Monthly Archives: December 2019

This past week of workouts was just a weird one. I knew it would be a weird schedule due to the holiday, but this was even weirder than that. I already mentioned that I had food poisoning last week, and unfortunately it did affect my workouts.

I don’t know what to say about Monday’s workout. Monday was the day I had food poisoning, but I thought I’d try going to my workout to see how I would do. I know I can work through cramps when I have to, but these cramps were very different. But it was worth trying to see what would happen and I told myself that I could leave if I had to.

And for the first time that I could remember, I actually left a workout. I made it 20 minutes in class before the pain was too much for me and I knew I couldn’t do it anymore. All I had done in the workout was be on the bike, but I don’t think I biked for more than 7 or 8 minutes combined because I pedaled for maybe 30 seconds before I had to stop. I hated having to leave, but I knew that there was no way I could make it any longer in class and I was proud of myself for at least trying.

I was still a bit weak feeling on Tuesday, but I was significantly better than I had been doing on Monday (sleeping for about 12 hours during the day helped). I’m glad I was doing better because I really didn’t want to miss Tuesday’s class. I love working out on Christmas Eve and I was excited to take the class! And as an added bonus, we had a sub coach. While I love all the OTF coaches, I’ve had almost all my Christmas Eve workouts with Coach Bruce. And by some miracle, he ended up being the sub coach for this class! It was like it was meant to be!

The Christmas Eve workout is called Presents or Coal. We draw different cards that tell us what to do for our workout assignment. Some of them are easy (the Presents) and some of them are hard (the Coal). I feel like I usually get Coal when I do these, but I was ready for them. And before we got to that part of the workout, we had a quick tornado around the room with 3-minute blocks.

The cardio block was a 90-second push pace, 45-second base pace, and 45-second all out. The rowing block was a 300-meter row, squats, a 150-meter row, and more squats. And on the floor, we had goblet squats and tricep extensions with weights. And then the rest of the class was split into 10-minute blocks with 1 block at each section of the room.

For cardio, I had a mix of Coal and Presents cards. But none of them were that bad. I had 30-second intervals and distance challenges. I don’t remember the specifics of what I had to do (I should have taken notes), but I remember all of the cards being somewhat similar and never taking too long. I think I had 4 different cards for cardio. On the rower, all of the cards I pulled were Presents. I had 300-meter rows as my longest row. I also drew a card with intervals with squats between each row. But just like with cardio, I don’t remember the specifics but I do remember I drew 3 cards and they all took me about 3 minutes to complete.

On the floor, the cards told us how many of the exercises we had to do and how many reps we had. The exercises were hip hinge swings with weights, lunges, rollouts, and knee tucks. And on the floor, I drew the same card both times I had to get one. It was a Coal card and it said to do all the exercises with 12 reps each. I was starting to get a bit tired on the floor (and I think the weakness of recovering from food poisoning was catching up with me), so I was moving a bit slow. But I just focused on doing each rep as I could and taking breaks when necessary. I was just finishing up my second round of 12 reps when class was done.

I think after feeling so horrible about leaving class on Monday, the Tuesday class was exactly what I needed. I was feeling much better about myself and I needed that. Plus, I got to add to my amazing photo collage of taking Christmas Eve classes with Coach Bruce (we only missed doing class together last year).

I was finally feeling like myself again on Friday. Plus, I was craving a workout since I had 2 days off in a row which doesn’t happen that often. Even though I was excited about the workout, it ended up being a tough one and I did have a few struggles.

The workout was a mix of endurance and power. For cardio, we had a run/walk (or bike/bike slower) assignment that we did at our own pace. The longest distance we had to do was done just once and then we had 30 seconds to walk/recover. Then we had a slightly shorter distance that we did twice with the 30 seconds of recovery between each round. The third distance was slightly less and it was done 3 times. I was working on that third distance when the block ended and we switched to the rowers.

The rowers and the floor both had 5 blocks that got longer for each block. For the rower, the first row was a 100-meter row and then we did frogger squats until the block ended. We had to remember how many squats we did because we used that for the rest of the blocks. Each block, the row went up by 50 meters and we did the same number of frogger squats we did in the first block. Once we finished those, we had to hold a squat until the block ended. I always made it to holding a squat at the end, but I usually only had to do it for about 30 seconds. But all those squats were tough on my hips.

