Category Archives: Fitness

Finding My Strength (or Continuing To Find New Ways To Push Myself)

Posted on February 4, 2019 | 1 comment

After having a tough week of workouts with weird injuries, I was so grateful to be back to normal (or at least my normal) this past week. I still had struggles with the usual things in my workout, but I had some amazing moments as well. I was able to find some ways to focus on what I could do on the floor instead of what I did on the bike and I feel like that really made me feel amazing.

Monday’s workout was a mix of endurance, strength, and power and while it felt like a typical workout is was also a tough one. I was feeling a little off for a few different reasons when I got to class, but when I saw the workout I was pretty excited about it. There have been so many unique workouts lately but it’s always nice to have a classic class.

For cardio, the first block was 3 rounds of a 90 second push pace and a 45 second base pace ending with a 30 second all out. The second block switched things so it was 45 second push paces and 90 second base paces ending with an all out. I struggled a bit with my normal resistance levels on the bike, but I did use them. And the last block was with inclines so we had 4 different all out paces with different hill/resistance levels. I was getting a bit higher than my typical all out level, but it wasn’t quite as high as some of the other hill work I have done in the past.

On the floor, we had Bosu work and rowing. The first block was tricep extensions with weights while kneeling on the Bosu and push-ups with one hand on the Bosu and one hand on the ground. And after 3 rounds of those we had a 100 meter row. The second block was chest fly with weights while laying on the Bosu and low rows using the straps for 2 rounds and then a 200 meter row. And the last block was pullovers with weights and back extensions which were both done while laying on the Bosu and then a 400 meter row after 1 round. I had a little bit of a struggle with the back extensions while laying on my stomach so I had to take those slow. But I also know that going slow also can mean that I’m working harder and have better form so I think it worked to my advantage.

Wednesday’s workout was the Orange X workout, where we try to go as heavy as possible with weights. It was a 3 group class so I had a block on the bike and rower before I got to do the Orange X challenge. We were advised to go a bit easy to save our strength for the floor work, but I was already going easy on myself because I was nauseous.

The first block on the bike was rounds of push paces to base paces with the time going down each time. The second block on the bike was the same except every segment was half of the time we had in the first block. The first block on the rower was rounds of 400 meter rows with chest presses and shoulder presses with a medicine ball between each round. And the second block on the rower was rounds of 200 meter rows and we were supposed to do lunges between each round. But I was not feeling so great so I just stayed on the rower for that entire block.

The Orange X challenge is all about doing single arm low rows, goblet squats, and chest presses with the heaviest weight you can use. I’ve always surprised myself with the weights I could use during these challenges and I was determined to try to improve again. The only one that I knew it couldn’t really improve on just yet is the chest press because I already struggle a lot with the heavy weight I use for that and I don’t want to hurt myself. I actually probably should have gone down to a lower weight because it was harder than I was ok with. I don’t like having the weights above my body when I am scared that I might drop them.

But I knew that I could improve with the low rows and goblet squats. In the past, I’ve used 35lbs for that (I may have used 40lb weight once but I don’t believe so). This time, I decided to go big and go for 45lbs. It was much heavier than I’m used to and I couldn’t do 10 reps in a row without a break, but I did get them done. And with the goblet squats I know we are always pushed to do so much more than we already do. I’ve used 45lbs before and it seemed amazing but I know I can do more. I did one round with 60lbs but when I was on the floor for the second block all the 60lb weights were gone so I went up one higher and managed to do the squats with 65lbs! The most difficult part is holding the weight in my hands and not the squat, but I still felt it in my legs and butt. It was hard and I was exhausted when I was done, but I did it!

After the heavy weightlifting on Wednesday, I was just on such a workout high. I knew I could push myself more on the floor and I needed to find moments to do that. I didn’t have as many opportunities to do that as I would have liked, but it also gave me an extra boost of motivation to work on tracking my floor work more because I need to find a way to know if I’m making progress or stuck using the same weights for months.

Friday’s workout was a mix of endurance, strength, and power and we spend 15 minutes on each section of the room without switching. For the cardio portion, we started with endurance work with a 6 minute distance challenge. I don’t reset the bike too often because it’s not as quick as resetting the treadmill, so I didn’t focus too much on the distance. Instead, I worked on increasing how fast I pedaled while keeping the bike resistance at my push pace level. The second block was power based and we had 2 rounds of 45 second all out paces. And the last block was a 3 minute distance challenge with extra resistance. The goal was to do half the distance we did in the 6 minute challenge, but I focused more on not slowing down the bike.

The rower focus followed the same pattern as the cardio. For the endurance part, we started with a 400 meter row and we went down 100 meters each round. And between each row, we had 12 frogger squats. The power row was the same as the treadmill with 2 rounds of 45 second all out paces. And the last block was do to half the row distance and half the frogger squats each round (starting with a 200 meter row and going down 50 meters each time with 6 squats).

