Monthly Archives: October 2021

I did get my 4 workouts in this past week, but I’m actually only going to write about the first 3. That’s because this week is Hell Week and my 4th workout was on Sunday so I could make it count toward my 5 workouts to earn my shirt. And I’m going to write about all 5 of those workouts in next week’s post. So this post is just about my 3 regular workouts this past week.

Monday was an endurance day and also a run/row day. I know I’ve had run/row workouts in the past, but I always look forward to them because they feel like they don’t happen that often and are a nice change. Plus, since my classes are 2 group classes, there usually isn’t that much rowing. Last week, that was good because of how my foot was doing. This week, my foot is still a bit tender, but I’m not in as much pain as I was. So I wasn’t powerful with my rowing but I could do it.

The run/row had cardio, a body weight exercise, and a row. The first round was .5 miles on the treadmill (2 on the bike), 50 pulsing half squats, and a 500-meter row. The next round was .4 miles, 40 squats, and a 400-meter row. That pattern continued through the block. I played around with the resistance level on the bike for the cardio, but I mainly kept it at the level between my base and push paces since it took a bit of time to get through it. And I did have to take breaks with the squats because of my foot, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be. I didn’t get as far into the pattern as I would have liked to, but it was still over 23 minutes of work.

On the floor, everything was timed. We had 3 blocks and each block had 3 rounds of the exercises. Each exercise was done for 30-seconds and we had a few 15-second transitions within each block. The first block had ab dolly rollouts, alternating superman planks, knee tucks on the ab dolly, and plank rotations. The second block had goblet squats with weights, Cossack squats, sumo squats with weights, and lateral hops. And the last block had lateral lunges on the right side, lateral lunges on the left side, and mountain climbers. We were supposed to use weights for the lunges, but I didn’t use them because I used the wall to balance.

Wednesday’s day was a power day and it was a lot of short intervals of work! I think I needed this workout after getting through all my convention work and it was a great energy boost.

For cardio, we had 4 blocks. Each block started the same way with a 45-second push pace, 1-minute base pace, and 45-second all-out. After the all-out, we had a recovery and then another all-out. Each block the recovery got a bit longer and the all-out got a bit shorter. I don’t know if my legs were tired or what, but those all-outs were extra hard on me with the resistance level I set the bike at. I’m not sure what happened, but I just struggled a lot more than I expected to. I still did it, but I know that they weren’t my best all-outs.

On the floor, we had 2 floor blocks and 2 row blocks. For the row blocks, we had either a clean to press or a single-arm snatch with weights before going to the rower for a 150-meter row. This row should be fast and done with much shorter strokes, but I still was dealing with some pain in my foot so I had to do them a bit slower than a typical power row. Even my coach called me out on this, but he understood when I explained why I couldn’t press as hard on my heel. For the other 2 blocks, we had 2 exercises on the floor. One block had chest presses while laying on the floor and plank rotations and the other block had single-arm split stance high rows with weights and plank reaches. Even without a ton of exercises on the floor, it felt like I wasn’t getting a lot of breaks and working non-stop. But I really enjoyed that!

Because I was going to work out on Sunday, I didn’t work out on Friday. But my last non-Hell Week workout this past week was my Saturday class. I knew that I would be doing 3 workouts in a row starting with Saturday, so I did try to be a bit easier on myself. But this workout was a strength day, so it wasn’t as easy to go light.

For cardio, we had 2 blocks. Both blocks started with a 2-minute push pace and then we had intervals of base paces and push paces with inclines. And we ended with a run for distance challenge for 90-seconds at an incline. None of the inclines were too high, but I still went a bit lower with the resistance levels than I might do if I wasn’t about to start Hell Week. I still got a great workout in even with going a bit lower than we were supposed to do.

And on the floor, we also had 2 blocks. Both blocks had 2 exercises and then we did a 300-meter row and repeated it. The first block had single-arm low rows with weights and goblet squats. The second block had single-arm chest presses with weights and lunges. I tried to go pretty heavy with the weights since it was a strength day, but still remembering I was about to do 2 days of Hell Week workouts in a row. I think I found a great balance for pushing myself and not going too hard, so I was pretty happy with how things went.

And for my 4th workout, that was on Sunday and it was day 1 of Hell Week. And that will come in next week’s post when I write about all 5 of the Hell Week classes I attend to earn my shirt!

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After having a 3 workout week the week before, I was hoping I’d be able to do 4 workouts this week. I had already planned on this past week to be only 3 workouts because of my union convention, but I wanted to see what I could do to fix that. But a lot of other things are happening in my life right now, so I couldn’t make that work. So it was another 3 workout week for me, and I did my best to maximize the classes I was able to go to.

