly what I’m experiencing. And having a friend who understands my problems is so powerful in helping me when I’m struggling.

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A Week Of Struggles (or Just Tolerating Things Sometimes)

Posted on March 11, 2019 | 1 comment

This past week of workouts was a real struggle for me. I already knew it might be a weird week because of my schedule, but things just were not going my way. I made it to my 4 workouts, but I’ll be honest and say that I really didn’t want to do them all. But I didn’t have a good enough excuse to miss the ones I wanted to miss so I went.

Because I was in Catalina, I missed my usual Monday workout. But a few hours after getting back on Tuesday I made it to an afternoon class to make up for it. I knew it would be a tough class for me for a few reasons. First, this was going to be my first workout since the previous Friday, which is a much longer gap than I usually have between workouts. I was also dealing with my normal hormonal nausea. But I also had the added weirdness of feeling the room swaying from being on the boat earlier. I was not expecting that feeling because I didn’t have it on the boat going to Catalina. For some reason I was more affected on the ride back even though it was a very smooth ride.

The workout was Go Row, which is one of the signature workouts. It did feel a bit funny that I was going to have a big rowing workout while the room felt like it was moving. It was a 2 group class, but the cardio part of class was split between rowing and the treadmill/bike. The first block was a 4 minute row, the second block was a 2 minute row, and the last block was a 1 minute row. I did ok with my row distances, but nothing was super amazing. And the treadmill/bike work was push to all out paces. Because of how I was feeling, I didn’t really do much on the bike. I kept it at my base pace resistance level for the entire time I was on the bike. I knew I had to take it easy and just make sure I was moving.

The floor work was a lot of abs and upper body. The first block was single arm snatches, Spiderman planks, and crunches. The second block was running men, triceps with weights, and alligators on the straps. And the last block was lateral raises with weights and back extensions. I was able to do the plank work normally and not using the bench which was a surprise to me. And I did try to go heavier on the weights to make up for going easier on the cardio work.

Even though I had a Tuesday afternoon workout, I still did my Wednesday morning workout. It’s not easy to have that small of a break between classes, but it’s a good challenge for me. And I was feeling much better and didn’t have the swaying room sensation so the class went much better for me than Tuesday’s did.

The cardio was one long block but it was timed out by us. We started with a 30 second all out pace and a 30 second recovery before completing a distance. After getting to the distance, we had another recovery and continued the pattern. I wasn’t keeping the best track of my distance but I was trying to do my best to do the workout as we were supposed to. But since I was probably only going over the distance before the recovery and not under, I figured that was ok.

The row block was also one long block. We started with 10 strokes for distance and then 15 seconds to recover. Then we rowed until we got to 200 meters. After the row, we had lunges with tricep work using the medicine ball. Every time we went back to the rower we did the same beginning but the row increased by 50 meters. And the lunges/tricep work increased by 2 reps each time. I wasn’t too worried about my row times and I just focused on form. None of my rows were that slow, so it’s good to know that when I’m not focusing on rushing I’m still doing good work.

And the floor was split into 3 short blocks. Every block started with power sit-ups. Then we moved on to the rounds of the different exercises. We had neutral full thrusters and lunges for the first block, strap roll outs and plank jacks for the second block, and squats and calf raises for the last block. Some of the exercises were making me feel a bit more nauseous, but it was manageable with just taking breaks and letting it pass.

Friday’s workout was an endurance day and it was a pretty great endurance day. I was ready to work hard and see what I could do again after having a few odd days earlier in the week. We had two blocks at each station, one long block and one short one, and they were back to back.

For cardio, the first block started with a 3 minute push pace with a base pace after. We then had a 2 minute push pace and a 1 minute push pace before ending with an all out pace. I was using my new resistance levels on the bike and it was hard to do it for the longer push paces. But it felt great to know I could do it and I was able to recover with a base pace after instead of needing a break. The second block was just a 3 minute push pace to an all out and I continued to use the new resistance levels. I was starting to have some nausea issues during that block, but I managed to finish the work before needing to take a break.

The first block on the rower started with a 90 second distance challenge. Then we had medicine ball squat twists before rowing for half the distance we got on the 90 second challenge. We repeated that pattern until that block was done and I made it through 2 rounds of 90 second challenges and 2 rounds of the half distance challenge. The second block was just one more 90 second distance challenge with the squats before rowing for distance until we were done on the rower.

The floor work required a few modifications for me, but I felt really good about what I did. The beginning of the first block was all work using the bench to step on and I can’t do those with my hip. We were supposed to do different types of step down work and I usually do lunges. But I didn’t want to just do 3 rounds of regular lunges. So I did regular lunges, single leg squats using the straps for support, and step back lunges to replace the bench work. We also had bicycle crunches and arm raises with the mini-bands in that first block. The second block was lunge twists using the mini-bands on our wrists and plank work using the mini-bands to step our hands in and out. I did use the bench for my hands for the planks to help with my nausea, but it was still as tough to do the planks that way as I feel like it is on the floor.

I thought everything was going better on Friday, until Friday night. I had been feeling off for a few days but I thought it was just my nausea affecting me a different way. Friday night, I figured out that I caught a cold. When I start feeling sick, it’s usually a few days after I caught it, so I knew that I couldn’t stop it. But I took as many measures as I could on Friday night to keep the cold from getting really bad.

I thought about skipping my workout on Saturday, but my rule is that if I don’t have a fever and my cold is from my neck up (no body aches or anything like that), I should go and try to do what I could. I know that some people might think that it was bad for me to go because I could have gotten someone sick, but the timing of my body showing symptoms is usually a day or so after I stop being contagious. Also, we use antibacterial wipes at Orangetheory and I was careful not to high five anyone or do anything else that might spread germs if there was any chance I was still contagious.

The workout was an endurance, strength, and power day; but for me it was all about just getting through the workout however I could. For the cardio, the first half was incline work and I did work on increasing my resistance on the bike even if that meant my speed and cadence went down. And the second block was just all out paces and recoveries and I used my old resistance levels for that.

On the rower, we had one long block. It started with an 800 meter row and then lunges with twists. The row went down to 400 meters and then more lunges. We were supposed to do 200 meters, lunges, 100 meters, lunges, and then row for distance. But the lunges were making things tough for me so after the second set of them I just stuck with rowing until we were done and moving on the floor.

On the floor, we had two blocks. The first block was push-ups, single arm rows with weights, and crunches with leg lifts. The second block was push-ups to plank jacks, single arm rows on the straps, and side to side crunches. For the exercises that had 2 parts, I had to split them up and do each part separately. I also was taking a lot of breaks just because I was feeling congested. But I made it through the workout and didn’t give up which was all I wanted to do.

I’m hoping that this week will be a bit better. I’m not completely over my cold just yet, but I’m hoping it won’t last through the entire week. I do know how to do workouts when I’m not feeling my best, but I really want to stop having that as an excuse. I feel like I’m in a rut and stuck in my progress because of all my recent struggles and challenges. I just want to have another week where I feel amazing to help me remember how hard I’ve worked so far.

