This past week of workouts felt like it was almost split in 2. I hate feeling like I’m teasing a future post, but something happened in the middle of the week that really affected my workouts. I was dealing with a lot of emotions and I know that it changed how I worked out. I had 2 workouts before that and 2 after so it really was a split week.
Monday’s workout was a 3 group workout because they had fewer classes for a holiday schedule. And it also ended up being a partner workout so it was a 3 partner workout. The workout was supposed to be endurance based, but it didn’t really feel that way because of how often the partners were switching around.
We had 2 blocks and in each block the person on the floor controlled the switching. In the first block the person on the treadmill ran for distance and we didn’t reset the treadmills as we switched. The person on the rower had a 150 meter row and then 10 squats and repeated that until they were tagged by their partner. And the person on the floor had lunges, bicycle crunches, and toe touches.
For the second block the treadmill person ran for distance without resetting the treadmill and the rower did 150 meter rows with bicep curls using the row handles between each row. And on the floor we had overhead tricep extensions, weighted hip bridges, and weighted torso twists.
I was feeling fortunate that I was in a group with 2 people who I know and didn’t care too much about the distance challenges on the treadmill. We all worked hard, but we didn’t stress out over things either. On average we were switching every 2-3 minutes which was nice for the treadmill. I was dealing with a bit of nausea (not sure if it was still from my biopsy or I was starting to deal with hormonal nausea early) and I wasn’t going fast on the treadmill. And I was struggling with the rower a bit too. I didn’t struggle as much on the floor but I think that was because I used lighter weights because I didn’t want to let my group down and take too long to switch. But even with the struggles it was a good workout and I liked not having to worry about being at any part of the room for too long.
Wednesday’s workout was a power day and it ended up being a great day for me to work on my running. I wasn’t totally feeling like running, but once I saw what the workout would be I knew I had to make it a run day.
The treadmill work started with a 1 minute push pace followed by a 30 second base pace. I ran the push and walked the base as a power walker. And then we had 11 rounds of 1 minute all outs. I knew I had to run all of them and that was my goal for the class. After each of the all outs we had a walking recovery. We started with them being 30 seconds long and they increased by 15 seconds every other round. I thought with the longer walking recoveries that I would be able to do all of the 1 minute all outs as a run with no issues, and for the first 6 of them I was doing fine.
But starting with the 7th round, my legs were feeling very tired and heavy. I could feel my running form getting sloppy and I didn’t want to risk hurting myself. So while I started each of the all outs as a run, I sometimes had to short myself a bit. I usually was able to do at least 45 seconds as a run before bringing it back down to a walk. And that also gave me a bit more recovery time as well. I think because I did the extra recovery time, it helped me so that for the final 2 all outs I was able to run for the full minute. It was a lot of running and it wasn’t easy, but I’m so glad I did it.
The floor was 1 long block but it was broken down a bit into slightly different blocks. All of the blocks within the block had the same 4 main exercises: chest presses, bicep curls, shoulder presses, and reverse chest flys. But between each of the exercises we had different things. The first time we went through the exercises we had bench hop overs in between, the second time we had squats, and the third time we had pop jacks. Also after completing each round we had a 250 meter row. I was using heavy weights and did my best for all the exercises. My rowing was a bit slow, but I think that was because of all the running I did. I didn’t quite make it through all 3 rounds we were supposed to try to do, but I was almost to the end of the third round when class ended.
Wednesday night was a very tough night for me (again, more on that tomorrow) and I really thought I was feeling much better by Friday morning. But my body was feeling exhausted due to those events so I decided to go on the bike for my cardio. But since it was a 3 group class I wasn’t on the bike that long.
The class was an endurance one and the cardio portion was increasing push paces. We started with a 2 minute push pace, then had a 3 minute push pace, and finished with a 4 minute progressive push pace. Even though I was feeling exhausted I tried to do all of my bike resistance levels like I normally would. I even increased it every minute for the progressive push pace. We ended with a 1 minute all out pace before heading over to the rowers.
On the rower, we had some work that was timed on our own and some work that was timed as a group. We started with a 2 minute row and then we had some medicine ball work. After that we had a 1 minute row with more medicine ball work and we did that until it was time to do a 4 minute progressive push row as a group with the treadmills. I wasn’t able to get my rowing wattage up as much as I would have like to, but I was very proud to see that I did increase the wattage a little bit each minute that we were supposed to. We ended with another round of a 1 minute push row and more medicine ball work.
The floor work was 1 long block, but all of the exercises had 12 reps so I didn’t do many rounds of them. We had Y raises on the straps, tricep extensions on the straps, hip bridges using weights, hip bridge tricep extensions using weights, and lateral raises using weights. I was able to use heavy weights for my hip bridges, but I had to go a bit lighter for the arm work.
I thought I had done pretty decently in class considering how I was feeling, but as soon as class was done I burst into a real ugly cry. It was a release of all the emotions I had been dealing with and while I was a bit embarrassed to cry at my workout I really didn’t care either. I knew that I needed it and I needed that workout and I was glad I got both in.
Saturday I was doing better, but still physically a bit exhausted so I had another day on the bike. And I’m glad I picked the bike because it ended up being a strength based workout and I think I do better on strength days on the bike than I do on the treadmill. I can do more resistance work on the bike than I can do incline work on the treadmill.
We had 3 blocks for cardio and each block had a longer incline/resistance section. The first block had 1 minute, the second block had 2 minutes, and the last block had 3 minutes. I was using my normal resistance levels for the regular base, push, and all out paces but I was using higher resistance levels for those incline/resistance sections. Some of the resistance levels were probably higher than I should have used, but I wanted to push myself.
On the floor we had 3 blocks that all had 2 exercises and if we finished those we rowed until the block was done. And for almost all the exercises, we did 2 rounds of 10 reps and 2 rounds of 6 reps. The first block was side lunges with bicep curls and plank low rows. The second block was deadlifts and squats and in that block I had about a minute on the rower at the end. And the last block was lunges and bicycle crunches, but for the bicycle crunches we had 16 reps of those every time. I could have made it to the rower for maybe 30 seconds at the end, but I just did more ab work to not waste time.
At the beginning of this past week of workouts, I thought it was going to be a normal week. At the end, I really found out how much I needed these workouts for my mental wellbeing. I’ll share tomorrow what I was going through, but I am so grateful that I had my workouts to help make me feel better.
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