I usually have very clear good weeks and bad weeks with my workouts. They tend to be predictable even if I don’t know exactly when things are going to be good or bad. And whenever there is something I’m not prepared for or expecting, it can throw me off quite a bit. And I had that this week, but fortunately, it only affected one out of my four workouts.
On Monday, I didn’t work out at my normal time. Since I had the day off, I was able to work out a little bit later. It was nice to have the extra time in the morning, although I didn’t sleep in any later since my body is really starting to get used to the new wake-up time. And working out later may have been the issue that ended up cursing me during the workout.
Normally, I don’t take most of my morning medications before my workout. They can make me feel a bit nauseous, so I take them once I get home. But I thought I had enough time to take them and make sure I felt ok, so I took my meds before my workout. And I felt fine going to class. Famous last words.
We had 4 blocks for cardio. Blocks 1 and 3 were almost the same and blocks 2 and 4 were the same. In blocks 1 and 3, we had rounds of all-outs with walking recoveries. All of the all-outs were 30 seconds and the recoveries varied from 1-minute to 30-seconds. And in blocks 2 and 4, we were on the rowers. We started with a squat hold for as long as we could do it. Once we couldn’t hold a squat, we had rounds of 30-seconds on the rower followed by lunges.
Overall, this should have been a great workout and nothing too crazy. But in block 3, I knew that my medication was hitting me and I was going to be sick. In all the times I’ve been nauseous in class, I have never left class because I needed to throw up. I have left to take medication to make sure I don’t throw up, but I joke that my body knows when I’m working out and won’t let me get sick there. But I guess medicated nausea is different from hormonal nausea. I jumped off the bike and ran to the bathroom to be sick. It wasn’t pleasant at all, but I guess I’m lucky that I’m used to this so I was able to get over it and get back to the workout. I did make sure I took some time to drink water and let my body settle before pushing myself again. But I had to go easy the rest of the workout because I was scared it would happen again.
So on the floor, I was going very easy because I was worried. And I did modifications that I normally do when I’m nauseous. Even though I was feeling better after I left the bathroom, I was still scared it would hit me again. For the floor, both blocks 1 and 3 started with 1 minute of burpees and 30 seconds of a plank. I did the burpees modified with the bench but I ended up being ok with the plank. The first block also had full thrusters with weights and hop overs (which I did as lunges) and the third block also had sumo squats with froggers and hop overs (which I did at the end of the bench as little side to side hops). In blocks 2 and 4, we had a lot of core work. Block 2 had mountain climbers and sit-ups and block 4 and plank kick throughs and crunches. Fortunately, I never got sick again during class. But I am still surprised that it happened at all since I have avoided that for so long.
And by Wednesday’s workout, I was back to my normal schedule (so no medications before class and no nausea). We had an endurance day and it was a good one that had a lot of rowing considering it was a 2 group class.
We had 2 blocks for cardio and the first block was all rowing. We set the rowers for 11 minutes and we had 4 rounds of 2-minute rows. Between each row, we had recovery time with front and back shuffles. After completing all the front and back shuffles, we were back on the rowers doing recovery row strokes until the next 2-minute row. I’m proud of myself for getting at least 400-meters for each of the rows and I’m so glad that my foot is finally feeling better so I can put more pressure on it when I row. And the second block was on the treadmills and bike. We had intervals of push paces and base paces. All of the base paces were 1-minute and the push paces started at 2-minutes and went down 30-seconds each round, ending with a 30-second all-out. It was a great bike block for me and I was able to get my pedaling speed up quite a bit during the push paces.
On the floor, we also had 2 blocks. The first block had 2 mini-blocks and we were supposed to do the first mini-block for 3 rounds before moving on to the second. The first block had speed squats, hip hinge swings with weights, and high rows to low rows on the straps as the first mini-block. And speed skaters, plank work, and alternating superman for the second mini-block. And the second block was a regular block with alligators on the straps, lateral lunges with upright rows, hip hinge reverse grip low rows, and side plank pendulums. I had a bit of trouble with the pendulums, but I took my time and got through them without needing to take too many breaks.
Friday was a power day and it was all about exploding motions on the floor. I’m not that great at those exercises since I am so careful with balance, but I was happy to challenge myself. And it gave me a great chance to work on my rowing.
For cardio, we had 3 blocks. Each block had rounds of push paces to all-outs. The first block had 2-minute pushes, the second block had 1-minute pushes, and the last block had 30-second pushes. The all-outs were always 30-seconds long. Even with the 2-minute push paces, the time before we had some recovery was pretty short so I was able to pedal pretty fast. I still want to get the watts on the bike higher, and right now I only notice that when I’m increasing the resistance level. But I want to see if I can do that just from my power as well.
On the floor, we also had 3 blocks. And every block started with rowing work. We had a push pace stroke drill, 100-meter row, stroke drill for recovery, another push pace stroke drill, and ended with another 100-meter row. Even though it wasn’t a lot of rowing, I was getting tired at the end of the rowing work so I know I didn’t have my fastest 100-meter rows. But I was still happy with what I got done in each block. After the rowing, each block had 2 exercises that were connected. One exercise was doing the motion but a little more stable and the second was the same motion with more explosive action. The combinations were chest press with weights/power push-ups, goblet lunges/jumping lunges (I modified the second to be regular lunges), and double crunch with weights/power sit-ups. The last block was exceptional hard for me with it just being core work, but overall they were awesome exercises.
And as things continue to change for the re-opening, the classes I take change too. I thought I would get to still have a 3 group class on Saturdays, but now all my classes will be 2 groups. Some of my morning ones might eventually go back to 3 groups, but I don’t think that will be soon if it happens. And since this class was 2 groups, it allowed it to be a run/row day.
The run/row for cardio was one long block. We started on cardio with a 30-second all-out with the incline or resistance level set to be 4% higher than a base level. Then we had 30 seconds to recover before going back to the all-out but holding it as long as we could. Then it was another 30 seconds to recover before one last all-out as long as we could go. And every time we got back on the treadmill or bike, the incline or resistance level went down by 1%. And on the rower, we had 3 rounds of 10 strokes at an all-out pace followed by 5 strokes to recover. Even though I was doing recovery during my row, I was surprised to see how far my distance was getting on the rower. I was close to some of my old PR times for 300-meter rows! When I do those PRs, I usually just go all-out the entire time, but I know I get tired. It was interesting to see that I could do almost the same thing with the recovery in there so I didn’t get as tired.
And on the floor, we had 3 blocks. The first 2 blocks had a similar pattern for the first exercise. We did the exercise 3 times in a row. The first time was for 5 reps and then we had a 10-second rest. Then the next two rounds we did as many reps as we could with a 10-second rest between. So I had a range with how many I was able to do. In the first block, we did that with seated low rows. And in the second block we did that with chest presses with weights. The first block also had scaptions and the second block also had hip hinge reverse fly with weights. The last block was a bit more of the usual thing with the reps being set. We started with 14 reps and decreased by 2 each round. For that block, we had bicep curls and tricep extensions.
Even though my workout on Monday started off my week on a bit of a bad note, I’m so grateful that none of my other workouts were affected by it. I was able to push myself really hard and ignore the one bad workout. And I hope that if I have any bad days this week, I can do the same thing!
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