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A Week With Weird Injuries (or I’m Making Excuses)

Posted on January 28, 2019 | 1 comment

I said last week in my post about my workouts how I didn’t want to keep making excuses for why I was using the bike over the treadmill. And of course, this week I feel like I do need to explain myself a bit. But at least it’s not because of my normal reasons. This past week, my workouts were a struggle because of weird issues with my body. Over the weekend leading up to this past week, I hurt my neck. I think I slept on it funny, but it was causing me a lot of pain through the week. I know it’s nothing too bad, but it still affected me. And once that was starting to feel better toward the end of the week, I did something to my hips and quad muscles. It might have been another weird sleep thing, but I knew I had to go easy on my body. I guess I should be grateful that I am used to working with limitations because I was still able to get some good work done this past week.

Monday’s workout was a very interesting class. When you were on the treadmills you had cardio/floor work and the other half of class was doing rowing and cardio work. The pacing of things were determined by the person who started each block on the cardio side. We had 3 blocks on each side, but since we switch stations during the block it really felt more like 6 blocks on each side.

When you started on cardio, every time you started with a distance run (I was on the bike). There was a time limit 3 minutes for getting to the distance, but most of us were done in 2 minutes or under. After completing the distance, you headed to the floor. The first block had single arm neutral full thrusters and burpees. The second block had skater lunges and push ups. And the last block had hip hinge reverse flys and lunges. Everything in that block seemed to go by so quickly, but we made up for cardio time when we were doing the other half of the workout.

When you started on the rower, you rowed until the person on your treadmill was done with their distance. Then you switched to the treadmill (or bike) to be at base pace until the last 3 minutes of the block. Those last 3 minutes were a push pace, base pace, and all out pace. We repeated that for all 3 blocks we started on the rower. This workout was much more cardio and strength work, but it was a nice challenge to have and it felt very different from what I’m used to which made it fun.

Wednesday’s workout was an endurance day and we stayed in each section of the room for 15 minutes before switching so we had 1 lap around the room. For cardio, we had push paces to base paces for a few rounds. The push pace and base pace matched each time and we started with 2 minutes each and went down to 60 seconds each ending with a 30 second all out pace. I stuck with my normal resistance levels for the bike but tried to work with the speed a little. It wasn’t anything amazing, but I was able to just keep going which is sometimes all I can ask for in a workout.

On the rower, we started with a 250 meter row and then had arm raises using the mini-bands. Each time we were back on the rower we decreased the row but kept the arm raises the same. I decided to try using the medium mini-band for the arm raises to see if I could do it. Normally I would use the lightest one, but I was able to use the medium one without too much trouble. I could really feel the difference in how hard I was working, but it wasn’t so hard that I struggled with completing them. We don’t use the mini-bands that often, but I think I need to start using harder mini-bands with my arms.

For the floor, we had a really challenging workout. Normally, we do all the exercises in a block one after another so we don’t feel too exhausted or burned out. The idea of this workout was to get burned out. For all exercises we had 12, 10, 8, 6, and 4 reps; but we had to do all those rounds of each exercise before moving on to the next exercise. We had one leg squats using the bench, lunges, sumo squats, lunges with weights, and single arm shoulder presses. I sometimes would just try to do as many as I could in a set before a break and just made sure that they all added up to 40 reps (the total we had to do), but I also tried to split them up properly when I could. It wasn’t easy, but it was such a relief when we got to move on to the next exercise.

Friday’s workout was a power day, and even though we only had 1 lap around the room we had 4 little blocks on cardio and the rower which helped the time go by quicker. The blocks were the same length on both sides. We started at 2 minutes and then had 2 1/2, 3, and 3 1/2 minute blocks to follow.

For cardio, we started with a 1 minute push, 30 second base, and 30 second all out. Then we had a push before the all out. Then the base pace got longer for the last two blocks. My legs and hips were feeling the worst this day so it was a struggle to use the bike. I used my normal resistance levels but I was pedaling very slowly. Even my base pace resistance level felt like a hill to me and it was hard not to feel frustrated. I know that I didn’t pick to feel this way and doing something is better than nothing and I tried to focus on that as much as I could.

On the rower, every block started with a 200 meter row and then we had exercises with weights to finish out the block. First we had front raises and then each block we added on something else. We added hip hinge low rows, sumo squats to front raises, and shoulder presses. I might have gone a bit too heavy with the weights for this work but I really felt like I had to make up for what I didn’t get to do on the bike. And on the floor, we had one long block that had all medicine ball work. We started with woodchoppers and then had 3 rounds of lunges to tricep extensions and sit-ups to shoulder presses. Then we had more woodchoppers and rounds of side lunges to front presses and sit-ups to torso rotations. While my legs didn’t hurt too bad with this block, it wasn’t easy on my neck. I know that I have to go easy when my neck is feeling weird because it would be very bad to hurt my neck more. I took breaks when I needed them and tried to be very aware of my posture and how I was holding my body.

Saturday’s workout was a 3 partner workout and it was a special workout for Australia Day (although I don’t know how the workout connected to that). Also, while my neck was still a little sore my hips were feeling better so I was excited to work with partners and not scared I’d be holding them back.

We started with 3 minute blocks on each section of the room before we partnered up. We had a 3 minute run (or bike) for distance, 3 minute row for distance, and 3 minutes doing floor work ending with burpees until time was called. We had to remember our distances and how many burpees we did and then we got into groups of 3.

For a majority of the workout, we were doing the partner workout. Each of us was trying to match what we did in those 3 minute blocks and whoever finished first started the switch. So it could be the person on the floor, rower, or bike who finished first. I was lucky with my partners that we were all using the bike so that made things a bit easier. And I think we were equally matched so we all had our turn finishing first. The other exercises on the floor were lunges, bicycle crunches, plank punches, and full burpees. Since I use the bench for plank work, I did lose a little time getting that set up and put back each round (I didn’t want to keep it out as my partners needed that space to work). But on average we were switching every 3 minutes and it was a good amount of time to work hard before feeling exhausted.

My group did 3 rounds around the room (9 total switches) when the partner part of the workout was done. Then we had 3 blocks similar to how we started the workout, except this time we had 90 second blocks. The goal was to get half of what we were able to do when we had the 3 minute rounds at the beginning of the workout. I didn’t quite make it there on the bike, but I did make it there on the rower.

I’ll be honest, this recap was a bit of a struggle because I tried to do it without making excuses with my neck and hip issues. But I realized that those excuses were not to explain away why I was using the bike but why I might have had a tough time in the workouts. I still pushed through and was very proud of myself and I think that is what is most important to me.

