A Week Of Nauseous Workouts (or Just Doing My Best)

I knew before this past week of workouts that it was going to be a tough one for me. I knew it would be a week that I would likely be nauseous every day and even though I have found strategies to push through, it’s still not easy to work out when you feel queasy and in pain. This past week did challenge me, but I think I did the best that I could considering the circumstances. But that doesn’t mean that I went easy on myself or didn’t feel frustrated I couldn’t do more.

Monday’s workout was endurance, strength, and power based; but it was also the really bad nausea day for me. I always think I have a handle on the really bad days, but either I was totally unprepared or this one was worse than I usually get on a bad day because it was brutal. I was in enough pain that I guess I looked pretty bad. My coach has seen me have days of nausea before, but this time he had to check in on me to make sure I was really ok. One of my friends in class did the same even though I know he has seen me have occasional bad days over the past 2 years. Obviously because of all this, I was on the bike for cardio.

We had 3 blocks on each side of the room. For cardio, we had a long push pace, a base pace, and then 2 all out paces with a recovery in between. Each block the push pace got longer and the all out paces got shorter. I really tried to stick with my normal resistance levels on the bike, but I know that I wasn’t going as fast as I usually do (even when I’m nauseous) so I didn’t work as hard as could work.

On the floor, each of the 3 blocks had a 300 meter row. We could do them at any point during the block, but I always did them at the beginning to make sure I got it done. I almost always can do a 300 meter row done in under a minute, but this time they were all over a minute. I didn’t care too much since I was just proud for rowing and also not needing to take breaks when I was feeling queasy. The first block on the floor also had burpees and lunges (I did the burpees with my hands on the bench so I wasn’t going to the ground. The second block had squats and lateral squat walks. And the last block had burpees to squats (I split the moves up to make it easier on me) and weighted double crunches. I feel like I worked much harder on the floor than I did on the bike, and that might have been because my anti-nausea medications seemed to have kicked in a little after halfway through class.

I was feeling a bit better by Wednesday’s class, but I was still nauseous. My medication was managing it much better so I was able to do a bit more work while I was on the bike. It was a strength based workout so it was a lot of incline work for the treadmills (and resistance work for me on the bike). Everything in both blocks was based on 45 second intervals. In the first block, we alternated base to push pace and base to incline work. What I did on the bike was use my regular resistance levels for the push paces and higher than my all out resistance level for all the incline work. And in the second block we rounds of all out paces with recovery in between and the all outs alternated between regular ones and incline ones. Again, I used the same plan with my regular resistance when there was no incline and higher than normal for incline work.

On the floor, the first block had bench toe taps, hip hinge reverse fly, and ab work. I can’t do bench toe taps because of my hip issues, but I wanted to get the same type of balance workout so I did single leg squats using the straps for stability. And the second block was deadlifts, bicep curls, hip bridges with weights, and side plank crunches. All of those things were things that didn’t affect my nausea so I was able to do them without modifications and without having to go too low with my weights.

Friday’s workout was a mixture of the different types of workouts, but it really felt like a strength day for me. I was on the bike again and for cardio we had timed runs for distance. The first one was 8 minutes and the treadmills started at 4% incline and went down every 2 minutes. The second one was 4 minutes and the treadmills started at 4% and went down every minute. What I did was use my usual push resistance level the entire time for the 8 minute challenge and a level between my push and all out for the 4 minute one. I didn’t really track my distance so I don’t know if I hit the goals I was supposed to hit, but I know that I was doing much better on the bike than I had been doing earlier in the week.

On the rowers, we had one long block with timed rows with squats and lunges between. The first row was 4 minutes and the second one was 2 minutes. After doing those rounds I decided to just stay on the rower for the rest of the time to get as much distance in as I could for the Orange Voyage and to try to keep my heart rate up since it’s not as easy to do that with the bike.

And on the floor we had drop sets. That means we do a set of 6 reps using a very heavy weight and then immediately after do a set of 12 reps with a lighter weight. We had hammer curls and tricep extensions for the first block and I used 20lb weights for the 6 rep round and 15lb weights for the 12 rep round. I probably could have gone a little higher for my hammer curls, but I was feeling it after both rounds and was a bit nervous I’d hurt if I went heavier. The second block was skier swings and goblet squats. I used my normal weight for the skier swings and went with the 45lb weight for my goblet squats. I was thinking about using the 50lb weight when the reps got lower, but I couldn’t find that weight on the rack and I knew I wasn’t ready for the 60lb or 70lb.

By Saturday’s workout, I was almost back to normal. And when I saw that the workout was a power based class, I really debated pushing myself and going on the treadmill. I wanted to work on my running and the format was perfect for me to do that. But as I drove to the workout I was having some small waves of nausea and I knew that it wasn’t worth it for me to push myself because I wouldn’t be able to do what I wanted to do.

For cardio we had 4 blocks. The first 3 were all short blocks with a push pace, base pace, push pace, base pace, and all out pace. Each block the push paces got a bit longer. Because I was feeling a bit down on myself for not being able to be on the treadmill, I decided to push myself hard on the bike. I kept my base pace the same but I used my normal all out resistance level for my push pace and what I usually use for hill work only for my all out pace. My heart rate really was getting up there but I see that as a sign that I was doing some good work! The last block was rounds of all out paces with walking recoveries. I used the new resistance level for my all out paces and used my base resistance level for the recoveries just allowed myself to pedal slower. This was one of the hardest bike workouts I’ve done and it helped me feel a bit better about not trying to run.

On the floor, we had 3 regular floor blocks and a partner row block. The first 3 blocks all were short and had 2 exercises each. We had pop jacks, lateral raises, skater lunges, chest fly, push ups, and front raises. I wasn’t going that heavy on the weighted work because we had a lot of reps for each. And I used the bench to help with my pop jacks and push ups so I wasn’t putting my hands on the ground. But I did feel really good about my floor work. And the partner row block was the last 8 minutes of class where we partnered with someone else and one of us did 30 seconds on the rower and the other did front raises with the mini-bands. We switched back and forth until class was done.

Considering how bad this past week of workouts could have been, I really did the best I could. I know that I can do better, but that’s when I’m feeling better too. And I’m hoping this week of workouts will be a better one. It will be a shorter one and I’ll have a workout with my family, so I have motivation to work extra hard!

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