Monthly Archives: July 2023

I was really prepared to have a bad workout week this past week. I was expecting my pain and nausea to kick in, which always makes it a bad week. And I knew I’d be going out to the picket lines every day and I wasn’t sure how that would affect my hips. But I was pleasantly surprised with how the week went. I was shocked that my pain and nausea really didn’t happen throughout the week. I had little moments of nausea, but that could have been anything and it wasn’t that extreme. And I did have some sore hips from the extra walking (I did over 11 miles on the picket lines), but it was manageable and didn’t affect me too much. I did have to take some moments to rest and stretch out my hips, but I was prepared for so much worse. So it ended up being an unexpectedly good week for me!

I was a bit worried going into Monday’s workout about how I would feel, but I also knew that there was a chance that would be the best day I would have that week. I’m glad I was wrong, but I didn’t know that at the time so the nerves were hitting me.

For cardio, we had 2 blocks. Both blocks did 90 seconds of work and 45 seconds of a base pace to recover. In the first block, we did a push pace for the 90 seconds and in the second block, we did a push to all-out for the 90 seconds. I used my normal resistance levels for all of the work and it went pretty well for me. Both blocks ended with an all-out, and that went well for me too.

On the rower, we started with a 100-meter row and then we had foot switches off of the rower. I did back-and-forth steps instead of foot switches as my modification. Then we increased the row by 100 meters each time until we got to 500 meters. After 500 meters, we then worked our way back down but did butt kicks after the rowing instead. I only got to the first round of doing butt kicks before the rowing was done, so I guess my rowing was a bit slow but I didn’t notice that in the moment.

On the floor, we had cluster sets for all of our exercises. This time, the cluster sets had 2 rounds of the exercise with a heavy weight and then 1 round with a lighter weight before moving on to the next exercise. The goal was to do 6-10 reps with the heavy weight and then as many as possible with the lighter weight. The exercises we had were chest presses, tap squats, and hip bridges. I didn’t use weights for my tap squats because I knew that could make my hips hurt and I wanted to be cautious. But I was using a really heavy weight for my hip bridges and I was proud of that.

Tuesday’s workout was focused a lot on doing surges, which are short bursts of higher effort for cardio or the rower. We’ve been doing these more often and they are good challenges, but they aren’t easy.

For cardio, we had 3 blocks. 2 of the blocks were focused more on speed with us going faster when we had our surges. And the other block was focused more on strength with incline and the surges were increasing the incline/resistance level. Because I knew we’d be doing incline work, I did make sure that the speed surges for cardio were just pedaling faster and not adding any extra resistance level on the bike.

On the rower, we had 2 rowing blocks that match 2 of the cardio blocks. For the surges, we were supposed to increase our stroke rate. I still struggle a bit with getting my stroke rate up high, so my surges weren’t quite as big of a difference as they should have been. And between the 2 rowing blocks, we had a block off of the rower doing medicine ball work.

And on the floor, we had some mini-band work and some weight work. For the mini-bands, we were supposed to do lunges with torso rotations and walkouts. I did the lunges on their own add the torso rotations while standing so I didn’t have balance issues. And for the weighted work, we had step-ups (which I did as more lunges), Arnold presses, and deadlifts.

I was feeling a bit of hip soreness on Wednesday, but it was still manageable and I just had to be a bit careful with the work I was doing. But I still felt like the modifications I did were nothing compared to what I was afraid I would need to do.

For cardio, we had 4 blocks and in each block, we had a specific distance we were supposed to get to. Once we got to that distance, we could recover or go to a base pace before the next block started. I was just finishing up the distance each time, so I didn’t get a lot of recovery time. But I did take advantage of any time I had to make sure my hips didn’t get too sore.

On the rower, we had a similar format as we did for cardio. We started each block with lunges and then got on our rowers to get to a specific distance. I was a bit slower with this block since I’m never that fast getting on and off the rower. But again, I was happy with what I was able to do because I was prepared for much worse.