The floor was one long block. We had deadlifts, dumbbell swings, weighted lunges, regular lunges, and sit-ups. I usually use 25lb weights for my deadlifts and 20lb or 25lb for my swings. But I couldn’t get a 25lb weight since other people were using them. I didn’t want to go to a lower weight since I just proved to myself I could do better, so I went with a set of 30lb weights. The deadlifts and swings weren’t easy with the heavier weight and my hands need to get use to holding them, but I did it. I used lighter weights for my weighted lunges since I have balance issues doing those, but that didn’t feel like a letdown after doing the heavier ones. I was just so happy to prove to myself again that I can do more than I had been trying.

Saturday’s workout was a power day, and it was a very intense power day! We had 3 groups, but the treadmills (or me on the bike) and the rowers worked together in a run/row type format. The plan was the same for 3 rounds each time, it just changed which part of it you started with.

They were all 4 minute blocks. The first 2 minutes had the cardio side doing a 30 second push pace, 30 second base pace, and 1 minute all out. The first 2 minutes on the rowers was a 200 meter row, 20 squats, and the rowing for distance if there was time. Then the cardio side went to the rowers and the rowers went to the cardio side and both had a 1 minute all out. I did that 4 minute block 6 different times (3 when I started on the bike and 3 when I started on the rower), and it was hard! Because of how the class rotated, I did all 6 blocks back to back instead of having 3 and then the floor block before the next 3. But I was glad to get it all done and I tried to catch my breath as much as possible when switching from the bike to the rower or the other way around.

On the floor, we had 1 long block. We had single arm snatches, low rows on the straps, squats, sit-up rotations with weights, and running men. I used my normal weights for the weighted work because I was so tired from all the cardio work. I knew my form was probably going to be sloppy and I didn’t want to risk hurting myself with trying a new and heavier weight. I stuck with focusing on my form and taking the breaks where I needed them. And I really did need them a lot on the floor!

One of my workout goals this year was to track my floor work better. We are already through 1/12 of the year and I’ll be honest that I haven’t been good at trying to figure this out. I’m still struggling with how to do it, but I’m just trying to write it down somewhere for now. I don’t want this year to fly by and I realize I am using the same weights that I’ve been using all year. I have shown myself that I need to work harder because I can do it. And I can only work harder if I know what I have done before.

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Default ThumbnailStill Testing Things Out (or Finding Another Advantage With The Bike) Default ThumbnailA Week Of Getting Back To My Normal (or It Doesn’t Take Long To Lose Strength) Default ThumbnailFinally Gaining Endurance (or Finding Little Victories) Default ThumbnailBirthday Workout Week (or Continuing My Progress) Default ThumbnailContinuing My Progress (or Still Pushing Through) Default ThumbnailShort Workout Week (or Finding Ways To Fit It All In)

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A Week With Weird Injuries (or I’m Making Excuses)

Posted on January 28, 2019 | 1 comment

I said last week in my post about my workouts how I didn’t want to keep making excuses for why I was using the bike over the treadmill. And of course, this week I feel like I do need to explain myself a bit. But at least it’s not because of my normal reasons. This past week, my workouts were a struggle because of weird issues with my body. Over the weekend leading up to this past week, I hurt my neck. I think I slept on it funny, but it was causing me a lot of pain through the week. I know it’s nothing too bad, but it still affected me. And once that was starting to feel better toward the end of the week, I did something to my hips and quad muscles. It might have been another weird sleep thing, but I knew I had to go easy on my body. I guess I should be grateful that I am used to working with limitations because I was still able to get some good work done this past week.

Monday’s workout was a very interesting class. When you were on the treadmills you had cardio/floor work and the other half of class was doing rowing and cardio work. The pacing of things were determined by the person who started each block on the cardio side. We had 3 blocks on each side, but since we switch stations during the block it really felt more like 6 blocks on each side.

When you started on cardio, every time you started with a distance run (I was on the bike). There was a time limit 3 minutes for getting to the distance, but most of us were done in 2 minutes or under. After completing the distance, you headed to the floor. The first block had single arm neutral full thrusters and burpees. The second block had skater lunges and push ups. And the last block had hip hinge reverse flys and lunges. Everything in that block seemed to go by so quickly, but we made up for cardio time when we were doing the other half of the workout.

When you started on the rower, you rowed until the person on your treadmill was done with their distance. Then you switched to the treadmill (or bike) to be at base pace until the last 3 minutes of the block. Those last 3 minutes were a push pace, base pace, and all out pace. We repeated that for all 3 blocks we started on the rower. This workout was much more cardio and strength work, but it was a nice challenge to have and it felt very different from what I’m used to which made it fun.

Wednesday’s workout was an endurance day and we stayed in each section of the room for 15 minutes before switching so we had 1 lap around the room. For cardio, we had push paces to base paces for a few rounds. The push pace and base pace matched each time and we started with 2 minutes each and went down to 60 seconds each ending with a 30 second all out pace. I stuck with my normal resistance levels for the bike but tried to work with the speed a little. It wasn’t anything amazing, but I was able to just keep going which is sometimes all I can ask for in a workout.