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Default ThumbnailAn Up And Down Week (or Working Through The Same Frustrations) Default ThumbnailA Week Of Nauseous Workouts (or Just Doing My Best) Default ThumbnailA Week Back On The Bike (or Focusing On The Good) Default ThumbnailA Week Of Struggles (or Just Tolerating Things Sometimes) Default ThumbnailAnother Week Of Sick Workouts (or At Least I Did Something) Default ThumbnailTaking Things A Bit Easier (or No More Injuries)

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A Week Of Nauseous Workouts (or Just Doing My Best)

Posted on November 19, 2018 | 1 comment

I knew before this past week of workouts that it was going to be a tough one for me. I knew it would be a week that I would likely be nauseous every day and even though I have found strategies to push through, it’s still not easy to work out when you feel queasy and in pain. This past week did challenge me, but I think I did the best that I could considering the circumstances. But that doesn’t mean that I went easy on myself or didn’t feel frustrated I couldn’t do more.

Monday’s workout was endurance, strength, and power based; but it was also the really bad nausea day for me. I always think I have a handle on the really bad days, but either I was totally unprepared or this one was worse than I usually get on a bad day because it was brutal. I was in enough pain that I guess I looked pretty bad. My coach has seen me have days of nausea before, but this time he had to check in on me to make sure I was really ok. One of my friends in class did the same even though I know he has seen me have occasional bad days over the past 2 years. Obviously because of all this, I was on the bike for cardio.

We had 3 blocks on each side of the room. For cardio, we had a long push pace, a base pace, and then 2 all out paces with a recovery in between. Each block the push pace got longer and the all out paces got shorter. I really tried to stick with my normal resistance levels on the bike, but I know that I wasn’t going as fast as I usually do (even when I’m nauseous) so I didn’t work as hard as could work.

On the floor, each of the 3 blocks had a 300 meter row. We could do them at any point during the block, but I always did them at the beginning to make sure I got it done. I almost always can do a 300 meter row done in under a minute, but this time they were all over a minute. I didn’t care too much since I was just proud for rowing and also not needing to take breaks when I was feeling queasy. The first block on the floor also had burpees and lunges (I did the burpees with my hands on the bench so I wasn’t going to the ground. The second block had squats and lateral squat walks. And the last block had burpees to squats (I split the moves up to make it easier on me) and weighted double crunches. I feel like I worked much harder on the floor than I did on the bike, and that might have been because my anti-nausea medications seemed to have kicked in a little after halfway through class.

I was feeling a bit better by Wednesday’s class, but I was still nauseous. My medication was managing it much better so I was able to do a bit more work while I was on the bike. It was a strength based workout so it was a lot of incline work for the treadmills (and resistance work for me on the bike). Everything in both blocks was based on 45 second intervals. In the first block, we alternated base to push pace and base to incline work. What I did on the bike was use my regular resistance levels for the push paces and higher than my all out resistance level for all the incline work. And in the second block we rounds of all out paces with recovery in between and the all outs alternated between regular ones and incline ones. Again, I used the same plan with my regular resistance when there was no incline and higher than normal for incline work.

On the floor, the first block had bench toe taps, hip hinge reverse fly, and ab work. I can’t do bench toe taps because of my hip issues, but I wanted to get the same type of balance workout so I did single leg squats using the straps for stability. And the second block was deadlifts, bicep curls, hip bridges with weights, and side plank crunches. All of those things were things that didn’t affect my nausea so I was able to do them without modifications and without having to go too low with my weights.

Friday’s workout was a mixture of the different types of workouts, but it really felt like a strength day for me. I was on the bike again and for cardio we had timed runs for distance. The first one was 8 minutes and the treadmills started at 4% incline and went down every 2 minutes. The second one was 4 minutes and the treadmills started at 4% and went down every minute. What I did was use my usual push resistance level the entire time for the 8 minute challenge and a level between my push and all out for the 4 minute one. I didn’t really track my distance so I don’t know if I hit the goals I was supposed to hit, but I know that I was doing much better on the bike than I had been doing earlier in the week.

On the rowers, we had one long block with timed rows with squats and lunges between. The first row was 4 minutes and the second one was 2 minutes. After doing those rounds I decided to just stay on the rower for the rest of the time to get as much distance in as I could for the Orange Voyage and to try to keep my heart rate up since it’s not as easy to do that with the bike.

And on the floor we had drop sets. That means we do a set of 6 reps using a very heavy weight and then immediately after do a set of 12 reps with a lighter weight. We had hammer curls and tricep extensions for the first block and I used 20lb weights for the 6 rep round and 15lb weights for the 12 rep round. I probably could have gone a little higher for my hammer curls, but I was feeling it after both rounds and was a bit nervous I’d hurt if I went heavier. The second block was skier swings and goblet squats. I used my normal weight for the skier swings and went with the 45lb weight for my goblet squats. I was thinking about using the 50lb weight when the reps got lower, but I couldn’t find that weight on the rack and I knew I wasn’t ready for the 60lb or 70lb.

By Saturday’s workout, I was almost back to normal. And when I saw that the workout was a power based class, I really debated pushing myself and going on the treadmill. I wanted to work on my running and the format was perfect for me to do that. But as I drove to the workout I was having some small waves of nausea and I knew that it wasn’t worth it for me to push myself because I wouldn’t be able to do what I wanted to do.

For cardio we had 4 blocks. The first 3 were all short blocks with a push pace, base pace, push pace, base pace, and all out pace. Each block the push paces got a bit longer. Because I was feeling a bit down on myself for not being able to be on the treadmill, I decided to push myself hard on the bike. I kept my base pace the same but I used my normal all out resistance level for my push pace and what I usually use for hill work only for my all out pace. My heart rate really was getting up there but I see that as a sign that I was doing some good work! The last block was rounds of all out paces with walking recoveries. I used the new resistance level for my all out paces and used my base resistance level for the recoveries just allowed myself to pedal slower. This was one of the hardest bike workouts I’ve done and it helped me feel a bit better about not trying to run.

On the floor, we had 3 regular floor blocks and a partner row block. The first 3 blocks all were short and had 2 exercises each. We had pop jacks, lateral raises, skater lunges, chest fly, push ups, and front raises. I wasn’t going that heavy on the weighted work because we had a lot of reps for each. And I used the bench to help with my pop jacks and push ups so I wasn’t putting my hands on the ground. But I did feel really good about my floor work. And the partner row block was the last 8 minutes of class where we partnered with someone else and one of us did 30 seconds on the rower and the other did front raises with the mini-bands. We switched back and forth until class was done.

Considering how bad this past week of workouts could have been, I really did the best I could. I know that I can do better, but that’s when I’m feeling better too. And I’m hoping this week of workouts will be a better one. It will be a shorter one and I’ll have a workout with my family, so I have motivation to work extra hard!

