Category Archives: Fitness

I was finally back to my normal workout schedule this past week. While I love holiday workouts and it can be fun to switch things up, it’s also really nice to be back to what I’m used to. I think having the regularity of my workout schedule has a positive impact on my mental health and I really needed it this past week with everything else feeling a bit tough. I knew that at some point I’d probably have to deal with nausea, but I wasn’t going to let that get me down.

Monday’s workout was a strength day, but it wasn’t as bad as it could be because it was also a day that we switched between blocks. We had 3 blocks at each section of the room so there were a total of 6 blocks of work.

For cardio, all the blocks had the same pattern. We had a 1-minute base with incline, a 1-minute base without incline, 90-seconds with inclines that decreased after 45-seconds, a 1-minute base with no incline, and 2 minutes with inclines that decreased every 30-seconds. Each block the inclines were supposed to get a bit lower, but I kept mine the same since I don’t have a lot of different resistance levels I can use. But I did follow the pattern with the decreasing inclines for the 90-second and 2-minute segments. Since I don’t use inclines every workout, I really feel it when I do use them. But this wasn’t as bad as some workouts because they were quick segments. But they still made me work hard!

On the floor, we had 3 exercises each block. And the first and second exercises used the same muscles so it was extra hard. The first exercise used weights and the second one used the TRX straps. The first block had chest presses with weights, chest presses on the straps, and upright rows with weights. The second block had hip hinge reverse rows with weights, bridge rows on the straps, and plank work. And the last block had triceps with weights, triceps on the straps, and double crunches using a weight. There was also rowing if you completed all the exercises, but I never made it to that point.

Wednesday’s workout had a mix of endurance, strength, and power and everything we did was timed for 1-minute intervals and they were 4-minute blocks. And every 4-minute block at each section was the same. It was a lot of switching too. For cardio, we were there for the entire time. But the rower and floor switched after every 4 minutes of work.

For cardio, the 4-minute block had a 1-minute push, 1-minute base, 1-minute walking at a high incline (or just pedaling slowly at a high resistance level), and a 1-minute all out. Technically, the high incline was supposed to increase each time we did it, but I used the same high resistance level on the bike. Since we didn’t switch between each block for cardio, we also had a bit of recovery time while the floor and rowers switched. But the recovery felt short considering how hard we worked in those 4 minutes.

On the rower we started with a 1-minute all out row then we had 1 minute to complete 15 pulsing half squats. Then it was another 1-minute all out row and we finished with 1-minute of either pulsing half squats or holding a low squat. That repeated every time we were on the rower and I know my rowing got slower each time I did a 1-minute row.

And on the floor the first minute was a hip hinge swing with weights, the second minute was triceps with weights, the third minute was chest presses with weights, and the last minute was bench sit-ups to squats. I wasn’t feeling nauseous when I got to class, but the hip hinge swings were starting to make me feel a bit sick so I changed those to sumo squats with weights to not have as much back and forth motion. The swings are supposed to work your hamstrings and I made sure that I could feel my hamstrings working with the sumo squats.

Friday was a strength day and it was the start of my nausea being an issue from the beginning of the workout. I decided to go a bit easier on myself instead of pushing through to see if it would make my nausea not as bad throughout the workout or later in the day (I’m still testing this idea and I’m not sure if it will make a difference). It was also a switch class and each block was about 6 minutes long.

For cardio, the first block had 1-minute intervals between incline and flat base paces. I did use the resistance levels for the bike and decreased them as the inclines for the treadmills were going down. And we ended with a 30-second all out without incline. The second block was a similar pattern but we had a 1-minute push pace to replace one of the incline intervals. Again, I did work with the intervals on the bike even though it was making my pedaling speed extremely slow. But even with the slow speed, I was still feeling my leg muscles working so that’s the most important thing.

On the rower, the first block started with a 400-meter row and then we were supposed to do lunges. I did squats instead of lunges because getting on and off the rower is tough for me sometimes and I can do squats over the rowing instead of on the side. Then we had a 300-meter row and more lunges/squats. I was working on the 200-meter row when that block ended. The second block was the same work but in reverse order. So we started with the lunges/squats, then the 200-meter row, and so on. My rowing wasn’t great, but it also wasn’t as bad as it sometimes gets when I’m nauseous.

