After having a shorter workout week the week before, I was happy to be back to my normal workout schedule this past week. My workouts are one of the few super routine and regular parts of my life and when things switch up it feels weird. I know that normally happens around the holidays, but I’m still not used to it. So getting back to my regular schedule was really nice.
Monday’s workout was a strength day, but the inclines on the treadmill were going to be pretty limited so I was going to use the treadmill. I had such a great running day on Saturday the week before and I was excited to keep that going. But I don’t know if it was being of my great running day, the heavy weights I used for squats, or something else but I was seriously struggling on the treadmill. My legs felt like they were so heavy and I had a hard time moving as quickly as I needed to. So I jumped off the treadmill right after the warmup (when I was taking breaks every 30 seconds of so) and went to the bike.
All of our blocks had push paces at no added incline/resistance, push paces at added incline/resistance, and all out paces with no incline for the treadmills with base paces in between. For the base, push, and all out paces with no added incline I used my regular resistance levels on the bike. But for all the incline work, I went to the new higher resistance levels that I had been using recently. Even though we had recovery between all of the all outs, this felt almost like an endurance workout and I was working hard!
On the floor, we had 1 long block but we also had rowing. When we started, we had a 250 meter row and then went to the floor to work on skier swings, uppercuts, deadlifts, high rows using the straps, bicep curls, and plank low rows. The exercises were grouped into 3 mini-blocks each with 2 exercises and we did 3 rounds of each mini-block before moving on. But every time the treadmill had an all out we went back to the rower for another 250 meter row so we did a total of 1,000 meters in the workout. I was using medium heavy weights for all the weighted work and made it through all the exercises by the time class was done so I was very happy with my floor work. Plus, I was able to get my 250 meter row faster every time I did it.
Wednesday’s workout was a signature workout. It’s called Go Row and it is all about timed rowing. Even though I started on the treadmill for my warmup, my group went to the floor first. But since it was a switch class I didn’t feel too weird doing my rowing and treadmill work second with each block.
For the rowing/treadmill blocks, we started on the rower every time. The first block was a 4 minute row, the second block a 2 minute row, and the last block a 1 minute row. The goal was to do at least half of what you did the previous row, and I did much better than half every time. After the rows we went to the treadmill for a quick treadmill workout. The first block was just a push to an all out, the second block was a longer push to a base to an all out, and the last block was another longer push to a base to an all out. I walked my base and push paces but did run all of the all outs. There was so little time on the treadmill that I did want to maximize my time on there so I’m glad I got some running done.
On the floor we had a lot of work using the Bosu. The first block was supposed to be plank leg lifts and knee tucks using the Bosu and I tried doing those at first but it wasn’t working for me. So I did my plank leg lifts on the ground and did sit-ups on the Bosu instead of knee tucks. The second block was running men, hip hinge tricep kickbacks, and single leg V ups on the Bosu. I switched the single leg V ups to sit-ups again due to my hips. And the last block was lateral shoulder raises while kneeling on the Bosu and back extensions on the Bosu and I was able to do both of those exactly how we were coached to do them.
Friday’s workout was another strength day, but it was a 3 group class and the format looked like a good one to do on the treadmill so I skipped using the bike. On the treadmill, we had 3 blocks and they all had a push pace that was supposed to be at an incline and then an all out pace on a flat incline. So I decided to do all the push pace incline work as a power walker and the all out paces as a runner. The 1 minute all out paces did feel a bit long to me, but they were doable. And not worrying about using incline work while running was helpful. Even though I have done a lot of 3 group classes, this seemed to be the quickest 3 group treadmill block I’ve ever had.
On the rower, we had 3 blocks as well and each block started with a distance row. The first block was 200 meters, the second block was 400 meters, and the last block was 600 meters. After the row we had squats using the medicine ball and then we rowed until the block ended. I did make it back to the rower every time and did about a minute of rowing at the end of each block. It was a lot of rowing which was helpful to finish my Orange Voyage challenge (I ended up rowing 24,854 meters in November).
And on the floor, we also had 3 blocks which focused a lot on lower body and abs. The first block had lunges, sit-ups, crunches, and leg raises. The second block added deadlifts to the exercises from the first block. And the last block skipped the abs but we added weighted squats to the lunges and deadlifts. The number of reps for each exercise was pretty low so we were encouraged to go very heavy with the weights. I didn’t go as heavy as I knew I could go because the heavy weight that I usually use for deadlifts was being used by other people and I didn’t want to go even heavier than I’ve ever done.
Saturday’s workout was a power day and the treadmill half of class was really fun! It started as a run/body weight exercise and then switched to a run/row. And it gave me a lot of opportunities to work on my running!
The first round was a .1 mile run and then squats. I ran the entire thing (even though it’s a bit longer than I have been running lately) and that felt awesome. The next round would have been a .2 mile run, but I did it as a run/walk with 45 second intervals and split the difference between the run distance and the walk distance. Then there were more squats. Next was another round where I did it as a run/walk and split the difference between the run and walk distances with more squats after it. Then the distance got longer and I switched to power walking only. After that round we had more squats and then the longest distance we had on the treadmill followed by 200 meters on the rower. I made it back to the treadmill to work on the next distance, but we switched before I finished the distance. I did 3 rounds of running (or run/walking) and 3 rounds of walking which felt pretty good!
On the floor, we had a very unique format. The first 12 days of December are a new challenge with themed workouts at Orangetheory and this one was all about working our way down from 12 reps to 1 rep. We had 4 blocks and each block had 2 exercises. We did exercise 1 for 12 reps, exercise 2 for 11 reps, exercise 1 for 10 reps, and so on. If we made it all the way down to 1 rep, we then held a plank until the block ended. The first block was plank shoulder taps and pop jacks. The second block was squats and hip hinge reverse flys. The third block was lunges and weighted triceps. And the last block was palms to elbows (which I did as plank shoulder taps) and sit-ups. I made it to doing the plank at the end for the second, third, and fourth blocks which is much more than I expected!
I’m excited for this week to see what the challenges will be in the workouts. I know they will be tough, but they aren’t as bad as Hell Week so I know I can do whatever they are!
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