Monthly Archives: September 2022

I’m very grateful that during this past week of workouts, I was dealing with very little back pain. I still have some back pain, but it’s very infrequent now and it’s not affecting too much of my day-to-day life. Unfortunately, as expected this week, I was dealing with quite a bit of cramps and nausea. But since those are regular monthly occurrences for me, at least I know how to manage them and I think it made this past week of workouts a bit easier for me in an odd way.

For Monday’s workout, things were probably the best for me with only a little back pain and minimal nausea. And for each section of the room, we had 3 blocks.

For cardio, the first and third blocks were the same. We had rounds of a 30-second all-out followed by a 45-second recovery. With short intervals like that, it feels like it goes by quickly so I really did like those blocks. For the second block, we had a 5-minute distance challenge which was much harder for me to do. I feel like the longer I bike sometimes, the faster nausea hits me. I don’t know why that happens, but it’s something I’ve noticed in the past few months.

On the rower, we did the same thing that we did for cardio. The first and last blocks were actually much better for me than I expected and I did really well with the rowing in those blocks. But for the 5-minute challenge row, I struggled a lot. But as always, I took breaks when I needed to and got back to work as quickly as I could.

On the floor, the first and third blocks were timed with one exercise being for 30-seconds and the other exercise being for 45-seconds. In the first block, we had skater lunges and push-ups. And in the third block, we had neutral thrusters and lateral lunges. For the second block, we were on our own for timing and it was all core work. We had double crunches, sit-ups with shoulder presses, and seated torso rotations. This block was the only one where my back caused an issue. I discovered I’m still not able to do sit-ups, so I did crunches instead so I didn’t hurt my back more.

For Tuesday, we had an endurance focus for our workout. For cardio, we started with a 4-minute push pace with a 90-second recovery after. We continued that pattern with decreasing the push pace each round and ended with a 30-second all-out. Just like with Monday, the longer intervals were tougher for me to do, but it was manageable and I felt like I did better than Monday even though I felt worse.

On the rower, we focused on 250-meter rows so they were shorter which was nice. And between the rows, we had squats to alternating knee to elbows. That exercise was a bit more challenging for me, but I took it slow so it almost was like a back stretch for me and that was helpful both for the workout and for making my back feel ok.

And on the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first block had tricep extensions and lunges. And the second block had lateral step-ups, hip hinge swings, and push-ups to planks. I did use the bench at the lower setting for the step-ups and also for my hands with the push-ups. And for the hip hinge swings, I had to go a bit lower with the weight than I would have liked to because of my back.

On Wednesday, my nausea was really kicking in and I was feeling pretty rotten. I was smart the night before and made sure to take my anti-nausea medication before going to bed, which can sometimes help me in the morning.

For cardio, we were timed on our own. We started at the highest incline/resistance level for the shortest distance. After completing it, we had a 1-minute recovery. Each time, the incline/resistance level decreased but the distance increased. The resistance levels were pretty high for me, so I did take quite a bit of time to get through some of the distances. I think that combined with how I was feeling made things very slow for me and I only got through about half of the distances we were supposed to try to do.

On the rower, we started with a 500-meter row. After that row, we took a quick recovery break before doing a 100-meter row. After the 100-meter row, we were supposed to do squats and jumping jacks. I only did the squats since I knew I couldn’t do jumping jacks. We were supposed to repeat the 100-meter row and exercises 5 times before moving to the final row, but I only got through 4 rounds.

And on the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first block was 10 reps for each exercise. We had goblet squats, front raises, lateral raises, and reverse flys. In the second block, we were timed. We had neutral thrusters for 30-seconds each time and plank pop jacks for between 1-minute and 20-seconds. The plank pop jacks were definitely a challenge, but I did my best using the bench for my hands.

Even with how bad I was feeling this past week, I think I’m finally getting used to the new schedule I have set with doing 4 days in a row. On Thursday, I was feeling pretty bad, but I know that was due to nausea and not doing 4 days in a row. And like always, I just tried my best even though this was a very endurance-focused day and that’s extra challenging for me.

For cardio, we had one block and we started with a 3-minute push pace followed by a 90-second base pace. We continued that pattern with the push pace decreasing by 30-seconds and the base pace decreasing by 15-seconds. And we ended our cardio work with a 1-minute all-out.

On the rower, we did the exact same thing as we did for cardio. So that made it a 14-minute row, which is a very long row. I knew that this would be tough on me, but I wanted to see if I could get to at least 2000-meters. That would be a slow row for me since I know I can row 2000-meters faster, but with how I was feeling I thought that would be a good challenge for me. I did try to keep rowing during the base row intervals since that would add distance, but I did still need to take breaks during some of them. But I didn’t unstrap my feet for the entire thing, so that was a small victory. And when the row was done, I got just over 2000-meters, so I was very happy!

And on the floor, we had one long block that was back-to-back work. That meant we were not supposed to stop between exercises and ideally use the same weights for the entire thing. I did use the same weights which meant I was using slightly lighter weights than normal for a few things, but that worked out ok for me. We had regular squats, bicep curls, front squats, uppercuts, deadlifts, low rows, side plank reaches, and single-leg v-ups. I changed the v-ups to crunches, but besides that, I did all the exercises the way we were supposed to do. I didn’t know if I could do the front squats, but because I was using lighter weights than normal, I could do them without making my hips hurt. That was something I wasn’t expecting, and now I know that for that exercise I should probably just go lighter with the weights instead of changing the type of squats that I do.

Considering how I thought this past week would go, I am very happy with what I was able to do. I knew I’d have struggles, but I found ways to work around a few of them. And with this week likely being another week with a lot of pain and nausea, I hope I can continue that trend and push through that time with some new modifications that make the exercises work for me.