And on the floor, the first block had single-leg squats to stands (I did one round as single-leg and then switched to regular ones), step-ups (I modified these to be lunges), and weighted hip bridges. The second block was all mini-band work. We had squat walks, static crunch in and outs, and heel taps. Even though I had to modify several floor exercises, these blocks were pretty good for me and not too bad with my nausea.

Saturday’s workout was a power day and it was also a switch day. That really worked for me because I was really feeling nauseous going into the workout. But knowing that every block was 4 minutes or under and that I’d be constantly switching helped me feel better. But the switching was different.

We had a 4-minute block, a 3-minute block, a 2-minute block, and a 90-second block. Normally, we would do the 4-minute block at all sections of the room before moving on to the 3-minute block. Not this time. As an example, this is how things worked for me when I started on the bike: a 4-minute block on the bike, a 3-minute block on the rower, a 2-minute block on the floor, and a 90-second block on the bike. Then we went back to the rower to start on the 4-minute block there. That pattern continued until we did all 4 blocks at all 3 seconds of the room.

For cardio, 3 of the blocks were a push pace, a base pace, and a 30-second all out. Each block the push pace got shorter and for the 2-minute block, the base pace was shorter too. The 90-second block was 30-second intervals with 2 all outs and a recovery in the middle. I didn’t really have a lot of difference between my base, push, and all outs. I was just feeling horrible and just like on Friday was trying to not push through it too much. I went a little less than I probably could because I didn’t want to be completely sick on the rower or the floor.

On the rower, every block had 100-meter rows. The 4-minute block had 4 of them, the 3-minute block had 3, the 2-minute block had 2, and the 90-second block had 1. There were exercises that were different between each row in each block, but I actually don’t remember what those were because every block I just did regular squats between each row. We were also supposed to get through all the rows and exercises and hold a squat to end each block, but my rowing was a lot slower than normal. I only made it to the static squat in the 90-second block.

On the floor, all of the exercises for each block were Bosu exercises. But I didn’t use the Bosu at all. I modified everything that would have used it, but I think I had some good modifications that weren’t that different from what we were supposed to do. The 4-minute block had crunches (I just did them on the bench) and plank jacks (again, I used the bench for my hands). The 3-minute block had burpees and plank Spiderman (just used the bench for my hands for both). The 2-minute block had side hip dips (I was on the floor). And the 90-second block had lateral crunches (I did bicycle crunches instead).

This week, I’m going to keep playing around with the idea of not going as hard as I can when I’m nauseous to see if that helps me get through the workouts. I’m still not sure if it’s helping or not and I need to test it out more before I decide if it’s worth it. I know there are so few things I can do to manage my pain and nausea in my workouts (and in my everyday life), but if this idea helps it would be amazing! But at least I know I can continue doing my normal workout schedule no matter how I feel and I’m so happy to be back to the routine that I’m used to.

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This past week of workouts was just a weird one. I knew it would be a weird schedule due to the holiday, but this was even weirder than that. I already mentioned that I had food poisoning last week, and unfortunately it did affect my workouts.

I don’t know what to say about Monday’s workout. Monday was the day I had food poisoning, but I thought I’d try going to my workout to see how I would do. I know I can work through cramps when I have to, but these cramps were very different. But it was worth trying to see what would happen and I told myself that I could leave if I had to.

And for the first time that I could remember, I actually left a workout. I made it 20 minutes in class before the pain was too much for me and I knew I couldn’t do it anymore. All I had done in the workout was be on the bike, but I don’t think I biked for more than 7 or 8 minutes combined because I pedaled for maybe 30 seconds before I had to stop. I hated having to leave, but I knew that there was no way I could make it any longer in class and I was proud of myself for at least trying.

I was still a bit weak feeling on Tuesday, but I was significantly better than I had been doing on Monday (sleeping for about 12 hours during the day helped). I’m glad I was doing better because I really didn’t want to miss Tuesday’s class. I love working out on Christmas Eve and I was excited to take the class! And as an added bonus, we had a sub coach. While I love all the OTF coaches, I’ve had almost all my Christmas Eve workouts with Coach Bruce. And by some miracle, he ended up being the sub coach for this class! It was like it was meant to be!

The Christmas Eve workout is called Presents or Coal. We draw different cards that tell us what to do for our workout assignment. Some of them are easy (the Presents) and some of them are hard (the Coal). I feel like I usually get Coal when I do these, but I was ready for them. And before we got to that part of the workout, we had a quick tornado around the room with 3-minute blocks.

