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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