Monday’s workout was a bit tough due to pain, but I was fortunately feeling a bit better than I had the past week. And I needed to be feeling better because it was a tough endurance and strength workout! Having both endurance and strength in one class was tough, but it was a good challenge.

For cardio, we had one long block with no recovery. We had base pace increasing inclines for 75-seconds each with a 2-minute flat base pace between. The resistance levels did get higher than what I usually use for my push pace and all-outs, so I needed the flat base pace time to catch my breath and let my legs rest a little bit. But just like it normally is, the inclines felt like they took forever and the flat road time flew by. And after about 20-minutes of this work, we ended with a 1-minute all-out. Because we had been doing so much with inclines during the workout, I did my all-out at a lower resistance level than I normally would.

On the floor, we had 2 blocks. For both blocks, we started with a little bit of rowing work. We had 15-stroke drills and then overhead triceps and chest presses with a medicine ball. We repeated that and then went to the floor for the rest of the block. The first block had hip hinge low rows, low rows on the straps, and plank bird dogs. And the second block had deadlifts, single-leg deadlifts (which I do without weights and use more core strength so I can hold on for balance), and plank leg lifts. Even though I wasn’t feeling completely better, the floor work didn’t make me too nauseous so I didn’t have to make that many modifications for the exercises.

Wednesday’s workout was a mix of endurance, strength, and power. And it was the day after my doctor’s appointment and my foot was in a lot of pain. I have dealt with this before, and sometimes it’s not as bad as it was this time. I wasn’t really able to put my heel on the ground, so I was hoping I wouldn’t need to do much rowing. I have had to try rowing without putting pressure on my heel, and it’s extremely difficult. Fortunately, there was no rowing in this workout. But it was another crazy challenging day!

Cardio was another single-block workout with no recovery built-in. I added in little bits of recovery for myself because even on the bike it can make my heel hurt. But at least I was over feeling pain and nausea, so I was only dealing with one issue. We had a 3-minute push pace, 2-minute push pace at incline, 1-minute push pace at incline, and then repeated that all again but in the opposite order. All of the base paces between each push pace were 90-seconds. And at the end, we had a 90-second distance challenge. Just like on Monday, I had done a lot of higher resistance levels during the workout, so for that last distance challenge I used a lower level on the bike than I normally would.

And on the floor, we focused on drop sets. A drop set is where you use a heavier weight for a lower number of reps and then immediately use a lighter weight for a higher number of reps. We had 3 blocks with 1 drop set exercise for each block. The drop set exercises were chest presses, seated low rows, and bicep curls. And we had 1 other exercise in each block with pull-ups on the straps (I did high rows on the straps), push-ups, and squats to upright rows. Some of these exercises were a bit tough because of my heel, but I was able to work around the pain for most of them. The squats were the hardest thing for me, but I just took a little break when the pain was getting worse.

And Friday was my last workout of the week (Saturday was the first day of the convention!). Again, my heel was still hurting and I was having some hip pain because of how I was walking to not be in pain. But it was manageable. I was worried again that we might have some rowing, but I lucked out and it was another day without rowing! But it was another strength day, so just like the rest of the week, we had a lot of incline work.

For cardio, we had 3 blocks with similar patterns. The first block was a 2-minute base at incline, 1-minute base without incline, 90-second base with incline, 1-minute base without incline, and a 1-minute all-out with incline. Each block, the incline got higher but the incline time was shorter. The second block had 3 incline intervals for 90-seconds, 75-seconds, and 1-minute with the same flat base paces and 1-minute all-out at incline. And the last block had 3 incline intervals for 1-minute, 45-seconds, and 30-seconds with the same flat base paces and 1-minute all-out at incline to end the block.

On the floor, we also had 3 blocks. In each block, we had 3 exercises but the first two exercises were designed to do back to back without changing the weights we were using. The back-to-back exercises were front raises and lateral raises, deadlifts and lunges, and hip hinge low rows and bicep curls. For those exercises, the only modification I had to make was to do the lunges without weights so I could balance. And the other exercises we had were low rows on the straps, squats, and chest presses on the straps. Just like with Wednesday, I had to take a few little breaks because of pain but it wasn’t that bad.

I do feel like I did the best I could with the workouts I went to this week. I would have loved to have fit in a 4th workout another morning, but my schedule just didn’t work to add that in. But just like I said last week, doing 3 workouts is still great! And hopefully this week, nothing crazy happens with my schedule so I can get back to my normal 4 workout week!

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