The cardio block was a 90-second push pace, 45-second base pace, and 45-second all out. The rowing block was a 300-meter row, squats, a 150-meter row, and more squats. And on the floor, we had goblet squats and tricep extensions with weights. And then the rest of the class was split into 10-minute blocks with 1 block at each section of the room.

For cardio, I had a mix of Coal and Presents cards. But none of them were that bad. I had 30-second intervals and distance challenges. I don’t remember the specifics of what I had to do (I should have taken notes), but I remember all of the cards being somewhat similar and never taking too long. I think I had 4 different cards for cardio. On the rower, all of the cards I pulled were Presents. I had 300-meter rows as my longest row. I also drew a card with intervals with squats between each row. But just like with cardio, I don’t remember the specifics but I do remember I drew 3 cards and they all took me about 3 minutes to complete.

On the floor, the cards told us how many of the exercises we had to do and how many reps we had. The exercises were hip hinge swings with weights, lunges, rollouts, and knee tucks. And on the floor, I drew the same card both times I had to get one. It was a Coal card and it said to do all the exercises with 12 reps each. I was starting to get a bit tired on the floor (and I think the weakness of recovering from food poisoning was catching up with me), so I was moving a bit slow. But I just focused on doing each rep as I could and taking breaks when necessary. I was just finishing up my second round of 12 reps when class was done.

I think after feeling so horrible about leaving class on Monday, the Tuesday class was exactly what I needed. I was feeling much better about myself and I needed that. Plus, I got to add to my amazing photo collage of taking Christmas Eve classes with Coach Bruce (we only missed doing class together last year).

I was finally feeling like myself again on Friday. Plus, I was craving a workout since I had 2 days off in a row which doesn’t happen that often. Even though I was excited about the workout, it ended up being a tough one and I did have a few struggles.

The workout was a mix of endurance and power. For cardio, we had a run/walk (or bike/bike slower) assignment that we did at our own pace. The longest distance we had to do was done just once and then we had 30 seconds to walk/recover. Then we had a slightly shorter distance that we did twice with the 30 seconds of recovery between each round. The third distance was slightly less and it was done 3 times. I was working on that third distance when the block ended and we switched to the rowers.

The rowers and the floor both had 5 blocks that got longer for each block. For the rower, the first row was a 100-meter row and then we did frogger squats until the block ended. We had to remember how many squats we did because we used that for the rest of the blocks. Each block, the row went up by 50 meters and we did the same number of frogger squats we did in the first block. Once we finished those, we had to hold a squat until the block ended. I always made it to holding a squat at the end, but I usually only had to do it for about 30 seconds. But all those squats were tough on my hips.

The floor was similar to the row. But instead of having longer rows we had add on exercises. The first block had neutral full thrusters and then sit-ups until the block was done. We had to remember how many sit-ups we did to use that for the rest of the blocks. Each block we added on another exercise and then did the sit-ups and held a plank until the block ended. The other exercises were hip hinge low rows, lateral lunges with a goblet hold, pulsing half squats, and tricep extensions. Even though there was a bit more upper body work, it still was a lot of lower body work and my hips were having a rough time.

Saturday’s workout was a strength day and we had some switching between blocks. Every block was about 6 minutes long and we did 2 blocks at each section of the room.

For cardio, we had shorter intervals and alternated doing push paces and base paces with incline work. The goal is to make the incline work feel the same as a push pace. For me on the bike, this is a bit harder to do because I’m not really using the resistance levels for push paces but I do use them for incline work. Also, I think I might have gone a bit too hard with the resistance levels for the inclines because my legs weren’t moving that much. But at least my heart rate got up really high while I was doing it.

On the rower, all the work we had for both blocks were stroke drills. We always had 15 strokes on the rower and the goal was to go slowly and keep the stroke rate down. For these drills, I’m pretty good at keeping the rate really low. I was much lower than the goals we were given. But I think that makes the rowing harder because my core is involved for a much longer time. In the first block between each row, we had squats with overhead presses using a medicine ball. And in the second block, we had squats with front presses using the medicine ball.

And on the floor, both blocks only had 2 exercises. The first block had bicep curls with weights and leg raises. And the second block had tricep extensions with weights and low rows on the straps. The goal with strength days is to go heavy on the weights, and I did just that. For the weight work, we had a range for the reps and we were supposed to do between 6-10 reps. If you can’t do 6 reps the weight is too heavy and if you can easily do 10 reps it is too light. I was doing either 7 or 8 reps each time, so I think I was using the perfect weights.

