After a crazy Hell Week, I was glad to be back to my normal workouts. But I ended up having my personal Hell Week this past week because this was the week I had to deal with a lot of pain and nausea. But at least this is a type of hell that I’m used to dealing with, so I pushed through the best I could.
On Monday, I wasn’t feeling too horrible. I was a bit off, but there were other factors that could have been causing that too. The workout was an endurance class, and it was a really good one.
For cardio, we had 2 blocks. The first block had two rounds of a 3-minute push pace followed by a 90-second base pace and ended with a 3-minute distance challenge. The second block had two rounds of a 2-minute push pace followed by a 1-minute base pace and also ended with a 3-minute distance challenge. For the distance challenge, I set the resistance to be at my regular push pace level. They did feel like long blocks, but nothing too crazy and I really did try to improve with the distance challenges.
On the floor, we also had 2 blocks. We started with a 500-meter row, which didn’t go that great for me. I was just slow and a bit awkward and couldn’t get my form to feel right. After the row, we had Arnold presses and hammer curls with weights and high rows to I raises on the straps. The second block didn’t have rowing. We had step-ups (which I did as squats), single-arm reverse flies, and bicycle presses with weights.
Wednesday’s workout was a power day, and it was a really miserable day for me. I was so nauseous and in a lot of pain. I really was struggling a lot just to get out of bed, but I knew that doing something in my workout would be better than doing nothing. But I know I didn’t do that much because of how I felt.
For cardio, we had 3 blocks. The first block had three rounds of 1-minute push paces, a base pace, a 30-second all-out, and a recovery. The base pace and recovery increased with each round. For the second block, the base paces were removed so it was three rounds of a 1-minute push pace to a 30-second all-out with recovery between. And the last block was just rounds of the 30-second all-out with the recovery between.
On the floor, we also had 3 blocks. The first block had deadlifts, skater lunges, and hip bridges followed by a 200-meter row. I was able to go heavy with the hip bridges, but I used a lighter weight for the deadlifts and went very slow with the skater lunges. The second block had hip swings with weights, curtsy lunges, and a 150-meter row. And the last block was only sumo squats to upright rows with weights and a 100-meter row. My rowing was very slow for each block and for the first two blocks I only made it to the rower once. I just had to take a lot of breaks to let the nausea pass so I could feel like I could continue.
By Friday, I wasn’t fully better but I had gotten over the hump of being miserable. I still had to go easy on myself because of how I was feeling, but I could push a bit harder. And I’m glad because it was an endurance day to prep us for an upcoming cardio benchmark.
We had 2 cardio blocks and the first block started with a 5 1/2-minute distance challenge. I kept the resistance level on the bike between the level I use for my base and push paces. I did have to take a lot of rest during it, but it wasn’t as bad as Wednesday. We then had a 90-second recovery before doing another 5 1/2-minute distance challenge. The second block started with a 2-minute row and then a 6 1/2 minute distance challenge for cardio again. The row was really tough for me and I didn’t get a lot of distance, but I tried.
On the floor, the first block started off with a mini-band block. We had 3 rounds of static crunches with in and outs, hip bridges, and knee tucks. After that, we had a 1-minute row and then plank work, uppercuts, and bicep curls. For the plank work, I did use the bench so I wasn’t completely facing the ground. The second block had bird dog low rows with weights, single-arm chest presses, and plank pull-throughs. Again, for plank work, I used the bench.
Saturday I was finally over the nausea and just dealing with a little pain, so that was a lot better. I still struggled, but at least it was a bit of an easier struggle. And this workout was a 5×5 themed class. So we had 5 rounds of a lot of different work.
For cardio, we had 5 blocks and each block had a push pace, base pace, push pace, and an all-out. The base pace was always 1-minute and the all-out was always 30-seconds. But the two push paces changed for both lengths of time and incline. The longer the push pace was, the lower the incline got. But for me on the bike, it can be tough to do a lot of variation with my inclines, so I always used 1 resistance level higher than my all-out for the incline work. I know that’s not exactly how the workout should have been, but it was a good option for me.
On the floor, we had 1 long block. We started with 5 rounds of deadlifts and squats (5 reps for each exercise). Then a 300-meter row. Then 5 rounds of chest presses and seated low rows (5 reps for each exercise). And another 300-meter row. And finally 5 rounds of shoulder presses and squats to high rows on the straps (again, 5 reps for each exercise) before a final 300-meter row. I never made it to the last row, but I did get through all the exercises. And because the number of reps was low, I was able to go pretty heavy with the weights.
Considering I was coming off of the official Hell Week and going through my own type of hell, I’m really happy about how I did in my workouts. And I hope that this week gets a bit easier for me so I can get back to my normal self.
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