Monthly Archives: June 2019

This past week of workouts had some really amazing moments and some really annoying moments. It really was a week of ups and downs for me. I knew going into the week that I would likely be nauseous for at least a part of it. And that was accurate. But I still had some really great victories that even the worst pain and nausea couldn’t bring down.

Monday’s workout was an interesting day. First, it ended up being a 2 group class. My normal classes are all 3 group ones so it’s been a while since I was in a 2 group class. But it was fun to take one when I’m not used to it. Also, the workout had the 200 meter benchmark row. Rowing benchmarks are very competitive for me, especially the short distance ones. I knew what my best was from before going into class, and while I would have loved to have beaten it I went into class just hoping I was close.

I started with cardio but since everyone was going to do the benchmark toward the beginning of class we started with an extended warmup. Then it was time to head to the rower to try my best with 200 meters. I know that for the sprint rows like that it doesn’t matter to have nice long pulls on the rower. So I tried to keep my strokes short and fast. I think I got the wattage higher than it ever has been which is a great accomplishment. I didn’t get a personal best, but I was close and was very happy with that.

After everyone in class finished the benchmark, then we were back to regular blocks. For cardio, we had a lot of all outs with walking recoveries and push paces with base paces after. I stuck to my normal resistance levels on the bike and just focused on not letting the higher resistance levels make my pedaling slower. It’s not easy to go at the same speed when it’s harder to pedal, but I was close to keeping everything within the same range.

On the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first block was longer and had shoulder presses, lunges, plank low rows, and sit-ups. After completing those exercises we had a 100 meter row. I was more determined to see what I could do with a sprint row so I asked my coach for a little bit more advice on what to do. He gave me some pointers on keeping my strokes short and he made sure that my hard rowing didn’t make the rower bounce too much (which does happen from time to time). Even though I already did over 40 minutes of my workout, I was able to get my 100 meter row within a fraction of a second of my personal best. My coach said if I had done it toward the beginning of class that I probably would have gotten a personal best. The second floor block was shorter and had toe-tap lunges, bench hop overs, and crunches. By the time class was done, I was exhausted from the work I did on the rower but felt super accomplished.

Wednesday’s workout was the first day that I was experiencing nausea. It wasn’t as horrible as it could get, but it still slowed me down and made me a little extra cautious during the workout. So I just worked on modifying where I needed to and just worked what I could.

For cardio, it was pretty simple. We had 3 rounds of 3 minute distance challenges. I put the resistance level between my base and push pace and that was comfortable yet still a bit of a challenge for me. I know if I was feeling my best I would have done better with the distance each time, but I was just happy doing what I could and feeling like I didn’t have to modify the cardio work too much.

On the rower, we had 3 rounds of 400 meter rows with ground to press using a medicine ball after the row. But my station ended up having a broken rower so I used the bike again. I did the bike for 2 minutes (approximately the time I do a 400 meter row in) and then got off the bike for the ground to press. It wasn’t that bad having to do more bike work and I’m ok with missing the rower.

And on the floor, we had 3 blocks. The first block was the longest and had single leg deadlifts (I used the wall for balance), squats, bicycle crunchs, and hip raises. The second block was a bit shorter and it was mini-band work with hip bridges and scissor crunches. And the last block was a 1 minute plank and I used the bench to help keep the nausea from getting worse. Overall, it wasn’t my best workout but it wasn’t my worst either.

Friday’s workout was much worse for me in terms of my pain and nausea. I was having what I hope will be the worst day this cycle and I just had to tolerate it and hope for the best in my workout. I am so grateful that my coaches know me well enough to know that when I’m having a bad day that they don’t have to worry about me. This was a day I wanted to be left alone for a lot of it.

For cardio, we had 2 blocks. One was a 4 minute block and the other was an 8 minute block. For the 4 minute block, we were supposed to have increases every 30 seconds and for the 8 minute block we were supposed to have increases every minute. For both blocks, I just kept the bike as my base pace resistance level. I couldn’t really do any more than that and I had to take a lot of breaks during each block.