And on the floor, we had 2 blocks. In each block, we had 2 exercises that we did twice and then 2 other exercises that we did for the rest of the block. In the first block, we started with single-leg deadlifts to knee raises and y-raises on the straps. I did the deadlifts to knee raises by holding on to the wall for balance, that’s a normal modification for me. For the rest of the first block, we had deadlifts and single-arm chest flys. In the second block, we started with low rows and rollouts on the straps. And for the rest of the block, we had plank low rows and plank pull-throughs. I was a bit lighter with the weights than I know I can sometimes do, but I was starting to get tired at the end of the floor work and I didn’t want to risk getting sloppy with my form by using a heavier weight. 

I was so happy on Thursday that I was still feeling ok. I was starting to have a little bit of nausea, but it was minimal and I didn’t have any moments that felt like I might need to leave class. And my hips were hurting a little more, but I was still happy that it wasn’t as bad as I feared it would be.

For cardio, we had 3 blocks that were similar. In the first block, we had a 90-second base pace, 75-second base to push pace, 1-minute push pace, 45-second push to all-out, and 30-second all-out. The second block had the same timing but we started at a push to all-out pace and worked our way down and still ended with a 30-second all-out. And in the last block, we did the same thing that we did in the first block. I did need to take a few breaks during cardio to stretch my hips, but it was only a few times so it didn’t cut into my workout too much.

On the rower, we had one long block. We started with a 150-meter row followed by speed squats, knee raises, and good mornings. We did that pattern a total of 4 times. Then we had a 300-meter row with speed squats and knee raises after the row. We were supposed to do that twice before doing a 600-meter row with just speed squats. I knew I wasn’t going to get through to the 600-meter row, so I didn’t get off the rower between the 2 300-meter rows and just kept rowing until the block was done to maximize the rowing I could get done.

And on the floor, we also had one block. We had 4 exercises and started at 4 reps and added 2 reps each round. We had step-ups, single-arm snatches, chest flys, and single-arm hip hinge swings. I did the step-ups as lunges as I normally do. But the rest of the exercises were done without modifications. Because I knew the reps would be increasing as I did the work, I didn’t go too heavy with my weights so I could make sure I was staying safe with my form. And even though we didn’t have that many exercises and we repeated them quickly, the block went by really quickly for me.

I’m so happy the past week went as well for me as it did. I want to hope that this week will be the same, but I also know that there is a good chance that I won’t be lucky 2 weeks in a row with my pain and nausea and it could kick in at any time. But I am trying to stay hopeful that the picketing won’t affect my workout or my hips too much, so I’m a little less worried about this week than I was about the past week. But I’ll just have to wait and see.

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This past week of workouts was a pretty good one for me. I was feeling normal, which is always a good thing. I had one day when I could sleep in a little bit before my workout, which is helpful since I know I need more sleep. And I was able to do some fun challenging workouts. Honestly, it was a great way to start July and feel like I am doing some good things for my body.

Monday’s workout was at my normal time since I only had Tuesday off of work. But I think a lot of people had that day off because the class wasn’t as full as it normally is. But it was still my usual 3 group workout and felt like any other week.

For cardio, we had 4 blocks and in each block, we had a specific distance we were supposed to get to. Once we got to that distance, we could recover or go to a base pace before the next block started. None of the distances were too long, so there was always some recovery time for me. I did the distances at my push pace so they weren’t too easy, but it wasn’t horribly hard either.

On the rower, we followed a similar format as we did for cardio. We started each block with lunges and then got on our rowers to get to a specific distance. This was a bit more challenging since getting on and off the rower takes time and I wasn’t getting through each row as quickly as I might have been able to do. I still had a little bit of recovery time in each block, so that was good.

And on the floor, we had 2 blocks. In each block, we had 2 exercises that we did twice and then 2 other exercises that we did for the rest of the block. In the first block, we started with single-leg deadlifts to knee raises and y-raises on the straps. I did the deadlifts to knee raises by holding on to the wall for balance, but I did it. For the rest of the first block, we had deadlifts and single-arm chest flys. In the second block, we started with low rows and rollouts on the straps. And for the rest of the block, we had plank low rows and plank pull-throughs. The floor block was challenging, but not impossible which is always a good thing.

On Tuesday, I went to a slightly later morning class since I wanted to sleep in. Of course, sleeping in to me now is what waking up early used to be with my old schedule. But it was still nice to have a little extra sleep before going into the workout because I knew it would be a challenging class. This class was called Strength In Numbers, and it was a global challenge for all Orangetheory studios. It was each studio against all the others for a rowing challenge, and I wanted to contribute the best I could.