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Biking and Burpees (or Some Nauseous Workouts)

Posted on October 15, 2018 | Comments Off on Biking and Burpees (or Some Nauseous Workouts)

This past week of workouts were pretty tough for me. I was dealing with some of the worst nausea I had ever experienced (although I was fortunate that the worst day was on a rest day) and I figured that was what made these workouts so hard. But after almost all my classes, the coaches were saying how tough these workouts were. So I guess it wasn’t just me. Since Hell Week is coming up soon, a bunch of us thought of these classes as preparation for it. But knowing that it wasn’t just me struggling didn’t make these workouts any easier!

Monday’s workout was an endurance day, and right when I got to my workout I started experiencing some bad nausea. I took medication right before class, but I knew it would take a bit of time to kick in. So while I was on the bike for the cardio part of class I was battling how I was feeling.

The idea for the cardio workout was a 23 minute distance run, but it was coached with different push to base paces. I tried to follow the coaching and use the resistance levels on the bike that I normally do, but when I was feeling off I brought the resistance down and just focused on not stopping. I wasn’t doing too bad during the bike considering how I was feeling before class, but I also know that I wasn’t doing my absolute best either.

On the floor, it was one long block that had two parts. The first part was regular floor work and the second part had rowing and squats. The regular floor work included dumbbell swings, lunges, uppercuts, and plank leg lifts. At first, we did 3 rounds of that before moving to the rower for a 150 meter row and 8 squats. Then we went back to the floor and did 2 rounds of it plus 2 rounds of rowing and squats. Finally it was 1 round of floor work and 3 rounds of rowing. I made it through the doing just 1 round of floor work before class was over. I was using slightly lighter weights than normal and my rowing wasn’t quite as fast as I usually go, but consider the issues I was dealing with I didn’t really care.

Wednesday’s workout was a strength workout and my nausea was even worse. Not only was I dealing with nausea, but I was in a lot of pain from cramps and I was very bloated. All of those things didn’t make me too excited to work out, but I also knew doing it would help me feel a bit more normal.

Each of the cardio blocks had a similar format with a long push pace, a base pace, a base pace at an incline, a base pace back on a flat treadmill, and an all out pace. I was on the bike and tried doing what I could with my resistance levels. I managed to get pretty close to what I normally do, but I was pedaling much slower than normal. Compared to other classes, I only did about 75% of the distance on the bike. I was a bit surprised how much less I did when it felt like I did more effort. But I think the effort was from overcoming how I felt that morning.

On the floor we also had 3 blocks. Each block started with a 200 meter row. We were supposed to do stroke counts and work on increasing our wattage, but I just tried to do it without stopping. All of them took more than a minute which is pretty long for me. Then we had one row type exercise with weights and one core exercise each block. For the row type exercises we had split stance low rows, split stance high rows, and upright rows. And for the core work we had double crunches, plank pull throughs, and half get ups. I was using some good weights for all the weighted work which helped me feel better after doing less than what I hoped on the bike.

I got through the worst of my nausea on Thursday which was a rest day, but I was still not feeling that great on Friday. But I was happy that I got through the worst part and that I might be able to do some better work in the workout. But then I discovered that this workout was a special one for World Burpee Day and it wasn’t really designed for someone who couldn’t bounce around too much or be parallel to the ground without being nauseous.

Fortunately, that class was a 3 group one, so I was at each section of the room for about 15 minutes. I started with cardio on the bike and we had 3 blocks that were each 4 minutes long. We had a 90 second hill which had decreasing inclines every 30 seconds, a flat base pace, a push pace at an incline, and an all out pace (I don’t remember if this was at an incline or not for the treadmills). I worked on trying to do my best with my resistance levels on the bike and I actually did a bit higher resistance levels than I had to with the 90 second hills because I used the same resistance pattern each time when it was supposed to be a bit less each time.

On the rower, we had rounds of rowing with mini band arm raises between each row. We started at a 700 meter row and we were supposed to decrease by 100 meters each time we got back on the rower. My only goal was to try to row as long as I could without stopping. I managed to do that for the 700 meter row, but that might have been a mistake because that was the only row I could do without stopping. For the 600 and 500 rows, I was only able to go about 45 seconds before I was having waves of nausea and needed to pause. I didn’t get as much rowing done as I would have liked to because of the breaks, but I did my best.

And then I was on the floor for all the burpees. We had 5 types of burpees to do in the workout. We had regular burpees, burpees with a plank jack, rolling burpees, burpees with step ups, and ultimate burpees. Between each type of burpees we had crunches and the goal was to make it through all of the burpees before class was done. I knew that I’d have to do modifications for every single type because of my nausea. I had to use the bench for my hands for all of them because I didn’t want to be flat on the ground. Normally when I use the bench I can jump my feet back and forth, but I had to step back and step together again. I also can’t do step ups so I do lunges instead (and I had to split it up so I did all the burpees first and the lunges after). Even with all the modifications, I still needed to take a lot of breaks. But somehow I was on the last round of crunches when class was done so I did make it through all 5 types of burpees.

Saturday’s class was a mix of endurance, strength, and power. I was a little sore from the workout the day before (and Friday night I was at Disneyland but I’ll write about that tomorrow) and I was still getting over the nausea. But it was one of the lighter nausea days so I knew I’d be able to do some really great work on the bike.

We had a switch class where all the blocks were 4.5 minutes and we switched between cardio and the floor every block. All the cardio blocks were the same with a 30 second push pace, 1 minute base pace, 2 minute push pace, and 1 minute all out. For the first block I used my normal resistance levels on the bike, but I realized I could do more. So for the other 3 blocks, I had my base, push, and all out resistances 1 level higher than I normally use. It was a bit tough doing that for all the 2 minute push paces, but it felt really great each time when I completed the block and moved to the floor. I felt really strong and fast and I needed that little victory.

On the floor, we had 3 floor blocks and 1 rowing block. For each of the floor blocks we had 1 Bosu exercise and 1 other exercise. The Bosu exercises were single arm chest presses, back extensions, and pull overs. I had the do the back extensions on the ground because of my nausea, but for everything else I used the Bosu and had some good weights to use. And the other exercises were single leg V ups, single arm power jacks, and single arm clean to presses. Again, for the weights I was using what I have been using lately so that was great. And for the rowing block, we had a 600 meter row and then 20 seconds to recover. We were supposed to do a 300 meter row next followed by a 150 meter row, but my 600 meter row took so long that I only had time to recover for 20 seconds and then do just under a minute of rowing to finish class.

I’m really hopeful this week I won’t have any bad nausea days. I might have some mild ones toward the beginning of the week, but I know that it won’t be as bad as what I had this past week. And I’m so glad that for Hell Week it should be a good week too because I can’t imagine how it would be doing those workouts feeling how I did this past week. Of course, there is always a chance that I might have some nausea during that week, but hopefully this week prepared me for how to make it through!