The floor was similar to the row. But instead of having longer rows we had add on exercises. The first block had neutral full thrusters and then sit-ups until the block was done. We had to remember how many sit-ups we did to use that for the rest of the blocks. Each block we added on another exercise and then did the sit-ups and held a plank until the block ended. The other exercises were hip hinge low rows, lateral lunges with a goblet hold, pulsing half squats, and tricep extensions. Even though there was a bit more upper body work, it still was a lot of lower body work and my hips were having a rough time.

Saturday’s workout was a strength day and we had some switching between blocks. Every block was about 6 minutes long and we did 2 blocks at each section of the room.

For cardio, we had shorter intervals and alternated doing push paces and base paces with incline work. The goal is to make the incline work feel the same as a push pace. For me on the bike, this is a bit harder to do because I’m not really using the resistance levels for push paces but I do use them for incline work. Also, I think I might have gone a bit too hard with the resistance levels for the inclines because my legs weren’t moving that much. But at least my heart rate got up really high while I was doing it.

On the rower, all the work we had for both blocks were stroke drills. We always had 15 strokes on the rower and the goal was to go slowly and keep the stroke rate down. For these drills, I’m pretty good at keeping the rate really low. I was much lower than the goals we were given. But I think that makes the rowing harder because my core is involved for a much longer time. In the first block between each row, we had squats with overhead presses using a medicine ball. And in the second block, we had squats with front presses using the medicine ball.

And on the floor, both blocks only had 2 exercises. The first block had bicep curls with weights and leg raises. And the second block had tricep extensions with weights and low rows on the straps. The goal with strength days is to go heavy on the weights, and I did just that. For the weight work, we had a range for the reps and we were supposed to do between 6-10 reps. If you can’t do 6 reps the weight is too heavy and if you can easily do 10 reps it is too light. I was doing either 7 or 8 reps each time, so I think I was using the perfect weights.

Even though this past week started with me having to leave a workout in the middle of it, I feel like it ended really well. I feel much better about having to leave the workout now that I’ve had other good workouts this week. But I also know that I hope that I never have to do that again. Only a few more workouts left in 2019 before I start working on my 2020 goals!

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This past week of workouts was my last workout week with my normal schedule for this year. Because of the holidays, I have slightly different workout weeks this week and next. But I’m excited about those weeks with different schedules, so it should be fun. But this past week, it wasn’t quite as good as those should be. I just had to do what I could and push through when I could.

Monday’s workout was a strength-based class. I was dealing with my normal pain and nausea so I knew it would be a bit tough for me no matter what the workout was. So I tried to do my best to follow the workout but I made changes where I needed to. It was also a switch class, so we had 3 blocks for cardio and 3 blocks on the floor and we switched after each one.

For cardio, all 3 blocks had a similar pattern. We had a 2-minute push pace, a base pace, a base pace with incline, a regular base pace, and we ended with an all out at an incline. The base pace with incline got shorter each block, but the incline went up each block to make up for it. But for me, I used the same higher resistance level on the bike each time we were supposed to be at an incline. It was a high resistance level, but it was easier for me to keep it the same. I really tried to do my best each block to keep going, but I had to take a lot of breaks to let either the nausea or the pain subside. It was frustrating, but I also know that I did my best.

For each of the 3 floor blocks, we started with a 1-minute row. The goal for each of the rows was to be within a certain stroke rate. I lucked out because they were around my normal stroke rate, but I know they were slower than what most people do. Then for each block, we had 1 exercise with a drop set (when you do a lower number of reps with a higher weight and then immediately do a higher number of reps with a lower weight) and one core exercise. The drop set exercises were hip hinge low rows, pullovers, and bicep curls. And the core work was double crunches, seated torso rotations, and plank work. I had to modify the plank work, but besides that, I was able to do all the exercises without modifications.

Wednesday’s workout was a mix of endurance, strength, and power and I was finally starting to feel a bit better so that was good. We had 3 blocks in each section of the room. We had a 5-minute block, a 4-minute block, and a 3-minute block. But we didn’t switch between blocks so we did all 3 blocks in one section back to back.