Even though this past week started with me having to leave a workout in the middle of it, I feel like it ended really well. I feel much better about having to leave the workout now that I’ve had other good workouts this week. But I also know that I hope that I never have to do that again. Only a few more workouts left in 2019 before I start working on my 2020 goals!

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This past week of workouts was my last workout week with my normal schedule for this year. Because of the holidays, I have slightly different workout weeks this week and next. But I’m excited about those weeks with different schedules, so it should be fun. But this past week, it wasn’t quite as good as those should be. I just had to do what I could and push through when I could.

Monday’s workout was a strength-based class. I was dealing with my normal pain and nausea so I knew it would be a bit tough for me no matter what the workout was. So I tried to do my best to follow the workout but I made changes where I needed to. It was also a switch class, so we had 3 blocks for cardio and 3 blocks on the floor and we switched after each one.

For cardio, all 3 blocks had a similar pattern. We had a 2-minute push pace, a base pace, a base pace with incline, a regular base pace, and we ended with an all out at an incline. The base pace with incline got shorter each block, but the incline went up each block to make up for it. But for me, I used the same higher resistance level on the bike each time we were supposed to be at an incline. It was a high resistance level, but it was easier for me to keep it the same. I really tried to do my best each block to keep going, but I had to take a lot of breaks to let either the nausea or the pain subside. It was frustrating, but I also know that I did my best.

For each of the 3 floor blocks, we started with a 1-minute row. The goal for each of the rows was to be within a certain stroke rate. I lucked out because they were around my normal stroke rate, but I know they were slower than what most people do. Then for each block, we had 1 exercise with a drop set (when you do a lower number of reps with a higher weight and then immediately do a higher number of reps with a lower weight) and one core exercise. The drop set exercises were hip hinge low rows, pullovers, and bicep curls. And the core work was double crunches, seated torso rotations, and plank work. I had to modify the plank work, but besides that, I was able to do all the exercises without modifications.

Wednesday’s workout was a mix of endurance, strength, and power and I was finally starting to feel a bit better so that was good. We had 3 blocks in each section of the room. We had a 5-minute block, a 4-minute block, and a 3-minute block. But we didn’t switch between blocks so we did all 3 blocks in one section back to back.

For cardio, we had a push pace, base pace, push pace, and all out. The base and all out were always 1 minute long. The push paces started at 90 seconds and went down 30 seconds each block. I had a few moments when I had to take a break to let the pain or nausea end, but I was able to do a lot more work than I could on Monday. I didn’t do anything with the resistance levels on the bike, but I did focus on my pedaling speed.

For the rower, each block had 1 row and then we had medicine ball exercises. The first block was 750-meters, the second block was 500-meters, and the last block was 250-meters. The goal with the rowing was to keep our strokes per minute the same with each row. It’s not easy to go as slowly as you did with a long row when you do a sprint row. But it was a good challenge and I liked to see what my speed naturally was with each distance and adjust it from there. The medicine ball exercises were things I couldn’t do, so I modified them to be squats with overhead presses. And we did the medicine ball work after each row until the block was done (so we were on the rower just once per block).

And the floor had a mix of strength and core work. The first block had all weight work. We had deadlifts, overhead tricep extensions, and upright rows. Then the next block had one round of the weight work again and then the rest of the block was Bosu work. We were supposed to do bicycles, crunches, and single-leg v-ups on the Bosu. But my body just wasn’t letting me do those exercises. So I did sit-ups, crunches, and then tried to do a different type of crunch to get a third exercise in. And for the last block, we only had the Bosu work, so I continued doing my modified core work. Toward the end of that last floor block, I was starting to get a little nauseous, but I think I was leaning back too far with the sit-ups and that was the cause and it wasn’t my normal nausea.

Friday’s workout was a strength-based class, and I was almost back to my normal self so I could do a lot more. I knew that I would still have to be a bit cautious about how hard I pushed myself, but I could do more than I had done earlier in the week.

The cardio had 2 blocks. Both blocks had a push pace, a base pace, hill work, a base pace, and an all out. I kept my resistance level at my base level (I really should probably stop calling it a base level since I use it so much) and then I went higher than what I used to do for my all out level for the hill work. When we were doing the hill work, I really did slow down a lot with how fast I could pedal but I think that is to be expected. And it was nice to have the other work without hills so I could go faster and feel like I’m doing more.