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Another Week of Highs and Lows (or Not Letting One Workout Influence Another)

Posted on September 3, 2018 | Comments Off on Another Week of Highs and Lows (or Not Letting One Workout Influence Another)

This past week was another workout week where things were pretty mixed. I had some great accomplishments and some tough struggles. But I think the biggest thing I got through this past week was not letting how I felt one day make me think differently for the next workout. I was able to let it go and move on if I had a tough day and I think that helped me accomplish more than I would have been able to do before.

Monday’s workout was a strength day and it was also a walking day for me on the treadmill. I usually walk on strength days because they involve inclines, but my body was also just feeling off that morning (probably due to my dentist appointment after my workout). But it ended up being a good day to work on my incline work on the treadmill.

We started with 5 short blocks on the treadmill that each built upon the one before. The first block was a 30 second push pace at 9% (for power walkers at least, runners were at 5%), a 1 minute base at no incline, and a 30 second all out pace. The next block added onto the incline work so we had 30 seconds at 9% and 30 seconds at 8%. Each block added 30 seconds at an incline lower so the last block had 2 1/2 minutes of incline work starting at 9% and going down to 5%. I did use the inclines we were supposed to use even though 9% is a bit higher than I like to use. But I just went down a bit with my speed to make it doable for me.

The last block on the cardio side was a rowing block. It was 3 minutes long and we had rounds of 150 meter rows. But the goal this time was to do the row in as few pulls as possible. Usually you row fast to try to get through it in the shortest time, but to do the fewest pulls you have to go very slowly. It’s not easy to go that slow, but I’ve gotten pretty decent at doing it. The goal was to be lower than 15 pulls and our coach said to try to get 12. I was able to do 2 attempts in the 3 minutes and both times I got it done in 11 pulls! I tied for the best in class that morning!

The floor was 6 blocks and it also had a similar format to the treadmill where we added upon each block. The first block was just the ab work we had which was plank jacks, toe touches, reverse crunches, and full sit-ups. I really couldn’t do the reverse crunches because of my hips so I skipped that part and added regular crunches. Then we added on low rows with weights for the next block. Block 3 had us adding high rows using weights, block 4 had us adding lunges with weights, and block 5 had us adding lunges without weights. Each block I skipped the reverse crunches and added regular ones. And the final block skipped all the ab work and just had the exercises we added on. When I saw that this was our floor work, I thought it wouldn’t be too bad. But by the end my abs were on fire!

Wednesday was another strength day and the treadmill blocks had power walking work for everyone. Normally even on strength days the people who run still run but use inclines. But this time, every block had a section where we all were power walkers.

We had 4 blocks on the treadmill and every block had 90 seconds of power walking for everyone at 15%. While I have done a few moments of 15% incline work lately, I’m not that great at using inclines that high and especially not for that long. But I did try the best I could for those 90 seconds. I was using the 15% incline for the first 3 blocks, but I did bring my speed down quite a bit to do it. And for the last block I just wasn’t able to do the incline that high so I used my normal all out incline but was back at my normal speed. Each block we had a push pace after the power walking hill, which meant working at 6% which felt almost flat after doing 15%. I ended up taking a bunch of breaks during the treadmill blocks, but I think that my body was also a bit still due to stress and anxiety and that was affecting my workout.

The floor started with a rowing block. We had 10 pulls to see how far we could get on the rower. It was similar to what we had on Monday with trying to do 150 meters on the rower with as few pulls as possible. We also had some shoulder and tricep work using weights between each attempt on the rower. Then we had 2 regular floor blocks. The first had tricep pullovers, squats, and plank low rows. And the second was a core block with double crunches and half get ups. The ab work was a bit tough after Monday’s workout, but fortunately my soreness wasn’t as bad on Wednesday as it had been on Tuesday.

Friday’s workout was one that I was worried about before going in. I had a minor medical procedure done on Thursday afternoon (more on that coming up in my post on Wednesday this week) and I was prepared to be not at my best. I was a bit sore and dealing with some symptoms that were similar to how I feel when I have hormonal issues, so I dealt with the workout the same way I do when I am having that pain and nausea.

I was so grateful the class was a 3 group class so I wasn’t on the bike for that long. We had 2 blocks and in the first block we were supposed to do a distance at push pace, have a walking recovery, and then do an all out at an incline. But for me, I just tried to keep going on the bike for the entire block. I wasn’t really feeling up for pushing myself too much and I knew that just doing what I could was enough for that workout. The second block was supposed to be a 30 second all out and then 10 lunges and each round we were supposed to increase the all out by 15 seconds. I was able to do that for 2 rounds but then the lunges were starting to get to me so I just stayed on the bike and kept pedaling.

On the rower we had a similar format to the treadmill/bike. The first block was a 30 second all out row followed by 10 lunges and then increasing the row by 15 seconds each time. Again, I was able to do 2 rounds and then the lunges were bothering me so I stuck with just rowing. The second block started with a 400 meter row followed by rounds of 30 second all out rows. I wasn’t doing so great during this rowing block and I just rowed and took breaks when I needed to. It seemed like I needed a break every 100-150 meters so I didn’t get that far on the rower.

The floor was one long block but we had 3 mini-blocks within it. Each mini-block had 2 exercises and we were supposed to do 2 rounds of them before moving on to the next mini-block. We had single leg deadlifts, bird dogs, hammer curls, knee tucks on the ab dolly, tricep kickbacks, and ab dolly roll outs. I was just able to make it to the end of the last mini-block when time was up but I was pretty happy with my floor work. I went slowly, but I did heavy weights for all the weight work which is always a good thing.

Even though Friday was a tough day, I was determined to do better on Saturday. Fortunately I was feeling almost totally better by then and the workout seemed designed to allow me to do some awesome work! I went to a different class time than I normally go to so I was at another 3 group class and it was focused on power work.

We had 2 blocks at each section of the room. The first block on the treadmill was a 1 minute push pace, 1 minute base pace, 1 minute all out, walking recovery, 1 minute all out, walking recovery, 45 second all out, walking recovery, and ending on a 30 second all out. I walked the base pace and walking recovery, but I ran everything else! The second treadmill block was a 1 minute push pace, 1 minute base pace, 1 minute all out, 1 minute walk, and ending on a 30 second all out. Again, I ran everything except the base pace and walking recovery! That was such a huge improvement over what I had been able to do the day before.

On the rower, the first block started with a 100 meter row and frogger squats. Each round the row went up by 100 meters and the frogger squats went down by 2. And the second block had round of 100 meter rows with shoulder work with weights between each row. I had been dealing with some soreness in my shoulder so I struggled a bit with the weights, but I did about half of them with weights and then did regular squats after so I didn’t have to involve my shoulders.

And on the floor, the first block was regular chest presses, pull ups on the straps, and close grip chest presses. And the second block was sit up to squats on the benches, sit-ups, and pushups using the bench. For the weighted work I was using my heavy weights, but more of the floor work was body weight only work.

