This past week of workouts were pretty tough for me. I was dealing with some of the worst nausea I had ever experienced (although I was fortunate that the worst day was on a rest day) and I figured that was what made these workouts so hard. But after almost all my classes, the coaches were saying how tough these workouts were. So I guess it wasn’t just me. Since Hell Week is coming up soon, a bunch of us thought of these classes as preparation for it. But knowing that it wasn’t just me struggling didn’t make these workouts any easier!
Monday’s workout was an endurance day, and right when I got to my workout I started experiencing some bad nausea. I took medication right before class, but I knew it would take a bit of time to kick in. So while I was on the bike for the cardio part of class I was battling how I was feeling.
The idea for the cardio workout was a 23 minute distance run, but it was coached with different push to base paces. I tried to follow the coaching and use the resistance levels on the bike that I normally do, but when I was feeling off I brought the resistance down and just focused on not stopping. I wasn’t doing too bad during the bike considering how I was feeling before class, but I also know that I wasn’t doing my absolute best either.
On the floor, it was one long block that had two parts. The first part was regular floor work and the second part had rowing and squats. The regular floor work included dumbbell swings, lunges, uppercuts, and plank leg lifts. At first, we did 3 rounds of that before moving to the rower for a 150 meter row and 8 squats. Then we went back to the floor and did 2 rounds of it plus 2 rounds of rowing and squats. Finally it was 1 round of floor work and 3 rounds of rowing. I made it through the doing just 1 round of floor work before class was over. I was using slightly lighter weights than normal and my rowing wasn’t quite as fast as I usually go, but consider the issues I was dealing with I didn’t really care.
Wednesday’s workout was a strength workout and my nausea was even worse. Not only was I dealing with nausea, but I was in a lot of pain from cramps and I was very bloated. All of those things didn’t make me too excited to work out, but I also knew doing it would help me feel a bit more normal.
Each of the cardio blocks had a similar format with a long push pace, a base pace, a base pace at an incline, a base pace back on a flat treadmill, and an all out pace. I was on the bike and tried doing what I could with my resistance levels. I managed to get pretty close to what I normally do, but I was pedaling much slower than normal. Compared to other classes, I only did about 75% of the distance on the bike. I was a bit surprised how much less I did when it felt like I did more effort. But I think the effort was from overcoming how I felt that morning.
On the floor we also had 3 blocks. Each block started with a 200 meter row. We were supposed to do stroke counts and work on increasing our wattage, but I just tried to do it without stopping. All of them took more than a minute which is pretty long for me. Then we had one row type exercise with weights and one core exercise each block. For the row type exercises we had split stance low rows, split stance high rows, and upright rows. And for the core work we had double crunches, plank pull throughs, and half get ups. I was using some good weights for all the weighted work which helped me feel better after doing less than what I hoped on the bike.
I got through the worst of my nausea on Thursday which was a rest day, but I was still not feeling that great on Friday. But I was happy that I got through the worst part and that I might be able to do some better work in the workout. But then I discovered that this workout was a special one for World Burpee Day and it wasn’t really designed for someone who couldn’t bounce around too much or be parallel to the ground without being nauseous.
Fortunately, that class was a 3 group one, so I was at each section of the room for about 15 minutes. I started with cardio on the bike and we had 3 blocks that were each 4 minutes long. We had a 90 second hill which had decreasing inclines every 30 seconds, a flat base pace, a push pace at an incline, and an all out pace (I don’t remember if this was at an incline or not for the treadmills). I worked on trying to do my best with my resistance levels on the bike and I actually did a bit higher resistance levels than I had to with the 90 second hills because I used the same resistance pattern each time when it was supposed to be a bit less each time.
On the rower, we had rounds of rowing with mini band arm raises between each row. We started at a 700 meter row and we were supposed to decrease by 100 meters each time we got back on the rower. My only goal was to try to row as long as I could without stopping. I managed to do that for the 700 meter row, but that might have been a mistake because that was the only row I could do without stopping. For the 600 and 500 rows, I was only able to go about 45 seconds before I was having waves of nausea and needed to pause. I didn’t get as much rowing done as I would have liked to because of the breaks, but I did my best.
And then I was on the floor for all the burpees. We had 5 types of burpees to do in the workout. We had regular burpees, burpees with a plank jack, rolling burpees, burpees with step ups, and ultimate burpees. Between each type of burpees we had crunches and the goal was to make it through all of the burpees before class was done. I knew that I’d have to do modifications for every single type because of my nausea. I had to use the bench for my hands for all of them because I didn’t want to be flat on the ground. Normally when I use the bench I can jump my feet back and forth, but I had to step back and step together again. I also can’t do step ups so I do lunges instead (and I had to split it up so I did all the burpees first and the lunges after). Even with all the modifications, I still needed to take a lot of breaks. But somehow I was on the last round of crunches when class was done so I did make it through all 5 types of burpees.
Saturday’s class was a mix of endurance, strength, and power. I was a little sore from the workout the day before (and Friday night I was at Disneyland but I’ll write about that tomorrow) and I was still getting over the nausea. But it was one of the lighter nausea days so I knew I’d be able to do some really great work on the bike.
We had a switch class where all the blocks were 4.5 minutes and we switched between cardio and the floor every block. All the cardio blocks were the same with a 30 second push pace, 1 minute base pace, 2 minute push pace, and 1 minute all out. For the first block I used my normal resistance levels on the bike, but I realized I could do more. So for the other 3 blocks, I had my base, push, and all out resistances 1 level higher than I normally use. It was a bit tough doing that for all the 2 minute push paces, but it felt really great each time when I completed the block and moved to the floor. I felt really strong and fast and I needed that little victory.
On the floor, we had 3 floor blocks and 1 rowing block. For each of the floor blocks we had 1 Bosu exercise and 1 other exercise. The Bosu exercises were single arm chest presses, back extensions, and pull overs. I had the do the back extensions on the ground because of my nausea, but for everything else I used the Bosu and had some good weights to use. And the other exercises were single leg V ups, single arm power jacks, and single arm clean to presses. Again, for the weights I was using what I have been using lately so that was great. And for the rowing block, we had a 600 meter row and then 20 seconds to recover. We were supposed to do a 300 meter row next followed by a 150 meter row, but my 600 meter row took so long that I only had time to recover for 20 seconds and then do just under a minute of rowing to finish class.
I’m really hopeful this week I won’t have any bad nausea days. I might have some mild ones toward the beginning of the week, but I know that it won’t be as bad as what I had this past week. And I’m so glad that for Hell Week it should be a good week too because I can’t imagine how it would be doing those workouts feeling how I did this past week. Of course, there is always a chance that I might have some nausea during that week, but hopefully this week prepared me for how to make it through!
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