For the rower, both blocks were similar. The first block was rounds of 100 meter rows with medicine ball squats between each row. And the second block was rounds of 200 meter rows with medicine ball squats between each row. I was fine with the squats for the first block, but by the second block, I discovered that squats were making me feel super nauseous. I had to skip the squats but I did do overhead presses with the medicine ball.

And on the floor, we started with walkouts to pushups. I was able to do 1 of them just fine, but then I realized that being facedown like that wasn’t going to be ok for me. So I just did pushups using the bench instead. Then we had a lot of weight work. We had sumo squats with upright rows, shoulder presses, hip bridges to chest fly, bicycle presses, sit-ups with rotation, and hip raises. I was able to do most of the weighted floor work without modifications, but I was working very slowly.

Saturday’s workout was a strength day and I was feeling a little better than how I was on Friday. I was still struggling, but I was able to do a bit more than the day before. I’m glad I was since with strength days there is a lot of incline/resistance work and I wanted to do a little.

For cardio, we had two blocks that were almost the same. They had a mix of push paces, base paces with incline, high incline power walks (or high resistance slow biking for me) and an all out at the end. I did add resistance on the bike for the hill work, but I stayed within my normal push and all out range. I didn’t do anything too extreme but at least it was something.

For the rower, we had 1 long block. We started with a 700 meter row and then we had arm raises using the mini-bands. Each row went down 200 meters with more mini-band work between. I was surprised that I was able to do the rowing without taking any breaks, even for the long ones.

And on the floor, we had another 1 long block. We had weighted lunges, bench situp to stands (I split these to crunches and squats), lunges with torso rotations, plank work, and hip bridges. I had to make modifications to not me totally face down, but that was it for changing things up. So it was another workout that made me feel not too horrible about how I was feeling since I was close to the actual workout.

And I had another accomplishment in my Saturday workout. I have a goal of doing 200 workouts this year. This year isn’t quite half over, but I made it to the halfway mark of my goal!

I wasn’t worried about getting to half my goal by halfway through the year, but it’s nice to know I did it and with a week to spare! That doesn’t mean I’m going to go easy on myself, but it does make me feel extra confident about hitting my goal.

I’m prepared to have another tough week this week. Besides the usual issues I knew I’d be dealing with, I hurt my ankle over the weekend. I’m doing better than I was when I hurt it, but it may still restrict things for me. I guess I’ll just have to see what happens.

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This past week of workouts was a really good week for me. They were good workouts, I was not dealing with any nausea, and I had lots of opportunities to work hard. These weeks are the weeks that really help me feel amazing about the hard work I’ve been doing and I love them!

Monday’s workout was a strength day and it was a pretty standard strength workout. Lots of incline/high resistance work and lots of opportunities to work on weight work. Even though I loved all the themed workouts the week before, I was equally as happy to see one of the more standard workouts that I also love.

On cardio, we had 2 blocks. The first one was base work with no hill work and base work with hill work with an all out at the end. Even the all out had hill work which is not too common. I was playing around with the resistance levels on the bike to see which ones felt like the right levels for me. It was a bit tough to figure it out because the hill work was so quick, but it gave me a bit of an idea of what I want to use next time. And the second block was a 5 minute hill with the incline/resistance level going down every minute. I was able to plan it out so that the last minute was going to be at the resistance level between my push and all out levels. I needed to make that last minute a bit easier because my legs were so tired by the end of the 5 minutes.

On the rower, we had 2 blocks but they were very similar. The first block started with a 1 minute row and then we had lunges with medicine ball rotations. After that, we repeated the distance we did with the first row and had more lunges between each round. And the second block was the same idea but we started with a 30 second row. And on the floor, we had one long block. We had deadlifts, side lunges, regular lunges, crunches on the Bosu and Spiderman planks on the Bosu. I wasn’t using my heaviest weights for the deadlifts, but they were only one weight down from my heaviest. And I did go heavier for the weight on my side lunges.

Wednesday’s workout was a mix of endurance, strength, and power. I feel like each section of the room was a good mix of those 3 things and it made for a really tough class!

For cardio, we started with a 90 second push pace to a 60 second base pace. Then we repeated that and the goal was to maintain what we were able to do the first time. Then we had our hill work. We had all outs with hills (again, not something we normally do) and each round the hill went down. I was trying to keep my resistance levels on the bike above my normal all out level for all the inclines, but by the last one, I had to drop down to the level between my push and all out. The high resistance levels are really tough, but I’m getting more motivated to work on them.