On the rower, we started with a 90-second row with the focus being on staying within 22-24 strokes per minute. Then we were supposed to have squats with leg lifts and calf raises using the medicine ball. I had to skip the leg lifts, but I was able to do the squats and calf raises. Then we were back on the rower and we were supposed to repeat what we just did, but decrease the row by 50 meters each time. I made things a bit easier on myself by rounding up the number on the rower so I could keep track, but I figured that way I was also doing a bit more work than necessary.

And on the floor, the first block was a mini-band block. We had walking side squats, bench tap squats, and hip raises with the mini-bands. The walking side squats were very difficult on my hips, so I had to go very slowly and take small steps. But I managed to get through them. And the second block didn’t have any mini-band work. We had side lunges while holding weights and full sit-ups.

Saturday’s workout was called Ellen’s Workout and it was named after Ellen Latham who is the founder of Orangetheory. She designed this workout to be the best representation of what Orangetheory is all about. And I really loved this class!

For cardio, we had 2 blocks. The first block was coached with lots of 1-minute intervals and a few 75-second intervals. It was mainly push to base paces with an all out at the end. After doing those intervals, then we had another block where we paced ourselves. We had rounds of .1 miles on the treadmill (or .4 on the bike) and then 30 seconds of recovery. For me, that was just under a minute of pushing myself and then 30 seconds to recover. They were intervals that I’m very comfortable with and feel like I can do well.

Then on the rower, we started with a 1000-meter row. After that, we were supposed to do lunges but I did squats instead. Then we had 3 rounds of doing 200-meter rows with the exercise between each row. And we finished the rowing with another 1000-meter row. I was working on that second 1000-meter row when the block ended and we switched to the floor.

The floor also had 2 blocks. The first block had single-leg squats (which I had to modify and do as regular squats), overhead presses with rotations with weights, bird dogs, and v-ups while using the Bosu (which I had to modify and do as full sit-ups). And the second block had lateral lunges with weights and front raises with weights while kneeling on the Bosu. When this workout was done, I really felt awesome! It was the best I had felt all week and I thought the workout was really good!

I’m excited for this week of workouts. I know we should have some holiday-themed classes this week and next, and I love those themed classes. And I’m excited to see if I can accomplish anything else amazing before the year is up!

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As I wrote last week, the 12 Days Of Fitness were almost like having another Hell Week. Except there were more days for this than there were for Hell Week. And these workouts were just as hard, if not harder, than those. And of course, I ended up making things a bit harder on myself than they probably needed to be. But that’s just how I do things.

Monday’s workout was called Nine Reps Increasing and that was a very accurate description for what it was. Every part of the workout had increasing reps for us to do.

For cardio, we had a run/exercise workout. We had 4 blocks but they were very similar. Our first block was rounds of .25 miles (1 mile for the bike) and then we had ground to presses with the medicine ball each round. We started with 1 ground to press and increased by 1 every time. The distance for cardio decreased each block a bit and we continued working on our ground to presses and increasing them by 1 every time. We didn’t reset those each block, so by the time we finished the last block I was doing 8 of them after my bike work.

On the floor, we had 3 blocks. The first block had shoulder presses, hip hinge chest flys, and bicep curls on the straps. We started with 9 reps for each exercise and each round we added 1 more rep. The next block had side plank hip dips and sit-ups and the reps were based on where we were on the first block. For me, I did 9 and 10 reps in the first block so I started with 11 reps in the second block. The last block had chest presses, pullovers, and knee tucks and again we continued increasing the reps based on what we were able to do in the other blocks.

Wednesday’s workout was Eleven Pikers Piking and it was a power switch day so we had a lot of movement between the different areas of the room. We had 2 blocks that were 4 minutes each and 2 blocks that were 45-second tornados. It was a lot of switching for us to be at each section of the room 4 times.

For cardio, the 4-minute blocks had 30-second intervals with a push pace, a base pace, an all out, a recovery, and then repeating it. I kept my resistance level at my base level and just focused on pedaling quickly. For the 45-second tornado blocks, it was a 45 second all out and again I focused on pedaling quickly.

On the rower, the 4-minute blocks had 300, 200, and 100-meter rows with frogger squats in between each row. One block started at 300-meters and decreased and the other block started at 100-meters and increased. And just like with cardio, the 45-second tornado blocks were a 45-second all out row.

