This past week’s workouts were a part of Mayhem! I have done Mayhem before, and it’s similar to Hell Week. This year, I knew I’d get enough workouts in to complete it and get the swag, but I didn’t officially sign up for it. They were giving away a water bottle, which I would love, but I also know I don’t need it. If it was a shirt, I probably would have paid just to get it. But this year I just got my 4 workouts in and get the bragging rights.
Monday’s workout was called Distance Distortion. And it was a switch template so we had 2 blocks at each section of the room, but we switched after each block. So I did cardio, rowing, floor, cardio, rowing, and floor. That’s a change from what we normally do with back-to-back blocks within the same section of the room.
For cardio, the first block started with 1 minute between a base and push pace. Because of what was coming up, I kept it at my base resistance level on the bike. Every minute, I was supposed to increase the resistance level by 1. Because this block was over 6 minutes long, I got the resistance higher than what I normally do for my all-out. And when I got back to the bike for the second block, we started at what we ended with in the first block and every minute I decreased the resistance level by 1. We were supposed to track the distance to see if we could beat it in the second block, but I forgot to look after the first so I’m not sure if I did that.
The first block on the rower started with a 500-meter row. Then we had some knees to elbows followed by 3 rounds of a 100-meter row. After completing the last 100-meter row, we had squats until the end of the block. And in the second block, we had 3 rounds of a 100-meter row followed by both exercises and just keep repeating that. I only got to my 4th 100-meter row when the block ended.
And on the floor, the first block started with sumo squats and then we had froggers. For the sumo squats, we had a rep count, but for the froggers, we were supposed to do as many as we could until we needed to rest. And after 2 rounds of the exercises, we had double crunches until the end of the block. And the second block had low rows with weights for a set number of reps and low rows on the straps until we needed a rest. And after 2 rounds of those, we had bicycle crunches for the rest of the block.
I did have one small incident on the floor. I have had a lot of klutzy moments over the years at Orangetheory, but I always seem to have more. And this time, I dropped the weight I was using for my double crunches on my head because it slipped. It was totally my fault and I’m fine, but I did get a nice bruise from it. I’ve always worried about dropping a weight, and now I know to make sure I have a better grip on my weights when I’m starting to get tired.
Wednesday’s workout was called Base-ically Upside Down. For this workout, each section of the room had 3 blocks that were 4 minutes each.
For cardio, each block had the same pattern. We had a 90-second base pace at an incline, a 1-minute push pace at the same incline, a 45-second walking recovery, and a 45-second all-out. Each block the incline went up. The way it was set for me with the resistance levels, the first block I was at my push pace level the entire time, the second block was between my push and all-out, and the last was at my all-out. And I really made an effort to increase how fast I was pedaling between the base and push paces at the incline. It was really tough in the last block because that was a long time to be at what is normally my all-out level, but I feel like I did a pretty good job with it.
On the rower, we also had a similar pattern for all the blocks. Each block had a row for a specific distance. then we had front jacks and power jacks with a medicine ball, which I modified to be front presses and overhead presses. And then we rowed until the block was done. The goal was to try to get the same distance for each block. In the first block, the first row was 400-meters. The second block was 300-meters. And the last block was 200-meters. I tried to match my distance each time, but I didn’t quite make it for the second block.
And on the floor, each block had 3 exercises that had a load and explode format. The first block had bench tap squats, bench tap front squats, and bench tap jump squats. I did calf raises instead of the jump for the jump squats. The second block had push-ups, chest presses with weights, and power push-ups. This was one of the first times in a long time that I really tried to do the power push-ups. It wasn’t easy and I had to go slow, but I managed to do most of them as power push-ups each time. And the last block had mountain climbers, plank pull-throughs, and plank jacks. Overall, I think I did a pretty good job with the exercises and making sure I really tried to make the last exercise in each block an explosive move.
Thursday’s workout was called (De)construct Your Reality. I was a bit tired from not sleeping well plus I was a bit sore from Wednesday, but I knew I could at least do better than how I do when I’m dealing with nausea. Just like on Wednesday, each section of the room had 3 blocks that were 4 minutes each.
For cardio, every block we had a push pace to an all-out. That was the entire block. The first block had a 3-minute push pace to a 1-minute all-out. The second block had a 3.25-minute push pace to a 45-second all-out. And the last block had a 3.5-minute push pace to a 30-second all-out. We normally don’t have a push pace that is more than 3-minutes, so that added to how tough each block was. Plus, not having a break during the entire 4 minutes was a challenge. But it was a good challenge and I really enjoyed it.
On the rower, for the first block, we started with a 45-second push row followed by a 30-second all-out row. Then we had 30 seconds to rest before we had a 45-second all-out row. And we ended that block with another 30 seconds to rest and then a 1-minute all-out row. After finishing that block, we looked at our distance on the rower because we would use that for the next block. For the second block, we did half the distance we did in the first block. Then we took 30 seconds to rest and did a base pace row until we did a 45-second all-out row at the end of that block. And for the last block, we did a similar pattern as the first block. But we had the 1-minute all-out row first and we ended with the 30-second all-out row.
And on the floor, each block had 3 exercises that either constructed or deconstructed an exercise. For the first block, we had squats, alternating shoulder presses, and neutral full thrusters. For the second block, we had straight leg raise to crunches (which I did as double crunches), weighted crunches, and straight leg raises. And for the last block, we had high rows on the straps, triceps on the straps, and pull-ups on the straps (which I did as low rows instead). Even though it wasn’t a ton of different exercises and not a lot of work with weights, I really felt the floor work when we were done with the workout.
Friday’s workout was called All Out Darkness. And as it sounds, it was all about all-outs or feeling like you are in an all-out in the workout. Each section of the room was one long block, so we didn’t have a lot of rest time during the workout.
For cardio, we repeated the same pattern for the entire block. We had a 90-second push pace, a 30-second push pace at an incline, and then a recovery. Doing a push pace at an incline is basically the same as doing an all-out. But because the incline/resistance level increased each time, that got harder and harder each time. That’s different from a regular all-out where it can feel the same the entire time. And because of how many times we repeated the pattern, I was using resistance levels much higher than I normally use in the workout. I felt like my legs weren’t moving at the end, but I was also using a level that I think I’ve only used once or twice before.
On the rower, we followed the same timed pattern as cardio. For the 90-second segment, we had squats and then a 150-meter row. The squats started at 25 reps and went down each round. Any time in the 90-seconds we had left after the row we could rest. But I didn’t have extra time until the 4th round. Then in the 30-second segment, we had an all-out row. And we also had the 45-second recovery.
And on the floor, we had drop set work. For the drop sets, we had deadlifts, double crunches, lunges, and tricep extensions. And we also had regular reps with skater lunges, running man, and lunges. I did have to skip the drop sets for the lunges and just did regular lunges for both lunge reps. But I was able to do all the rest of the exercises, even though I was exhausted at the end of the workout.
These workouts were definitely hard, but they were such a good challenge. And even though I didn’t get the water bottle for completing the challenge, I still completed it and I’m proud of myself! And I’m so grateful that this week happened on a good week for me because it would have been so frustrating to be limited with what I could do. So I’m glad I really could push myself and feel so accomplished!
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