I’m so glad I didn’t let my performance on Friday affect my Saturday workout. I love when I end my week on such a high note because that puts me in a good mood for the next workout week. Of course, my issues vary from week to week so I have no clue how I’ll do this week in my workouts, but I’m optimistic and hopeful that I’ll have at least 1 awesome day!

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Just Surviving The Workouts (or Hoping Next Week Will Be Better)

Posted on June 25, 2018 | Comments Off on Just Surviving The Workouts (or Hoping Next Week Will Be Better)

I knew going into this week of workouts that I was going to have days of nausea. I was very lucky it didn’t affect me too much the week prior, but since coming off the pill and having regular periods again I have not had a period without nausea. I always hope for the best, but the realistic side of me makes me worried and I try to not let that affect my workout too much.

Monday wasn’t that bad of a day for me. I knew I’d be going to Disneyland after the workout so I wasn’t pushing myself too hard and the nausea was pretty minor. It was a 3 group class and we spent 15 minutes at each section before moving on.

For cardio on the bike, we had 3 short blocks. The first block was a 3 minute push pace with a 1 minute all out pace. The second block was a 2 minute push pace, 1 minute base pace, and a 1 minute all out. And the last block was a 1 minute push pace, 1 minute base pace, 1 minute push pace, and 1 minute all out pace. I stuck with my usual resistance levels but I wasn’t pedaling as fast as I normally could. The nausea waves were coming during my time on the bike, but they were over quickly and not as severe as I know they could be so I felt good about that.

On the floor we had some work that was timed and some work that was by the number of reps. We had skater lunges, seated knee tucks, push ups, chest flies, and bear step plank work. I knew I couldn’t do things where I was horizontal with my face toward the ground because that makes me feel worse. So for the push ups and the bear steps I did modified push ups using the bench for both. It was still tough doing that, but I wasn’t feeling as sick as I would have if I was completely horizontal with my face toward the ground.

And on the rower we started with a 100 meter row with 10 squat presses using a medicine ball. Each round we went up 100 meters on the rower keeping the medicine ball work the same. The goal in 15 minutes was to get to 2,000 meters which didn’t seem that tough since usually I can do 2,000 meters in under 10 minutes. The first few rounds weren’t too bad and I was able to row without stopping and quickly get to the medicine ball work. But as each round went on the rowing was more and more difficult and I needed to take breaks. I got to about 1,900 meters when class was done which was a bit frustrating that I was so close to the goal (I would have rather been at 1,500 meters and been really far from hitting it).

Wednesday was a pretty brutal day for me. I’ve had bad nausea days before, but this was a totally new level of bad. I debated skipping the workout, but I knew that I would be mad at myself if I did that. So I showed up and figured that even if I could barely do anything it would be better than doing nothing.

The cardio portion was similar with rounds of push to all out paces ranging from 1 minute to 30 seconds. I tried to stick with my usual resistance levels on the bike, but my legs were moving very slowly. It reminded me of the week before doing Everest on the bike where it felt like my legs were in jello or syrup on the high resistance levels. But I just kept trying to keep moving and not caring how little I was able to do. I had to take so many breaks to let the nausea pass and I just let my body control what I could do. I had taken 2 medications which are supposed to help with the worst nausea but they didn’t seem to touch how I was feeling this day. Fortunately I have an appointment with my doctor soon so I’m going to ask if there are other options so I don’t have too many days like this.

When we got to the floor, I realized this workout was not designed for the issues I was dealing with. We had 3 blocks and each block started with a rolling burpee. This means we start on our backs on the weight bench and do a sit-up. Then we are supposed to stand, put our feet on the weight bench (so our head is lower than our feet), do a push up, and then put our feet back on the ground to start over with the sit-up. I knew this was not possible for me to do. So I did the sit-up, stood up and turned around so I was facing the bench. I used it to help with my push up so I didn’t have to be horizontal and then turned around to do the sit-up again. It added time to my work, but I needed to do this. The other work we had included some plank work so again I used the bench to put my hands on so I didn’t have to be face down on the ground. When class was done, I was ready to be home and just try to get the feeling of nausea over with. While it did get better after class, it didn’t go away.

Friday was an interesting day. Since starting to go to the Culver City studio I haven’t done many afternoon workouts. My Saturday ones are at 11:20am which could still be considered the morning. But I hadn’t done a 4pm workout in a while. But some of my workout friends were going to take the 4pm class and I wanted to join them for a workout reunion! It was another bad nausea day and I honestly have no idea if working out in the morning would have been easier or harder, but it was going to be an afternoon workout no matter what.

It was an endurance based workout but we did switch between blocks so that helped. But I know that the nausea was awful because my friends kept checking in on me. I guess I looked really green sometimes and really pale other times. They don’t usually see me when I’m this sick so I think it freaked them out a bit. But I just kept reassuring them that I was fine and I pushed through the best I could.

For the cardio, there were 3 blocks that all had a similar pattern. It was 3 rounds of push paces to base paces and ending with a push pace to an all out pace. The first block had the push and base paces for 1 minute, the second block for 45 seconds, and the last block for 30 seconds. I tried my best to just keep pedaling on the bike and I surprised myself a bit by how well I did. I did take lots of breaks to let the nausea pass, but considering how horrible I was feeling earlier it was significantly better than what I was expecting.

On the floor, even though we had 3 blocks it was really 1 long block that we kept working on during each block. We started with a 600 meter row and then had add on exercises. We started with lateral lunges and regular lunges and then each round we added on another thing. We also had hip hinge reverse flys, weighted hip bridges, and sit-ups (which I did as crunches). Then we had a 300 meter row and started with all the exercises and each round we were supposed to take away something. I did the 300 meter row and started doing all the exercises again, but that’s as far as I got.

Even though this was another pretty brutal workout, it was made so much better by having my friends there. It was a rare treat and we talked about trying to make this happen once a month or every other month and I hope we are able to do it!

Saturday was a little better, but still a pretty nauseous day. It was a strength based workout and there were no switches so I was on the bike for about 25 minutes before moving to the floor. There were 3 blocks on cardio and each block started with a longer push, then had 2 rounds of base to push paces, and ended with a 30 second all out. Overall it was easier for me to bike than it was earlier in the week, but when a wave of nausea hit me it was much more severe and literally stopped me in my tracks. Usually I can slow down the bike before letting it pass, but this time I had to stop completely immediately because it just took over. I know this probably sounds so horrible and it’s probably bad that I’m getting used to this, but it’s the reality of my life now.

The floor had 2 blocks. The first block was supposed to be all ab dolly work, but I couldn’t do any of it on the ab dolly. First were roll outs which I couldn’t do because being horizontal with my face toward the ground makes things worse. So I did roll outs with the straps instead. Then we were supposed to do pikes (which I usually do as knee tucks) and that was the same issue with the roll outs. So I did leg lifts instead (which my coach said was basically pikes on my back). And the last thing were hamstring curls which I just can’t do on the ab dolly so I did hip bridges with a weight on my hips.