For cardio, we had a push pace, base pace, push pace, and all out. The base and all out were always 1 minute long. The push paces started at 90 seconds and went down 30 seconds each block. I had a few moments when I had to take a break to let the pain or nausea end, but I was able to do a lot more work than I could on Monday. I didn’t do anything with the resistance levels on the bike, but I did focus on my pedaling speed.

For the rower, each block had 1 row and then we had medicine ball exercises. The first block was 750-meters, the second block was 500-meters, and the last block was 250-meters. The goal with the rowing was to keep our strokes per minute the same with each row. It’s not easy to go as slowly as you did with a long row when you do a sprint row. But it was a good challenge and I liked to see what my speed naturally was with each distance and adjust it from there. The medicine ball exercises were things I couldn’t do, so I modified them to be squats with overhead presses. And we did the medicine ball work after each row until the block was done (so we were on the rower just once per block).

And the floor had a mix of strength and core work. The first block had all weight work. We had deadlifts, overhead tricep extensions, and upright rows. Then the next block had one round of the weight work again and then the rest of the block was Bosu work. We were supposed to do bicycles, crunches, and single-leg v-ups on the Bosu. But my body just wasn’t letting me do those exercises. So I did sit-ups, crunches, and then tried to do a different type of crunch to get a third exercise in. And for the last block, we only had the Bosu work, so I continued doing my modified core work. Toward the end of that last floor block, I was starting to get a little nauseous, but I think I was leaning back too far with the sit-ups and that was the cause and it wasn’t my normal nausea.

Friday’s workout was a strength-based class, and I was almost back to my normal self so I could do a lot more. I knew that I would still have to be a bit cautious about how hard I pushed myself, but I could do more than I had done earlier in the week.

The cardio had 2 blocks. Both blocks had a push pace, a base pace, hill work, a base pace, and an all out. I kept my resistance level at my base level (I really should probably stop calling it a base level since I use it so much) and then I went higher than what I used to do for my all out level for the hill work. When we were doing the hill work, I really did slow down a lot with how fast I could pedal but I think that is to be expected. And it was nice to have the other work without hills so I could go faster and feel like I’m doing more.

On the rower, we started with a 90-second row with the focus being on staying within 22-24 strokes per minute. Then we were supposed to have squats with leg lifts and calf raises using the medicine ball. I had to skip the leg lifts, but I was able to do the squats and calf raises. Then we were back on the rower and we were supposed to repeat what we just did, but decrease the row by 50 meters each time. I made things a bit easier on myself by rounding up the number on the rower so I could keep track, but I figured that way I was also doing a bit more work than necessary.

And on the floor, the first block was a mini-band block. We had walking side squats, bench tap squats, and hip raises with the mini-bands. The walking side squats were very difficult on my hips, so I had to go very slowly and take small steps. But I managed to get through them. And the second block didn’t have any mini-band work. We had side lunges while holding weights and full sit-ups.

Saturday’s workout was called Ellen’s Workout and it was named after Ellen Latham who is the founder of Orangetheory. She designed this workout to be the best representation of what Orangetheory is all about. And I really loved this class!

For cardio, we had 2 blocks. The first block was coached with lots of 1-minute intervals and a few 75-second intervals. It was mainly push to base paces with an all out at the end. After doing those intervals, then we had another block where we paced ourselves. We had rounds of .1 miles on the treadmill (or .4 on the bike) and then 30 seconds of recovery. For me, that was just under a minute of pushing myself and then 30 seconds to recover. They were intervals that I’m very comfortable with and feel like I can do well.

Then on the rower, we started with a 1000-meter row. After that, we were supposed to do lunges but I did squats instead. Then we had 3 rounds of doing 200-meter rows with the exercise between each row. And we finished the rowing with another 1000-meter row. I was working on that second 1000-meter row when the block ended and we switched to the floor.

The floor also had 2 blocks. The first block had single-leg squats (which I had to modify and do as regular squats), overhead presses with rotations with weights, bird dogs, and v-ups while using the Bosu (which I had to modify and do as full sit-ups). And the second block had lateral lunges with weights and front raises with weights while kneeling on the Bosu. When this workout was done, I really felt awesome! It was the best I had felt all week and I thought the workout was really good!

I’m excited for this week of workouts. I know we should have some holiday-themed classes this week and next, and I love those themed classes. And I’m excited to see if I can accomplish anything else amazing before the year is up!

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