I only had a little bit of Hell Week left this past week and then I was back to normal workouts. But it was also a week that I was feeling a bit better so I was able to push a bit more and try to have a good workout week. I’ve been having too many weeks where I’m struggling due to various issues, so feeling ok for most of the week and going harder was something I really needed to do.
Monday’s workout was the final day of Hell Week. I had already earned my shirt the week before, and I normally don’t get to do more workouts than required to earn the shirt. But with the way the schedule worked this time, I was able to do 5 Hell Week workouts by just doing my regular schedule.
This workout was called Untitled and it was a partner workout. We hadn’t really done a real partner workout since the pandemic (the workout that was similar to a partner workout at the beginning of Hell Week still had blocks determined by the coach and not by our partners), so it was exciting to have something different. But it also put pressure on the workout to make sure I didn’t slack off and let my partners down.
Before we started the partner section of the workout, we had really short blocks in each section of the room. For cardio and rowing, we had a 30-second base, a 30-second base to push pace, a 30-second push pace, a 30-second push to all-out, and 30-second all-out. And on the floor, we did 30-seconds each for good mornings, squats, skater lunges, in and out steps, and boat holds. Then we go to the partner workout.
For cardio and rowing, whoever was in that part of the room was just going as long as it took to have a switch. We didn’t reset the rower and the goal was to get as many meters as possible during the entire workout. And the person who was on the floor controlled the switch. We had 6 exercises we might have to do on the floor, but we only had to do 3 at a time. We had bicep curls, squat to press, low rows on the straps, chest presses on the straps, sit-ups, and plank reaches. But the Hell Week twist was that at random points during the workout, the 3 exercises the floor person had to do switched. And if you were on the floor when the switch happened, you had to start over and do all of the new exercises. So there were times when someone was on the last exercise and then they switched so they had to start over and the people on cardio and rower had to do double the time. Whenever the person on the floor was done, everyone switched.
I had good partners for this workout and I feel like we all were doing the floor exercises at the same pace so nobody was making the person doing cardio or rowing take longer than necessary (other than when the exercises switched). I really enjoyed this workout and felt like it was the perfect way to end Hell Week.
Tuesday’s workout was the first regular workout after Hell Week. It seemed like a lot of people took the day off, but I was ready to get back to normal workouts. And this workout was one where we could pick and choose some aspects of it, so it worked out well to be a bit of a recovery day.
For cardio, the first two blocks were 4 minutes each and we could decide how we wanted to do those 4 minutes. You could do a progressive push, some all-outs and recovery, or whatever intervals you wanted to do. I decided to do a 3-minute push pace into a 1-minute all-out for both of those blocks. I wasn’t going as fast as I might have done if I wasn’t tired from Hell Week, but I did better than I had done when I was feeling bad. And for the last block, we had rounds of 30-second all-outs and 30-second recoveries.
On the rower, the first block was rounds of a 250-meter row and squats. For the second block, we had rounds of a 250-meter row and lunges. And for the last block, we were matched with cardio with the 30-second intervals of all-outs and recoveries.
And on the floor, the first two blocks were at our own pace and the last block was timed. In the first block, we had sumo deadlifts and plank steps. In the second block, we had squat to bicep curls and single-leg downward dog to leg drives. And in the last block, we had 2 options for what we wanted to do for 30-second intervals. I chose to do the work using the TRX straps so I had tricep extensions and bicep curls and we just switched every 30-seconds which exercise we did. My arms were so tired at the end of that last block!
On Wednesday, I was finally feeling more normal and no longer tired from Hell Week. And it allowed me to push myself a bit more in the workout, which was a good thing since the cardio work was really tough!
We had 2 blocks and in the first cardio block, we had 3 hills to do. For each hill, we started at the highest incline/resistance level and it went down every minute for 3 minutes. Then we had a minute to recover before doing the hills again. I had the resistance levels set to start higher than my all-out level, so it was very tough to pedal. And in the second block, we started at an even higher incline/resistance level and every minute it went down until we were at a flat incline for the all-out at the end. Again, I was spending most of my time at a resistance level higher than my all-out so it was really tough. But it was a good challenge to do and I didn’t focus too much on how fast I was pedaling since I knew I was getting the challenge in another way.
On the rower, both blocks started with a 500-meter row. In the first block, after the row we had 2 rounds of tricep extensions and front presses with a medicine ball before getting on the rower again to row for distance until the block was done. For the second block, we only had to do the exercises once before getting on the rower and the challenge was to try to beat the first distance even though the second block was shorter. I was able to get further in the second block, but I think it helped that I didn’t need to rest between reps with the medicine ball before getting back to rowing.
And on the floor, each block had 3 exercises. The first block had clean to front squats, push-ups, and plank side reaches. And the second block had single-arm neutral thrusters, lunges, and woodchoppers. And as a finisher, at the end of the workout, we had frogger squats. I think I might have made the floor a little easier since the bike work was so tough, but I did try to challenge myself a bit with the weights and allow myself to struggle instead of speeding through the exercises.
Thursday was the day I think I pushed myself the most and also the day that I was feeling the most lightheaded. I did get a chance to talk to my coach after class to try to figure out how to make sure my blood sugar doesn’t keep dropping in class, so I’m hoping that this week might be a bit better for me. I only was dealing with lightheadedness at certain points in the workouts, so I’m glad it wasn’t affecting the entire thing.
For cardio, we mainly had 30-second all-outs for the entire block. We started with 30-second intervals with base and push paces, but only did that twice before starting with the 30-second all-outs. We had a mix of 45-second and 1-minute recoveries between each all-out, which didn’t feel like that much time when we were constantly doing all-outs. I’m much more used to having a base or push pace mixed in there too, so even though we had a lot more recovery time than normal, it wasn’t easy. I mixed things up between using my normal all-out resistance level on the bike and using my base level and just pedaling as fast as possible so I could maximize my efforts on the bike. And I think that was a really good plan for me because I think I was tired but at least the variety helped me not feel too exhausted.
On the rower, we started with a 4-minute row. I had a moment of being lightheaded on the rower, but it passed really quickly so I didn’t have to take a long break. And I focused on just being steady with my rowing and not going too crazy. After the row, we had bicep curls and calf raises with a medicine ball before getting back on the rower for a 2-minute row. We repeated this pattern with cutting the row in half each time and the goal was to beat at least half the distance each time. Because the rows kept getting shorter, I was able to not only do better than half the distance, but my wattage on the rower was going up significantly each time. That was unexpected since I usually am in a very small range with the wattage for all my rows.
And on the floor, we had 3 blocks. In the first block, it was supposed to be all Bosu work, but I had to do them without using the Bosu. We had knee tucks, bicycle crunches, and back extensions. The knee tucks were really hard for me to do, but they always are so I just had to go slowly and rest when I needed to. The second block had step-back low rows and skier swings and the last block had chest presses and lunges. For those last two blocks, the lightheadedness really hit me hard. I just have to sit and let it pass when that happens, so that’s what I did. I didn’t love that it took away from my workout, but I also made up for it by trying to push myself even more when I was doing the exercises. And hopefully, some of the tips I got from my coach will help me moving forward.
I think that this was the perfect way to end Hell Week. I had some really great workouts and I still tried to push myself. And this week, I might be pushing myself a bit more (but I’ll have to share about that when I do my recap) and I’ll be doing my first workout that is not in California! I’m very excited to share about that!
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