Working On My Strength (or Feeling More Normal Again)

I think it was pretty clear that I recently had a pretty bad workout week. It was horrible and I was feeling pretty bad about myself. I knew that it was due to crazy circumstances, but that still didn’t help me feel better about the effort that I did in class. Fortunately, things changed for the better for me this week and I found new things to work on.

Monday’s workout was so much better than the last Monday’s class. I was still dealing with the tail end of my nausea, but I was basically back to normal and I felt much more like myself. We had a strength based class and the rowing had a lot to do with stroke counts which was a nice challenge.

For cardio, we had 2 blocks. Each block had push paces with no inclines and push paces with inclines. We also had inclines for our all out paces. I was using my normal resistance levels on the bike and didn’t really do much to count for incline work except to use my all out resistance level for push paces with inclines. It made me realize that I might need to work on seeing if I should be increasing my resistance levels on the bike again. I’ve been doing the bike for a long time without a treadmill break and I’m not used to that. When I’m not on it as often, I don’t make a lot of changes with my resistance levels. But if I’m going to stick with the bike (which I’m really feeling like I will be doing), I can’t be static in what work I do.

On the rower, both blocks had the same challenge. We had a 150 meter row and we had to count how many strokes it took to do that. When we had squats with medicine balls and the number of reps equaled how many strokes the row took. So the goal was to have your stroke count as low as possible which requires a lot of patience. I’ve gotten pretty good at being slow on the rower for stroke count challenges so I was able to keep my count around 12-13 each time I did it.

And on the floor, each block had 2 exercises. The first block had squats to bicep curls and push-ups. And the second block had sumo squats to upright rows and sit-ups. For the weighted work, I wasn’t doing my heaviest weights, but I was doing better than I have been doing for the past month or so because I really wanted to push myself.

Wednesday’s workout was another strength day. Strength days used to be really hard on me when I was on the treadmill because I was limited with incline work, but I don’t mind them as much now that I use the bike. But just like on Monday, I know that I’m probably not doing enough resistance work to replicate hills on the bike and I really didn’t do that great with fixing that in this workout.

For cardio, it was mainly done at a base pace alternating between hill work and flat road work. I did use the resistance level between my push and all out paces for the hills, but I know I could do more and I was a little mad at myself after finishing the workout for not doing that. I’m not sure why I have this mental block that I can’t do more because I know physically I can. But maybe I needed this problem to come up so I could be aware of it and start fixing it.

For the rower, it was all shorter rows with squat work between each row. We started at a 200 meter row and then had a 150 meter and 100 meter row. After the 200 meter row, we had regular squats with the medicine ball. After the 150 meter row we had regular squats and ground to press with the medicine ball. And after the 100 meter row we had regular squats, growing to press, and power squats with the medicine ball. The squats were taking me a long time so I didn’t get as much rowing done as I would have liked to. But to keep my hips safe and not hurting I have to make sure that I am not sloppy with my squat form.

On the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first block had chest presses, knee tucks, and tricep extensions. And the second block had chest flys, sit-ups, and reverse flys. For the chest presses I could go pretty heavy with my weight, but for the other exercises I had to go a bit lighter than I would have liked to. My arms were feeling a bit weak and I think that my arms have always been like that and again I might just need to put some focus into fixing that.

Friday was another strength day (I feel like having all these strength days is a sign that I needed to work on them). Even though the other workouts during the week were also strength days, they all have their own focus and I was able to find different things to work on during this class compared to the other classes.

For cardio, it was a similar pattern to what we had earlier in the week with alternating flat road and incline work. But the incline work was for longer intervals in this class. When we had the hill work for 2 minutes, I was using my normal all out resistance level. To know I could do that for 2 minutes gave me a real boost in knowing what I could do. It wasn’t easy and my legs were sore when I was done, but I did it! When we had our all outs, they were supposed to be on hills so I did 1 level above what I usually use. If I hadn’t done the hills before, I think I could have done a higher level. But it just continued to prove that my biking ability is much more than I’ve been really doing.

On the rower, we started with a 600 meter row. After that we had squats with medicine ball raises and calf raises. Then we had 2 rounds of a 300 meter row with the medicine ball work after. After that we were supposed to have 3 rounds of 150 meter rows and more squat work, but my hips were really starting to hurt me. Friday morning we had a small earthquake very early in the morning and that woke me up and I never got back to sleep. I know sleep helps my body reset and makes my hip get back into alignment. So when I don’t sleep, I’m at a high risk for having a bad hip day and that’s exactly what happened. So instead of doing the squat work after the rounds of the 150 meter rows, I just kept rowing.

On the floor, we had 2 blocks with 2 exercises each. The first block had deadlifts and hollow hold single arm chest presses. And the second block had seated shoulder presses and double crunches. For the deadlifts and shoulder presses, we had a range for the number of reps we were supposed to do. So I went heavier than normal with the weights to test myself. I don’t think I could do the heavier weights if I had to do more than 5 or 6 reps, but since we could do as few as 5 they worked. For the chest presses and double crunches I just used my normal weights for the exercises because both of those things put a bit of stress on my hips and I didn’t want to risk things with going higher with the weight.

Saturday was an endurance based workout, but I ended up treating the class more like a power day. After all the motivation I had earlier in the week with my bike resistance levels, I decided to test a few things out.

For cardio, we had 2 blocks. The first block was 2 rounds of a 2 1/2 minute push pace with a recovery between them. 2 1/2 minutes is a pretty long push pace, but I still decided to see if I could increase my resistance level a bit. I increased it by 1 level (so it was the level between my push and all out pace) and it was tough. 2 1/2 minutes seemed to take forever, but I managed to keep the resistance level there the entire time. The second block was a 6 minute distance challenge. And I decided to use my previous push pace level and see if I could do that for the entire time. I was doing ok with it until about the 4th minute. Then I had to bring it back down to my old push pace level. But to know I did it for that long (plus that I did the previous push paces at a higher level) was the proof I needed that I was due for a change.

On the rower, we started with a 1,000 meter row. That was brutal after all the work on the bike! Then we had 100 jumping jacks to do which was tough as well. Jumping jacks aren’t that easy for me to do, even on my best days. I had to break them up into multiple chunks, but I eventually got them done. Then we had a 500 meter row and we were supposed to do 50 jumping jacks and 50 squats. I skipped the jumping jacks because I could feel my hip getting a bit sore. We had a few more rounds we could do on the rower, but after my 50 squats I was only on the rower for a few minutes before we switched again.

And the floor also had 2 blocks. The first one had upright rows, plank jacks, and knee tucks. And the second one had low rows on the straps, reverse flys, and sit-ups. The weight I wanted to use for the upright rows and reverse flys weren’t available so I had to decide if I wanted to go lower or higher. I tested out going higher with the weights and was able to do it! I don’t know if I’ll be using the higher weights regularly because I did have to take more breaks (so I didn’t get as much work done), but again it was nice to prove to myself that I was having a good week.

I really needed this past week after the week I had before. I needed the boost that I got from doing some great work so I could bring that into this week. I should hopefully be having another good week this week and I want to try to make even more progress!

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