This past week of workouts were a bit tough for me. I had a few days of really bad nausea and pain and that really affected what I could do and how hard I could work. I knew this might be happening since my nausea is a recurring issue, but it’s still a bit frustrating when it happens. I try to make the best of the situation but it’s not always easy. But this past week I was able to do a lot better on work other than cardio and that helped.
Monday’s workout was an endurance day and I knew it was going to be a day for me to just try to do my best on the bike instead of doing the efforts on the bike or using a treadmill. There were a lot of 3 minute push paces and 90 second push paces, some of which had an all out pace right after. But for the 30 minutes I was on the bike, I didn’t think about any of the efforts. I set the resistance to be at my base resistance for the bike and just tried to go as long as I could.
I had to stop pedaling every few minutes or so to let the pain or nausea go away. I was not focused on what we were really supposed to be doing for cardio and just did my own thing. I don’t love doing that since one of the things I love the most about Orangetheory is having a coach tell me what to do. But when I feel as badly as I did, just trying to pedal when I could is all I can do.
On the floor, I was feeling just as off as I did on the bike so I again just tried to do what I could. We had 2 blocks but one was a rowing block. On the long floor block we had deadlifts, lunges to upright rows, pullovers with weights on the Bosu, Bosu crunches, and Bosu plank work. I knew I couldn’t do the plank work feeling the way I did, so my coach told me to do lateral single leg lifts instead to get the same muscles working. For my deadlifts I did use a heavy weight since I know I can do a lot for that move. But for everything else I was using medium heavy weights for me.
The rowing block was a 4 minute row for distance. We had been given some distance goals but I knew that my rowing wasn’t going to have a lot of power behind it. So I set a goal just to be able to row for the entire time without stopping. I knew that if I had a lot of pain or nausea I would have to stop and that wasn’t something I could control, but I was hoping for the best. And somehow I managed to do the entire 4 minutes without needing to stop.
Wednesday’s workout went very similarly to how Monday’s workout went. It was a strength based day and I was on the bike again because I was feeling pretty rotten. And I went into the cardio portion with the same plan with what I did on Monday. I had my resistance set to my base resistance and just tried to keep going as long as I could. I took more breaks during the 30 minutes on the bike on Wednesday than I did on Monday because the cramps I was dealing with were worse, but I just tried to do my best.
On the floor, we had 3 blocks. The first block was a mini-band block. We had hip bridges with the mini-band on our legs but instead of doing the hip bridges on the ground we had our upper body on the weight bench. That was a bit tough and awkward for me to do, but I was happy to have something new to try as it distracted me. We also had squat lateral walks with the mini-bands in that block. The second block was lunges and plank work but I did upright rows with weights instead of the plank work. And the last block had lunges with upper cuts and lunges with bicep curls which went surprisingly well for me. We also had 150 meter rows in that block which weren’t as great because I didn’t have much power in my rowing. But I was happy with the weight work in that last block which helped to end my workout on a positive note.
I was still feeling a bit nauseous and was dealing with pretty bad cramps on Friday. But I was doing better than I had earlier in the week so I was hoping I could do a bit more with my workouts. I knew I’d still need to be on the bike, but I had a goal to do more than just pedal as long as I could.
This class was a 3 group class so I was only on the bike for about 15 minutes. There were 2 blocks and the first block was one where we did things at our own pace. For the bike, we had rounds of .8 miles and then we had a 30 second recovery. And each round we were supposed to increase the resistance by 1 gear. I started at my base pace gear and got through 3 rounds in the block so I got the resistance up to what is usually my push pace resistance. I still had to take breaks and it took longer to get to the distance than normal, but it was better than what I did on Monday or Wednesday. The second block was shorter and we had 30 second push paces to 30 second all out paces starting at the resistance level (or incline for the treadmill) that we ended the first block on. That went a bit better for me since they were shorter rounds.
Next I was on the rower which was also 2 blocks. The first block started with a 100 meter row and then ground to press using weights. I used a heavy weight for that move and was happy that I felt like I was doing some decent work considering I didn’t feel that way with the bike. Each round we increased our row by 50 meters and kept the ground to press the same. And the second block was the same patterns as the cardio with 30 second push paces to 30 second all outs. My rowing was never really a push or all out, but I just tried to do the best I could.
My best work in the workout was on the floor. The first block was squat low rows with weights, goblet squats, and reverse mountain climbers. Even though I wasn’t feeling my best, I managed to match my PR for weights on the low row and goblet squats! The goblet squats were a bit tough with that weight, but we had a low rep count so that helped. And the second block was single arm snatches using weights, push-ups using the bench, and ab work. I was feeling pretty good about myself after the floor work. It’s never easy to not be able to do what I know I can do in a workout but I was glad to find out that I could still do things on the floor like normal.
By Saturday I was starting to feel better, but I was still a bit off. So I finished my week of workout on the bike. And since it was an endurance workout, that was probably for the best for me. The cardio was a 23 minute block with no walking recovery and I don’t think I could have done that on the treadmill. But since I was on the bike, I decided to push myself and go really hard.
The 23 minutes of cardio work had 5 different 3 minute push paces with a base pace after it. Some of the base paces were 2 minutes and some of them were 90 seconds. I was changing up the resistance on the bike so that I would be using a harder resistance for the push paces and it felt like a relief when I was back to my lower resistance for the base pace. 3 minutes of biking hard did make me have a few moments of nausea, but they were much less frequent than it had been earlier in the week. And the 23 minute block ended with a 1 minute all out where I did increase the resistance on the bike even more. I was tired after doing that hard work, but it was good tired. After so many days of having to take it easy, it felt good to push myself.
On the floor, we had 3 blocks. The first block was squat reverse flys, plank jacks, and plank Spidermans. The plank work was a bit tough because of the nausea, but I just took my time and took breaks in the middle if I needed to. The second block was deadlifts, shoulder work, and toe reaches. And I was able to use my heavy deadlift weights again. And the last block was squat swings with bicycle crunches. Even thought this wasn’t the craziest floor blocks I’ve had, it seemed like one of the hardest!
I’m glad that while some of my workouts were a bit disappointing with cardio work, I usually did pretty amazing work on the floor. And since that was how I ended each of my workouts, I was able to end each workout on a positive and happy note. It was a good reminder that I don’t have to feel as frustrated as I have been in the past with the workouts where I can’t do everything I wanted to. And fortunately I should be back to normal workouts again this week.
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