On the rower, we started with an 800 meter row and then we had squats to shoulder presses with a medicine ball. Each row went down 200 meters and we had the same squats to shoulder presses each time between the rows. I was struggling more than I expected with the rowing. I don’t know what I didn’t have the same endurance that I’m used to, but I had to take a lot of breaks with each row. It was really weird and I just had to be ok with it and keep going.

And on the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first block was shorter and was using the bench. We started with being in a plank position on the bench and then we had single arm reverse fly using weights. And then we had sit-ups on the bench to squats. I really can’t do the sit-ups to squats in a single movement because when I’m on the bench my feet don’t really touch the ground. So I split up the movements and did all my sit-ups and then stood up and did all my squats. And the second block was all mini-band work but the mini-bands were around our arms so that was much better for me. We kept the mini-bands in the same spot the entire block and we had hammer curls using weights, scissor kick crunches with our arms up, and plank in and outs. My arms were really sore in the best way at the end of the workout because of all the mini-band work.

Friday’s workout was another strength day. I think being on the bike has made strength days a bit easier for me since I struggled with the inclines on the treadmill so much. I do struggle with the higher resistance levels on the bike, but not as much as I did with inclines. We had 3 blocks for all 3 sections of the room. The blocks were 2 1/2 minutes, 3 1/2 minutes, and 5 minutes. And each block within a section of the room was pretty similar.

For cardio, we started with a 1 minute hill, 1 minute base pace, and 30 second all out. We had the same pattern for the second and third blocks but the second block had a 2 minute hill and the third block had a 3 minute hill. My 1 minute and 2 minute hills were above my normal resistance levels and I did the 3 minute hill at my normal all out level. It was very tough to do 3 minutes with that high of a resistance level, but I felt so amazing when it was done and I realized I was able to do it!

On the rower, we had the same assignment for each block. We had rounds of 150 meter rows and then we were supposed to do lunges with tricep work using a medicine ball. I don’t mine doing lunges between rows if I don’t have to do that too often. But when we have to do lunges more often I really can’t do them because it’s hard for me to step in and out of the rower. So instead of the lunges, I did squats which worked out fine for me.

And on the floor we sit-ups, toe reach crunches, low rows using weights, shoulder presses with weights, and sumo squats. For the second block, we added torso rotations and all the weighted work was 2 rounds instead of 1. And for the last block, we added double crunches and had 3 rounds of the weighted work. I was able to go heavy with my sumo squat weight but not as heavy as I would have liked to for the other work. But I also know my arms were tired by the time I was on the floor because of all the tricep work on the rower.

Saturday’s workout was an endurance day. It was nice to have a break from all the strength work I had earlier in the week, but that didn’t mean the workout was any easy. It was still really hard and challenging and I got to test myself.

For cardio, we had 3 blocks. The first and last block were both 4 minute distance challenges. The second block was to do half the distance from the 4 minute challenge and then do squats until time was callled. For the second block, I cheated a bit and just did another challenge for time because I didn’t want to get off the bike. But for all of the blocks, I did the entire thing at my push pace resistance level. It was so hard to do that for 4 minutes at a time, but it was a great boost to my self-esteem when I found out I could do it.

The rower also had 3 blocks. The first and last block had a 90 second row, squats, a 45 second row, squats, and then to row until time was called. The middle block was a 3 minute row for distance. I was worried that I would struggle with the 3 minute row, but I did it without needing to take a break which was another boost to how I feel like I’ve been doing.

And on the floor, we had one long block. We had weighted chest presses, push-ups, triceps on the straps, plank work, single leg bicep curls with weights, and hip bridges with weights. It was a lot of work and my muscles were getting so sore after completing each round. I did take breaks when I needed to and I was still able to get almost 3 rounds done before the workout was done.

I really felt so accomplished after this past week of workouts. It’s so nice to just have a great week with lots of awesome work. I need these to make me feel better when I’m having a bad week. And I’m so glad I have this one in my recent memory since this week may be when my nausea kicks back in.

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