I started on cardio, as I normally do. For cardio, we had 3 blocks that were all about the same. We had hill climbs for each block and we increased the inclines/resistance levels at the same distance intervals for all blocks. But you never went back down to a flat incline, so after recovering from the first block you started your hill in the second block where you left off. So things got pretty tough for me on the bike with really high resistance levels and I was taking longer to get to each distance.

On the rower, the goal was just to row for the entire time and get as much distance as you could. We were encouraged to follow a 90-second push row/30-second all-out row plan, but I knew that I just needed to row however I could to get all the meters possible. I tried to do the all-outs when we had them, but I know my all-outs weren’t really as hard as I could do them because of how tired I was. After we were done rowing, we put our distance in the tracker so we could compete against all the other studios around the world. The average of all the challengers was used to rank the studios to see who got the furthest. We didn’t rank too high globally, but we were in the top for all the studios in California which I thought was awesome!

And on the floor, we had one long block for our exercises. We were supposed to do 20-30 reps for each exercise, which is a lot so I had to go a bit lighter with the weights I used. We had squats to calf raises, shoulder presses, lunges, and bicep curls. After the bicep curls, we did a high plank until we couldn’t hold it any more and then we got right back to doing the first exercise again. It was a lot harder than it looked because of how many reps we did and how little rest there was. But I knew I had the rest of the day to rest so I did push myself.

Wednesday felt similar to Monday, with a lot fewer people in the class than normal because a bunch of people probably had the day off. I was a little bit tired because the fireworks in my neighborhood were going off really late, but I was still feeling better than I do when I’m having my bad weeks.

For cardio, we had 3 blocks that were similar. In the first block, we had a 90-second base pace, 75-second base to push pace, 1-minute push pace, 45-second push to all-out, and 30-second all-out. The second block had the same timing but we started at a push to all-out pace and worked our way down and still ended with a 30-second all-out. And in the last block, we did the same thing that we did in the first block.

On the rower, we had one long block. We started with a 150-meter row followed by speed squats, knee raises, and good mornings. We did that pattern a total of 4 times. Then we had a 300-meter row with speed squats and knee raises after the row. We were supposed to do that twice before doing a 600-meter row with just speed squats. I was doing the last 300-meter row when the row block was done, so I didn’t get to the last row. I was pretty fast with my rows, but getting on and off the rower and the exercises took me a bit of time.

And on the floor, we also had one block. We had 4 exercises and started at 4 reps and added 2 reps each round. We had step-ups, single-arm snatches, chest flys, and single-arm hip hinge swings. I did the step-ups and lunges because my hips were starting to hurt a bit and I didn’t want to push myself too much. But I still felt like I got a good and well-rounded floor block with my limited modifications.

Thursday felt like the most normal day for me since it wasn’t surrounding a random day off. And the class was pretty full, like it normally is so that felt normal too. And this workout had some really tough challenges and I pushed myself knowing it was my last workout for the week.

For cardio, everything we did was incline work. We had 2 blocks and in each block, we had a 2-minute hill and a 90-second hill. For both hills, the inclines/resistance levels increased every 30 seconds. Between the hills, we had a recovery except the recovery was on a hill too. And we ended both blocks with a 30-second all-out that was without an incline. The resistance levels were getting high for me on the bike, and I’m used to having some time to recover without a high resistance level when I usually do higher levels. But having recoveries using high resistance levels didn’t help me recover too much. I did pedal slowly during those recoveries, but it really just felt like 2 blocks full of hills.

On the rower, we had 2 blocks that both focused on doing 100-meter rows. In the first block, between each row, we did low rows with a medicine ball. We started at 2 reps and increased the reps by 2 every round. In the second block, we did shoulder presses between each row and started at 2 reps and increased by 2 every round. I was happy the rows were short because I really did push myself to do sprint rows and not take too much time. And I was surprised that I was able to get the wattage higher than I normally do with repeated sprint rows so that showed I have had some improvement.