On the floor, both of the 4-minute blocks were the same. We had sumo squats with upright rows, hamstring curls (I did hip bridges with a weight on my hips), rollouts with the ab dolly, and lateral lunges. And the 45-second tornado blocks had 45 seconds of doing pikes on the ab dolly. I can’t do pikes due to my hip issues, so I did knee tucks. I was also struggling a bit with nausea in this workout, but it didn’t prevent me from doing anything. I just had to take a few more breaks than I normally would need to.

My goal was to do 7 of the 12 Days of Fitness, and the only way for me to do that would be to work out on Thursday. I wanted to see if I could get the socks they were giving away to the first 100 people who completed it, but I also knew that there was a good chance that at least 100 people would get it done before the last day (I was right about that, but I still got my 7 days in).

Thursday’s workout was called 12 Runners Running and I had a 2 group class instead of a 3 group one. It was also a strength-based day and I was dealing with the start of nausea. So I struggled a bit to complete it.

The cardio work started with a 4-minute distance challenge. Then we had a 5-minute hill challenge with the incline (or resistance level) increasing every minute. Even with the issues I was having with nausea, I was able to work on increasing my resistance level each minute. I was just pedaling really slowly. After completing those, we repeated it except we had the hill challenge first and finished with the distance challenge.

On the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first block started with a 2-minute row for distance. Then we moved to the floor where we had deadlifts, hip hinge low rows, squats to bicep curls, half thrusters, and running man. I modified a few things with each exercise and took a lot of breaks, but I was able to go heavy with the weights. The second block started with a 90-second row and then we moved to the floor. We had lateral step-ups (which I modified to be lunges), sit-ups, and plank work. I modified the plank work to be on the bench instead of the floor, but that’s something I do almost no matter what since I’ve noticed it helps with my hips too.

Friday’s workout wasn’t a part of the 12 Days of Fitness, but it might as well have been. It was Friday the 13th which is always a tough workout. I also was doing my 3rd day in a row and my pain and nausea were really hitting me. I would have struggled no matter what the workout was. Everything in the workout was themed to be with 13.

For cardio, we had 13 rounds of 30-second push paces to 30-second base paces. And then we ended with an all out. I didn’t change my resistance levels at all and I tried to go a bit faster when we were doing a push pace. But my nausea really prevented me from doing that so I just had to pedal when I could and rest when I needed to.

On the rower, all the rows were 130 meters. Between the rowing, we had squats starting with 13 squats and going down each time. Just like with cardio, I rested a lot during my rowing. And on the floor, we added on exercises each round. The exercises we had were squats, low rows on the straps, triceps on the straps, push-ups, plank jacks, and burpees. I modified any plank type work to be on the bench, but besides that, I was able to do the exercises. I still took a lot of moments to rest and let nausea pass over me, but I’m glad it wasn’t too hard for me to do the floor work.

This week I will be back to normal workouts again, but I also have the pain and nausea to deal with so it won’t be easy. But I’m coming up on the end of the year and I love seeing how close I am to my goals for the year. And I’m starting to think about what fitness goals I want to have for next year and these workouts are really giving me a lot to think about.

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For the first 12 days of December, Orangetheory is doing the 12 Days Of Fitness. These are harder workouts than normal (similar to Hell Week) and they all have different themes. I was excited about the workouts because I love it when we get to do something a bit different. And I don’t mind the harder workouts because I like to prove to myself that I can do them.

Monday’s workout was 2 Crew Rows. And the workout really did have 2 sets of crew rows. It was a 2 group class and the workout was divided into cardio/floor and row (so it was a run/floor instead of a run/row). Every block was 10 1/2 minutes and we switched between the blocks.

Both of the cardio/floor blocks were the same. It started with a .2 mile run (or .8 for the bike) at a flat incline and every time we got back to cardio we increased the incline by 1% (or 1 gear on the bike). After the run, we had lunges with weights, hip hinge swings, and low rows on the straps. We kept doing that rotation for the entire block and when we got back to cardio/floor for the second block we started the cardio at the incline that we ended the first block on.