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I just tried out a new workout schedule of doing 4 days in a row (and then having 3 days off). I’m still debating if I like this new schedule or if I want to try something like Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday so I can make sure I still see all my favorite coaches. But I decided to keep up the new schedule until I have a better idea if I like it or not, so I did that this past week. But this past week was also the week that I still had back issues along with the side effects from the vaccine, so it was definitely a tough workout week for me.

Monday’s workout was really tough since that was the worst day in the past week for my side effects. I was still dealing with body aches and I knew I was exhausted. I’m glad some of the worst side effects like having a fever were gone, but because I went through those over the weekend I knew my week would be fighting back from getting over those.

Fortunately, the cardio part of the workout went well with me dealing with the fatigue and feeling weak because it was very easy to modify to make it super easy for me. We started with a 3-minute push pace into a 30-second all-out. Then we had 3 minutes to recover and get back to a base pace and we continued with doing a 30-second all-out and 3-minutes to recover. I know that if I was feeling ok, I would have biked at my base pace a lot more in those 3-minutes. But I really went slow and easy and that helped a lot with making this doable.

On the rower, we started with a 3-minute row, and I just did as much rowing as I could each time and then rested when I needed to. I took a lot of breaks because the fatigue was hitting me really hard on the rower. We followed the pattern with cardio with the 3-minutes of recovery and when cardio when in an all-out, we had a crew row where we all tried to row together.

And on the floor, we had one long block with 2 mini-blocks in it. The first mini-block was only done once before we moved on. We had low rows and triceps on the straps and then single-leg deadlifts with no weights. Then we kept doing the second mini-block for the rest of the workout. That block had low rows with weights, tricep extensions with weights, and deadlifts with weights. I did have to use much lighter weights than I’m used to and I also needed to sit down during the floor block to catch my breath because the fatigue was really making me feel weak. But I did my best and I felt really happy I did something to help me feel better after the booster shot.

I was doing a bit better on Tuesday, but the fatigue and feeling weak were still affecting me a lot. So I just tried my best with the workout and accepted it wouldn’t be what I normally could do.

For cardio, we had 2 blocks that were the same. We had 1-minute intervals with a base pace at an incline followed by a base pace without an incline. The incline or resistance level went up by 1% each time. I did try to work on doing better with my resistance levels, but I realized my body wasn’t ready for that. So I was mainly using the levels between my push and all-out, but I did do one of the intervals higher than my all-out level.

On the rower, we started with a 400-meter row. I did much better with this row than I expected. I still needed breaks, but not nearly as many as I would have thought I would have needed. Then we had lateral hops (which I did as lateral steps) and high knees. Next was an 800-meter row, which went much worse than my 400-meter row. Again, I took breaks when I needed them. But this time it felt like I needed a break every 100 meters or so. Because I took so many breaks, I didn’t get that far through the block before the time was done.

And on the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first block had squats, pull-ups on the straps, and push-ups. And the second block had bicep curls and lunges. Both floor blocks were a bit of a struggle for me, but again, I could tell I was doing a bit better than the day before.

Wednesday’s workout was a prep workout for the Dri-Tri. This was mainly to be ready for the cardio portion. I already knew by Wednesday that I wouldn’t be doing the Dri-Tri, but I still liked the prep workout because it was a good workout to help me get back to more of my normal.

For cardio, we had decreasing push paces with 1-minute base paces between each one. We started with a 4-minute push pace and it decreased by 1-minute each round. And we ended with a 1-minute all-out. I know I did better in this workout than I had earlier in the week, but I was still taking more breaks than I would have liked to. But I kept reminding myself that it’s still an improvement!

For the rower, the first block was rounds of 500-meter rows and lateral hops/steps. And the second block was rounds of 300-meter rows with front and back hops/steps. And on the floor, we had lunges, single-arm shoulder presses, deadlifts, and step-ups. I again had to use lighter weights than I would have liked to, but I at least tried with normal weights first before realizing I wasn’t ready for them.

Thursday was definitely my best workout of the week. I was pretty much over all my side effects from the booster and my back was feeling significantly better than it had all week. So I was able to push myself a bit more even if I wasn’t quite fully back to normal.

For cardio, we had 2 blocks. Both blocks started with a 1-minute push pace to an all-out. But in the first block, all the all-outs were 1-minute and the recovery time ranged from 30-seconds to 1-minute. And in the second block, the all-outs were all 30-seconds instead of 1-minute. I did try to go hard with the all-outs at the end of each block since those had the longest recovery time leading into them, but I had to be careful since after the first block I was really feeling weak from pushing myself so much.

On the rower, both blocks were focused on making sure we weren’t rowing too fast. In the first block, we had 300-meter rows and rainbows with the medicine ball between each row. And in the second block, we had 200-meter rows with front presses with the medicine ball. I was able to keep my strokes in the goal range in each block. And I was very happy to see that each time I tried the rows, I got faster so I did have improvement.

And on the floor, we had 2 blocks that were focused on back-to-back work. So the goal was to not take breaks between each exercise. In the first block we had halos with weights, scaption raises, and good mornings. And the second block had uppercuts, tricep kickbacks, and goblet squats. I continued to play with the weights that I used to see if I could get closer to my normal ones, and I was able to do a few reps with my regular weight before I had to go down to a lighter one. Again, it’s an improvement and I’m happy that it’s better than nothing.

This really wasn’t one of my best workout weeks, but it also wasn’t one of my worst. I still got 4 workouts in and I tried my best, which is all I can hope for sometimes. And with this week coming up, it may be a bad week and I’m prepared for it. But I’m really ready for a normal week to finally happen again because I miss that!

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