On the floor, we again had 2 blocks. Each block had 3 exercises that worked similar muscles. In the first block, I had to do a lot of modifications because it was focused on step-ups and lunges. For my modified exercises, I did step-down toe taps and step-ups with knee raises using the bench at the lower setting. And we were supposed to do split squat holds until we needed to rest but I did a lunge hold instead. In the second block, we had chest presses, push-ups, and a push-up hold until we needed to drop the hold. And to end the workout, we had a plank hold which felt hard after doing the push-up holds.

I was so happy with what I did in this past week of workouts. I feel like I really pushed myself each day and tried to go hard when I could. As always, I still had to do modifications, but I think I still pushed myself with those modifications and I didn’t go easy on myself unless I was dealing with hip issues. That’s a big win for me with my workouts and I love that I had such a great week to start off the second half of the year!

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Going into this past week of workouts, I knew it would likely be a bad one. I already had some pain and nausea the week before and knew that it usually gets worse before it gets better. I was slightly off with the timing, which can happen since my cycle isn’t exactly the same every month. But somehow, having things off from what I expected made things a little better for me.

Monday’s workout was another signature workout: Catch Me If You Can. I like this one, but I typically don’t have a lot of variety with what I can do. The thing about this workout is that there are different checkpoints you have to get to when you are doing cardio. If you are at or past the checkpoint, you keep going. If you aren’t there, you are caught and you can track how far you got.

I am always caught at the same checkpoint. It’s when the timing of the checkpoints changes from every 2 minutes to every minute. I probably could try to pedal faster at a lower resistance level and maybe that would help, but for this attempt, I knew I couldn’t do that with how I felt. I wasn’t expecting to do anything too great, but I do always try my best no matter how I feel. As expected, I was caught at the same checkpoint as my past attempts. However, I did end up getting a PR and I was really close to making it past that checkpoint. I needed to be at 4 miles on the bike and I was at 3.9. I just got to 3.9 when the checkpoint time was called, so it wasn’t like I missed it by a second or two. But it was still my best attempt and I was so happy about that!

The rest of the workout was designed to be a bit easier since the focus is on cardio. For rowing, we started with a 600-meter row and lunges after. Then the row was split up into 2 300-meter rows and the lunges were split up to be between each row. And then we had 4 rounds of. 150-meter row with the lunges again. I had gotten to the rounds of 150-meter rows, but not that far into it.

And on the floor, we had 2 mini-blocks. The first mini-block had chest presses, single-arm low rows on the straps, and planks. And the second mini-block had single-arm concentration curls, cross-back lunges, and more plank work. I was using the bench for all my plank work because my nausea was really starting to kick in when I was on the floor. But I was so glad that for the first part of the workout, I wasn’t feeling too horrible because it allowed me to get that PR.

Tuesday was my worst day of the week. I don’t know if there was something else wrong with me or if things were just a lot worse than normal, but I was struggling a lot. My nausea wasn’t too horrible compared to some of my bad days, but the pain was so bad it almost scared me. There were times I had to leave the workout and sit near the lockers because I was almost crying in pain. I’ve had pain so badly that my vision is fuzzy and things were getting that way. I debated about leaving the workout, but I knew the workout wasn’t making things worse and I would feel worse mentally if I left. So I just struggled through it and did what I could when I could. But it was probably one of the worst workouts I’ve had.

For cardio, I tried to follow along with the workout but I also just did whatever I could when things were really bad. We had 3 blocks and some of it focused on incline work. In the first block, I really didn’t do the incline work because of how I felt, but I tried to do it in the second block since that was the main focus. For that second block, we had 2 hills and I did use the resistance levels and just pedaled really slowly during some of it. I didn’t leave the workout during any of the cardio blocks, and I didn’t realize at the time that would be the only section of the room where I would be able to do that.

For rowing, the first and last blocks were timed with cardio so we had push and base rows. I was doing ok for that first block, but I could feel my pain ramping up and getting worse. For the second block, it was a strength row. But I didn’t do most of it because I spent almost all that time outside of the room trying to get over the pain of my cramps. I did come back into the room partway through the last block, but I didn’t worry about doing push rows and just tried to row as much as I could as hard as I could (which wasn’t very hard).