For rowing, we had lots of crew rows. Crew rows are when one person on the rower is the leader and everyone is supposed to match their cadence and speed. It’s not easy to do this, especially if you aren’t on a rower next to the leader. But it’s a good challenge. The first crew row we had was 4 minutes and we were supposed to be at 24 strokes/minute. The next one was 2 minutes at 26 strokes/minute. Then 1 minute at 28 strokes/minutes. And it ended with 30 seconds at 30 strokes/minute. Between each crew row, we had 1 minute to recover where we could row at our own speed and not have to match anyone. The second block had the same crew rows but we started with the 30 seconds one and ended with 4 minutes. I was never the leader, but I was fine with that. I was just focusing on my stroke rate and trying to match the leader each time and that’s all I needed.

Wednesday’s workout was 4 Falling Hills. And that was a very good explanation of what we had to do. Cardio was one long block but the rower and floor switched back and forth.

I’m not going to write out all that we did for cardio, but it was a lot! We had 14 minutes of hill work. Every minute was a different incline and there was no pattern or reason for the order. We had some high incline work and some medium incline work. But there wasn’t a walking recovery or a flat road recovery until the 14 minutes were done. I was struggling a bit for this workout because my hips were in a lot of pain (it was raining so I had pain from that). I did play around with the resistance levels on the bike, but I wasn’t doing it exactly how I should have done them. But doing some incline/resistance work is better than nothing.

The rower and the floor were the same every time we were there. For the block that I started on the rower, I had rower, floor, rower and for the block I started on the floor I had floor, rower, floor. Each of those little blocks was 4 minutes long so we were switching every 4 minutes. On the rower, we had a 1-minute all out row, 10 lunges (which I did as squats), a 1-minute row, and 1 minute of lunges (again, I did them as squats).

And on the floor, we had all timed work. We had 1 minute of bench low rows with our left arm, 1 minute of bench low rows with our right arm, 1 minute of pullovers, and 1 minute of standing triceps with weights. We were all told to go easy with the weights since doing something for a minute isn’t easy. I also had to work through how I could do the low rows because I wasn’t able to do the bench work. I tried just bending over, but that started to hurt me as well so I ended up doing them while sitting on the bench. It was a little frustrating, but my friends reminded me that I still did the exercise and that’s what counts.

Friday’s workout was 6 Legs A Shaking and it was a very accurate workout name! This was a really tough class and I was so grateful to have a 3 group workout so I wasn’t at any section of the room for too long.

The cardio work was rounds of 1-minute all out with 1-minute recoveries. And each time we had an all out the incline was supposed to increase by 1%. I knew that if I started the bike at my normal base resistance level that I wouldn’t be able to increase it by 1 every round, so I started a bit lower than normal. In total, we had 7 all outs and even with starting lower than normal I was so tired by the end.

On the rower, we started with a 1000-meter row. This was a long row to start with and I tried to not take breaks. After that, we had goblet squats before moving on to a 750-meter row. I was able to finish that, do the squats, and get started on the next row when the block ended. While I do enjoy long rows because they give me a lot of time to work on my technique, my legs were already so tired from the bike so rowing wasn’t as great as it could be.

And on the floor, I had to do a lot of modifications because it was a lot of work I couldn’t do. We started with single leg sit to stands (which I can do) and then it was single leg work on the bench (which I can’t do). Instead of the bench work, I did regular lunges as well as high knees using the straps. We also had sit-ups to stands with a dumbbell and toe reaches. By the end of the workout, my legs were definitely shaking!

Saturday’s workout was 7 Bells A Swinging and I was still recovering from Friday’s workout. Fortunately, this workout was a bit more upper body so my lower body could still rest.

For cardio, we had rounds of distance challenges along with regular pushes. The distance challenges got shorter and the push paces got longer. But all the blocks were the same length so it wasn’t too bad. And I ended up having bonus time on the bike because the rower I was supposed to use ended up breaking. I tried to use it after they fixed it, but it was sticking a lot and I knew that I could injure myself trying to make it work. So I did the bike for my rowing work and that had distance challenges along with squats using a medicine ball.

And on the floor, it was an interesting format. Our main exercises were push-ups, chest fly to tricep extensions with weights, tricep extensions on the straps, and plank punches. Between each exercise, we had another exercise to do. The first round we had single-arm hip hinge swings and in the second round we had skier swings. After the second round we could just do the main exercises. I went into that workout with tired legs and I left the workout with tired legs and arms!

We finish out the 12 Days of Fitness this week and I’m excited to see what else is coming up. The year is almost over and I’m so close to many of the goals I set for myself. I can’t wait to see what I can accomplish in these last few weeks!

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