The second block went better. We had hip hinge reverse grip low rows, sumo squats, and shoulder work. Normally for the low rows and shoulder work I would use 15 lb weights and the squats would be either 20 lb or 25 lb. But I decided to challenge myself to make up for my issues with cardio and did 20 lb weights for the row and shoulders and a 30 lb weight for my squats. It was tough, but not as tough as I thought it would be. We also had 200 meter rows in this block and I did manage to do it in under 40 seconds which is pretty decent for me.

It was unfortunate that I was accurate in this past week of workouts being lots of nausea days. But I think I’m dealing with them better now than I have before and I’m more familiar with the modifications I’ll need to do and what I can do instead. There is a chance that some of this week will still be not so great, but I know that by the end of the week I should be better. And not only will the nausea go away, but I’m finally over this cold I had! So there is a chance I might be trying the treadmill for the first time in about 7 weeks!

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An Up And Down Workout Week (or I Love Having Workout Buddies)

Posted on April 2, 2018 | Comments Off on An Up And Down Workout Week (or I Love Having Workout Buddies)

This workout week didn’t start as the most ideal for me, but this is sadly becoming the norm for me. While I’ve been dealing with the nausea issue for a while now, it’s not necessarily getting easier to manage and I’m really trying to figure out what to do to make things the best possible for me. But fortunately, this past week of workouts ended on a high note and that’s what I’m trying to focus on going into this week.

Monday’s workout was a bit rough for me. I had spent all day Sunday being very nauseous and in a lot of pain. I was hoping that I could sleep that feeling off, but Monday morning when I woke up it wasn’t that much better. But I also know that I need to go do what I can in a workout and that’s what I went into class thinking. It was a 3 group power class, so that did work a bit to my advantage because everything was in short bursts.

I started on cardio and was on the bike. For the entire block, we had the same plan. The runners had a .25 mile run (on the bike it was 1 mile) and then we had 15 power jacks with a medicine ball. I wasn’t able to do the power jacks so I did squats to a shoulder press. I took it easy on the bike and the mile took me a bit longer than it normally does, but that might have been due to me keeping the resistance low. When a wave of nausea hit me, I stopped the bike and let it pass. But I just tried to keep going when I could and while it wasn’t my best cardio workout, it was better than staying in bed and doing nothing.

Next I was on the rower where we had a partner type row. Everything was split into 4 minutes and in the first round one person did a 400 meter push row while the other person did a base row. When the 400 meter partner was done, they told the other person and they did the 400 meter push row. We went back and forth until 4 minutes were up (it was about 2 rounds). Then, after a 1 minute rest we went again for 4 minute but it was a 300 meter push row. My push and base rows were pretty similar because of how I was feeling, but I only had to take 2 breaks to let nausea pass for the entire rowing time so I was very happy with that.

The floor was where I really struggles. The main part of the floor work was doing pull ups on the straps, sit-ups, and burpees with step ups. But between each exercise we had a variety of things we had to do like pop jacks or pop squats. All the in-between exercise moves were ones where we had to be parallel to the floor and I knew I couldn’t do that. I was terrified of getting sick in class and putting my body into that position made me feel awful. So between each exercise I did squats instead. I also wasn’t able to do burpees for the same reason but I didn’t want to do more squats than I was already doing. Since I do lunges instead of step ups, I just did lunges in that section. I felt like I wasn’t able to do anything in the floor block and I felt horrible about it. I also had more waves of nausea while on the floor than I did in any other section. I did my best, but I know that it was far from what I normally could do.

Wednesday was another morning workout at the Culver City location. My nausea hadn’t gotten much better since Monday so I knew it would be another day trying to take it easy. It was an endurance, strength, and power workout and we didn’t switch between blocks. So that means I was on the bike for about 30 minutes at the beginning of the workout.

I kept my bike resistance at a similar level to what power walkers had for their inclines on the treadmill. So for the base pace, I was at 4 resistance since I’m normally at 4% incline. I kept that going for pretty much all the blocks including the strength one where it was supposed to be like hills. There were plenty of times that I had to stop biking to drink some water and wait for the wave of nausea to pass, but it didn’t feel as disappointing to me as it did on Monday. Maybe I’m just getting used to having to deal with this?

Once I was on the floor, I tried my best to do everything I could. The first block on the floor had shoulder presses, tricep presses, plank work, and crunches. I couldn’t do the plank work because of how I was feeling, but I did everything else. And with the weighted work I tried to use the heavier weights that I’m used to using. The crunches were a bit tough because I would feel nauseous when I was laying on the floor, but it seemed to pass quickly and I just took it slow with the crunches. The second block was squat thrusters and pull ups on the straps followed by 200 meter rows. My rower was being a bit weird so I have no idea what time I really finished my 200 meter row, but I think it was under a minute.

And the last block on the floor was one I was a bit worried about. It was going to be a 5 minute row for distance. I know I can row for 5 minutes and I have been getting better on my endurance rows. But considering how I was feeling, I had no clue how I would do. The 200 meter row was tough enough and this was going to be about 5 times as long. So I set a goal of just rowing without stopping and hopefully getting more than 1,000 meters which was the minimum we were supposed to get to. I focused on keeping my stroke rate steady and not letting it get too high. I did have some minor waves of nausea but I didn’t stop rowing. I just closed my eyes and focused on my breathing and fortunately they weren’t as bad as some of them that I had earlier in the workout. And when 5 minutes was up, not only did I row for the entire time without stopping but I also hit my distance goal!

Friday’s workout was a strength day and I spent my cardio time on the bike again. I wasn’t necessarily feeling nauseous when I got to the workout, but I’m glad I was cautious because it ended up being another workout where I had waves of nausea. While on the bike, I did my resistance at the same number that the incline would have been as a power walker on the treadmill. Most of the time I was between 4-8% and that worked for me. But I was much slower than I normally am on the bike because of how I was feeling and I needed to take several breaks to get myself back together. It was a bit frustrating because I’m trying to not go easy on myself on the bike and that’s really what it felt like I was doing. But I also have to just remember that I was dealing with situations that were a bit out of my control and I really did try my best.

On the floor, I did try to focus on using heavier weights. In the first block we had chest presses, reverse flys, and toe reaches and I used heavier weights for all of those exercises. We also had 250 meter rows and while my time was under what we were supposed to be under it wasn’t that great of a time for what I can normally do. The second block was squat twists using the straps, tricep kickbacks using the weights, and straight leg raises. Leg raises are one of the things that I have always struggled with because of my hip, but I was able to take breaks while doing them and managed to get them done with pretty decent form! And the final block was a row block where we had 3 rounds of 1 minute all out rows with recovery in-between. I probably should have reset my rower for each of the 1 minute all out rows, but I just let it keep going so I didn’t really know what I did in a minute. But I tried to keep my wattage up and my stroke rate down the entire time so I think I did pretty well.