On the floor, we had one long block and I did leave a bit during the block so I only got through the exercises one time instead of getting into a second round like I normally would be able to do. We had front squats, single-arm low rows with weights, step-ups (which I did as lunges), chest presses, and push-ups (which I did on the bench). I didn’t do that great since I wasn’t in the room the entire time, but at least I tried.

I was feeling a little better on Wednesday than I did on Tuesday, but I was still pretty miserable. I was so glad that my cramps were a bit better so I didn’t have to leave the room in pain during the workout, but that’s a pretty low bar for me. But I was hopeful that I had gotten past the worst of things for me so I could get a decent workout done for the second half of the week.

For cardio, the first block was all about 1-minute intervals. We worked with push, push to all-out, and all-out paces. We did the intervals twice with a recovery in the middle. In the second block, we did the same but the intervals changed to 45 seconds and the walking recoveries stayed at 1 minute. I was using my normal resistance levels for all of this, but I was just pedaling a little slower than normal. I did also need a few breaks during the cardio blocks to let some pain and nausea pass, but it was closer to what I’m used to.

On the rower, the first block started with rounds of a front press and a halo using a medicine ball and then we got on the rower to do a base row until cardio had all-outs and we had an all-out row. In the first block, we had 12 reps of the exercises before rowing and in the second block, we had 8 reps. I used a light medicine ball for the exercises, but I knew I needed that based on how I was feeling. I would have loved to have done better, but I also knew that if I pushed too hard I could make things a lot worse for me.

And on the floor, we had one block with 3 sets of supersets. Supersets are back-to-back exercises that are similar but not exactly the same. We did each set of superset exercises twice before moving to the next set. The first set was chest presses and chest flys using a Bosu. I used my normal weights for these exercises. The second set was supposed to be squats to reach and lunges using the straps. I did the squats to reach but for the lunges, I did them holding on to the wall instead of the straps for my balance. The last set was supposed to be plank leg lifts and pop squats. I did bird dogs instead of leg lifts for my balance and knew I couldn’t handle pop squats with my nausea so I did double the reps on bird dogs to make up for that.

On Thursday, I was feeling the closest to normal as I did for the entire week. I wasn’t feeling completely normal, but it was a relief to know I was getting back to my normal. For this workout, we had a focus on trying to improve throughout the workout. For cardio and rowing, we repeated what we did so we could try to see some improvement.

For cardio, we had 3 blocks. The first block had a 1-minute push pace, 30-second all-out, 45-second recovery, and then we repeated that pattern again. The second block and a hill with 30-second intervals increasing the incline resistance level. Again, we repeated that hill after a 45-second recovery. And in the last block, we had a 30-second push pace, a 30-second push to all-out, and a 30-second all-out.  After another 45-second recovery, we repeated that pattern again. I didn’t pay too much attention to see if I got further or had a higher wattage on the bike, but I know I was using the same resistance levels when I compared the first and second attempts.

On the rower, we were timed the same with cardio. The only big difference was the second block had specific stroke rates we were supposed to use since there are no inclines. I was able to get the stroke rates we were supposed to do, but I think that’s mainly because those are designed to be slower than most people row and I am a slow rower. I did have to take some breaks during the rowing blocks, but since we had a lot of recoveries built into the workout, I didn’t have to do as many as I might have had to do if those weren’t there.

On the floor, we had one long block. I did have to make a few modifications to these because of how I was feeling. We started with half-kneeling around the world with weights, which I needed to do as regular kneeling because of my balance issues. Next, we were supposed to do push-ups to dumbbell reaches and I did those as push-ups without the reaches. Then I was able to do the other exercises normally. We had deadlifts, reverse grip low rows with weights, and shoulder presses.

My Thursday workout wasn’t necessarily a great one, but it was a good one with how I was feeling. But even better than that, it was another fun milestone class for me. For the last several years I have had the goal of doing at least 200 workouts a year. This year didn’t start off the best because I had to take a week off when I was sick. But my Thursday workout, which was the last workout of the first half of the year, was also my 100th workout of the year!

So even with the setbacks and issues I’ve experienced, at least I’m on track to hit my goal once again! And hopefully, there will be more good weeks than bad weeks in the second half of the year. But even if I had a lot of bad weeks, I prove to myself every month that I can get through those and do my best.

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