I was back to my 4 workouts this past week. I wasn’t doing my regular schedule because I needed my Saturday to be free after work, but I was able to add in a workout on Thursday morning. As I’ve said before, there are some pros and cons to doing all weekday workouts before work. I still don’t know if I’d want to change that to be my regular schedule, but I do like having it as an option when I need it to be. And this month I might need to do that more often since I will probably want as much time on Saturdays as possible to pack and move (and I wouldn’t be doing that on Thursday mornings when I would work out).
Monday’s workout was an endurance day. I was coming off a longer break than I’m used to from my workouts since my last workout was the Thursday before. But sometimes a long break is good because I might be more rested and recovered to do a tough workout.
Cardio was 2 blocks and they were basically the same work. The first block started with a 2-minute push pace. Then we had a 1-minute base pace, 90-second push pace, 45-second base pace, and ended with a 1-minute all-out. The second block had the same intervals as the first but in the opposite order. So we started with a 1-minute push pace and ended with a 2-minute distance challenge (we never have an all-out that is longer than a minute). The goal was to go further in the second block than in the first, and I was just barely able to do that, but I got it done.
Rowing was also 2 blocks that were very similar. We had a 500-meter, 300-meter, and 150-meter row in each block. In the first block, we had medicine ball power jacks between each row, which I did as squats to overhead presses. And in the second block, we had front jacks with the medicine ball, which I did as squats to front presses.
On the floor, we had 2 blocks and the idea was to do all the exercises in the block using the same weights and not taking a break between exercises. The first block had incline chest flys, close grip chest presses, and seated rows. And the second block had uppercuts, shoulder presses, and hip hinge high rows. After doing each set of exercises, we were supposed to do either front and back hops or lateral hops. I did marching in place instead but even with that modification, it made the floor work so tough!
Wednesday was a power day and it really felt like a power day with all the short intervals and lower reps. We had 3 blocks for each section of the workout and they were all 4 minutes long.
For cardio, the first block had a 75-second push pace, 30-second base pace, 75-second run/all-out, 30-second recovery, and 30-second all-out. In the second block, the 75-second intervals were all 60-seconds and the 30-second base pace and recovery were 45-seconds. And in the last block, the 75-second intervals were 45-seconds and the base pace and recovery were 60-seconds. But for all the blocks, we ended with a 30-second all-out.
On the rower, it seemed like we had more exercises than rowing. We had rounds of medicine ball power jacks (which I did as squats to overhead presses) and static squat bicep curls before we got onto the rower and rowed until the treadmills were in their recovery. The rowers did the same recovery and then did the all-out with cardio. I was always on the rower for only a bit of time before we had a recovery, so I was able to go pretty hard for it. And since I hadn’t done much rowing, doing the 30-second all-outs went really well for me too.
And on the floor, we had 2 exercises for each of the blocks. We had reverse grip single-arm low rows and skater lunges, single-arm swings and high rows on the straps, and single-leg deadlifts (which I did as regular deadlifts) and plank low rows. I really felt like I worked harder in this workout than I had in a while, so I was exhausted when the class was done, but it was a good exhaustion.
Thursday was a mix of endurance, strength, and power and I, unfortunately, didn’t sleep well the night before so I was having a bit of a bad hip day so I knew I might need to make a lot of modifications. But I think I did better than I thought I could do.
For cardio, we had 2 blocks. The first block was more of a strength block with 1-minute base paces at inclines followed by base paces without inclines and a 30-second all-out at the end. I was using the resistance levels on the bike, but I wasn’t pedaling as fast as I probably would have if I was feeling ok. And the second block was more of a power block with rounds of a 30-second push pace, 30-second all-out, and 1-minute of recovery.
On the rower, we had 1 block. We started with a 30-second row and then we had bicep curls and rainbows with a medicine ball. The bicep curls were supposed to be in a squat and the rainbows were supposed to be balanced on one leg. But for both exercises, I did them just standing. Then we had a 60-second row followed by the exercises and a 90-second row followed by the exercises. After completing that, we started back at the 30-second row. I made it to the 60-second row for the second time when the rowing block was done.
And on the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first block had split stance single-arm low rows (which I did as hip hinge single-arm low rows), ground to presses, and four-point planks. And the second block had suitcase squats, bicep curls, and hip bridge tricep extensions. I tried to keep a hip bridge for the tricep extensions, but it was starting to hurt so I did as many as I could and then just did them with my feet and hips on the ground.
And for Friday’s workout, things changed up a bit. The workouts at Orangetheory usually are themed to one type of workout. They are endurance day, strength day, power day, or an ESP day which have elements of all types of workouts. But that is consistent with all sections of the room. So even on an ESP day, there is a mix of endurance, strength, and power for the entire workout. But for April, they are making all the workouts ESP days, but each section of the room will have a specific focus. So one section will be an endurance focus, another will be a power focus, and the last will be a strength focus. And which section is which will be switching up every day. For this workout, we had endurance for cardio, power for the rower, and strength on the floor. And the entire workout had the theme of “work and rest” so we were supposed to rest while working out instead of rushing from one thing to another.
For cardio, we had rounds of push paces followed by base paces. All the base paces were 2-minutes long, which was the rest time for cardio. And we had a 1-minute, 4-minute, and 3-minute push pace with a 30-second all-out to finish the cardio block. Because this was my 3rd day in a row and I had done a lot of work around my place for getting ready to move, I was a bit sore during the workout. I tried not to stop during the base paces, but I did have to do that to stretch out my hip a few times.
On the rower, we had 3 different distances for rowing. We did 200-meters, 150-meters, and 100-meters. And between each row, we had an exercise with a medicine ball. The first time we did the 3 distances we were supposed to do a lunge with an overhead press, but I just did a standing overhead press. The second time we did the rows we had good mornings. And the third time we had halos. I didn’t make it to the round with the halos because I did try to recover a bit between the rowing and exercises. We were supposed to make each row similar to an all-out, and because I really did rest and didn’t rush I was able to get my wattage on the rower much higher than what I normally can do. So I guess resting really worked for me! And even with the rest, I felt like I was working so much harder during the active row so it balanced out a bit.
And on the floor, we had 2 mini-blocks within one long block. And again, we were supposed to rest between exercises so we could do the best reps we could do. The first mini-block had lunges and Arnold presses and the second mini-block had lateral lunges and hammer curls to bicep curls. We also were supposed to try to increase the weights we used every round we did for the exercises. I didn’t use weights for my lunges, but I did work on increasing the weights for the other exercises. And again, I think the rest that we were supposed to do between each exercise helped me do better on the floor than I normally would do.
We had been told about the new format for April for the past few weeks, but now that I’ve done one of the workouts I’m even more excited to see how this month goes. I think it will be an interesting challenge for me and I think I will learn new things about how I work out and how I can maximize each type of class. And we will be repeating some of the workouts we do from the first half of the month again in the second half of the month, so hopefully, I can see some improvements in a few weeks!
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