Saturday’s workout was one that I was excited for. Since the Culver City studio opened, I knew that some of my friends who live near me would be doing some workouts. But until this past Saturday, we hadn’t had a chance to be at the same workout. I was so excited to have friends with me in class because that’s something that I know makes my workouts better. I was debating about using the bike again, but I took a treadmill and a bike card so I could decide which way I wanted to go.

It was a power day and on the treadmill we had 5 blocks that were all under 5 minutes. I figured I would try to see how the first block went on the treadmill and go over to the bike if I felt like I was feeling sick. But I also had my friends next to me and that was extra motivation. All of the treadmill blocks had a similar pattern of being a push pace, a base pace, and a push to all out pace. I was using my normal speed and inclines and even though I had to take breaks in every single block, I managed to use the treadmill for the entire first half of class! I was pretty proud of myself and it was a nice mental boost for me.

The floor block was one long block that was an add-on type of workout. We were supposed to start every round with burpees, but because I was still feeling a bit off I did squats and push-ups instead of burpees. Then we had a 200 meter row. Each round, between the burpees (or squats and push-ups for me) and the rower we added on another exercise. We had plank low rows, bicep curls, high rows on the straps, and plank jacks. I managed to get through everything and was doing the last 200 meter row when the block was done and I felt amazing! It was a really hard workout, but I think that it was the hardest I had worked in a while. And I do think that it had something to do with my friends being there supporting me and pushing me to keep going.

While this past week of workouts was a bit of a struggle in the beginning, I felt so incredible at the end of the week and I hope that the feeling continues into my workouts this week!

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An Up And Down Week (or Working Through The Same Frustrations)

Posted on March 12, 2018 | Comments Off on An Up And Down Week (or Working Through The Same Frustrations)

This past week of workouts was a bit of a mixed bag of good and bad. I’m really working on not judging my workouts as much, but it’s difficult when I have previous workouts to compare it to. I keep reminding myself to focus on the fact that I’m there and that’s better than I was doing before, but it’s still not the first thing in my head a lot of the time.

Monday’s workout was a strength day. I knew I’d be going to Disneyland after my workout, so I planned on using the bike instead of the treadmill. But by the time I got to class, I wasn’t able to start on cardio so I started on the rower instead. It was a 3 group class and we had 2 rounds around the room so every block was about 7 minutes long. The rowing was pretty much the same with both blocks. We had rounds of sprint rows of 100, 200, or 300 meters. In the first block, we went up in distance and in the second block we went down. I tried to keep my rowing under my time goals and was pretty much able to do that each time.

On the floor, the first block had deadlifts, bear steps (which is kind of like a crab walk but face down), and lunges with upper cuts using weights. And in the second block we had sumo squats, alligators on the straps, and seated torso rotations. And on the bike, everything was pretty much 90 second push paces. Since the treadmill would have been at an incline, I tried to increase the resistance on the bike each time. And while I was tired, when we did have the all out paces on each block, I pushed myself really hard to pedal even faster. And that work paid off because I was complimented by my coach for working so hard!

Wednesday’s workout was a really interesting one! We’ve got a Dri-Tri coming up soon and this class was kind of like a mini Dri-Tri! We were in 3 groups again and I was in the group that started on the treadmill. It was supposed to be a 12 minute run for distance, but I’m still not really running yet so I walked the entire thing. I was hoping to get at least .7 miles done and I just got beyond that so I was pretty happy.

Next I was on the rower where it was a bit different from what we would do during a Dri-Tri. We had 10 minutes of doing 100 meter sprint rows followed by 20 power jumping jacks using a medicine ball. The goal was to do as many rounds of that as you could in those 10 minutes. I was able to do about 938 meters which was below the goal but I really did try my best. And after that I was on the floor where we had the same bodyweight exercises that we have during the Dri-Tri. But I was a bit more tired doing the floor work since it was toward the end of my workout. After that, we had a 1 minute tornado around the room with a 1 minute plank hold, 1 minute all out on the treadmill, and 1 minute all out on the rower.

Friday was a bit of an odd day. I wasn’t feeling totally myself and had some dizziness and vertigo issues in the morning while I was working. I thought I felt better when I got to the workout, but after my warmup on the treadmill I realized that I was still feeling off and I’d be better off being on the bike. It was also a strength day so I was a little bit happy to be avoiding hills on the treadmill and just working on resistance training on the bike instead.

Each block on cardio had a similar pattern with a base pace at an incline, a base pace at no incline, and a push to all out pace at an incline. For me on the bike, that meant working with increasing the resistance as a substitute for inclines. I didn’t get as high up in the resistance as I would have liked to, but I did match my highest resistance level from the recent past which was nice. And again, I tried to focus on my cadence and wattage to make sure I was replicating push and all out paces the best that I could.

When I was on the floor, we had 2 floor blocks and 1 rowing block. The first floor block was squat low rows with weights, triceps on the straps, and lateral raises with weights. The second block was a mini-band block. I’m still getting a hang of the mini-bands and this time I still ended up spending some time getting it straight on my legs and figuring out the best way to use them. This time, we had suitcase squats with weights, knee tucks, and side plank leg lifts using the mini-bands. I think I did better than I had in the past with the bands, but I also know there is a lot of room for improvement too. And the last block was on the rower where we had 3 rounds of 30 second all out rows followed by 30 seconds of recovery.

After an off day on Friday, I was a bit worried about Saturday. But I found out it was going to be a power day where we switched between blocks (plus it was a 3 group class) so I felt much better. Each block was only 4 minutes long so I wasn’t at any spot that long. So I felt much more comfortable using the treadmill this class. Each round on the treadmill was a similar pattern with a push pace, a base pace, a push to all out pace, a 30 second walking recovery, and a 30 second all out pace to end the block. I wasn’t doing my usual inclines and kept the push and all out inclines the same instead of bumping it up. But even with keeping the inclines a bit lower, I still felt the workout since there was minimal recovery time.

On the rower, each block was the same idea with counting pulls and seeing how far you could go. The first block was rounds of 10 pulls, the second block was rounds of 15 pulls, and the last block was rounds of 20 pulls. I was doing pretty great with 10 and 15 pulls, but when it got to 20 pulls I wasn’t able to do my super slow rowing that I can do with lower pull counts. And on the floor, each block had 2 moves. Those included uppercuts with weights, pop jacks, Y raises on the straps, sit-ups, squats, and hammer curls. The blocks were so fast that I really didn’t have time to think about getting tired so I was using some of the heavier weights for the weight work.

I sound like a broken record, but I’m really looking forward to when I will finally have progress in my workouts again. I miss feeling so accomplished every class. But then again, maybe this is what it’s like to work out on a regular basis for so long. I can’t always expect progress and I can’t use that as a motivation. But to have a little bit of that progress back again would be really nice.

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