On the rower, we started with a 250 meter row and then had arm raises using the mini-bands. Each time we were back on the rower we decreased the row but kept the arm raises the same. I decided to try using the medium mini-band for the arm raises to see if I could do it. Normally I would use the lightest one, but I was able to use the medium one without too much trouble. I could really feel the difference in how hard I was working, but it wasn’t so hard that I struggled with completing them. We don’t use the mini-bands that often, but I think I need to start using harder mini-bands with my arms.

For the floor, we had a really challenging workout. Normally, we do all the exercises in a block one after another so we don’t feel too exhausted or burned out. The idea of this workout was to get burned out. For all exercises we had 12, 10, 8, 6, and 4 reps; but we had to do all those rounds of each exercise before moving on to the next exercise. We had one leg squats using the bench, lunges, sumo squats, lunges with weights, and single arm shoulder presses. I sometimes would just try to do as many as I could in a set before a break and just made sure that they all added up to 40 reps (the total we had to do), but I also tried to split them up properly when I could. It wasn’t easy, but it was such a relief when we got to move on to the next exercise.

Friday’s workout was a power day, and even though we only had 1 lap around the room we had 4 little blocks on cardio and the rower which helped the time go by quicker. The blocks were the same length on both sides. We started at 2 minutes and then had 2 1/2, 3, and 3 1/2 minute blocks to follow.

For cardio, we started with a 1 minute push, 30 second base, and 30 second all out. Then we had a push before the all out. Then the base pace got longer for the last two blocks. My legs and hips were feeling the worst this day so it was a struggle to use the bike. I used my normal resistance levels but I was pedaling very slowly. Even my base pace resistance level felt like a hill to me and it was hard not to feel frustrated. I know that I didn’t pick to feel this way and doing something is better than nothing and I tried to focus on that as much as I could.

On the rower, every block started with a 200 meter row and then we had exercises with weights to finish out the block. First we had front raises and then each block we added on something else. We added hip hinge low rows, sumo squats to front raises, and shoulder presses. I might have gone a bit too heavy with the weights for this work but I really felt like I had to make up for what I didn’t get to do on the bike. And on the floor, we had one long block that had all medicine ball work. We started with woodchoppers and then had 3 rounds of lunges to tricep extensions and sit-ups to shoulder presses. Then we had more woodchoppers and rounds of side lunges to front presses and sit-ups to torso rotations. While my legs didn’t hurt too bad with this block, it wasn’t easy on my neck. I know that I have to go easy when my neck is feeling weird because it would be very bad to hurt my neck more. I took breaks when I needed them and tried to be very aware of my posture and how I was holding my body.

Saturday’s workout was a 3 partner workout and it was a special workout for Australia Day (although I don’t know how the workout connected to that). Also, while my neck was still a little sore my hips were feeling better so I was excited to work with partners and not scared I’d be holding them back.

We started with 3 minute blocks on each section of the room before we partnered up. We had a 3 minute run (or bike) for distance, 3 minute row for distance, and 3 minutes doing floor work ending with burpees until time was called. We had to remember our distances and how many burpees we did and then we got into groups of 3.

For a majority of the workout, we were doing the partner workout. Each of us was trying to match what we did in those 3 minute blocks and whoever finished first started the switch. So it could be the person on the floor, rower, or bike who finished first. I was lucky with my partners that we were all using the bike so that made things a bit easier. And I think we were equally matched so we all had our turn finishing first. The other exercises on the floor were lunges, bicycle crunches, plank punches, and full burpees. Since I use the bench for plank work, I did lose a little time getting that set up and put back each round (I didn’t want to keep it out as my partners needed that space to work). But on average we were switching every 3 minutes and it was a good amount of time to work hard before feeling exhausted.

My group did 3 rounds around the room (9 total switches) when the partner part of the workout was done. Then we had 3 blocks similar to how we started the workout, except this time we had 90 second blocks. The goal was to get half of what we were able to do when we had the 3 minute rounds at the beginning of the workout. I didn’t quite make it there on the bike, but I did make it there on the rower.

I’ll be honest, this recap was a bit of a struggle because I tried to do it without making excuses with my neck and hip issues. But I realized that those excuses were not to explain away why I was using the bike but why I might have had a tough time in the workouts. I still pushed through and was very proud of myself and I think that is what is most important to me.

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Default ThumbnailAn Up And Down Week (or Working Through The Same Frustrations) Default ThumbnailA Week Of Nauseous Workouts (or Just Doing My Best) Default ThumbnailA Week Back On The Bike (or Focusing On The Good) Default ThumbnailA Week Of Struggles (or Just Tolerating Things Sometimes) Default ThumbnailAnother Week Of Sick Workouts (or At Least I Did Something) Default ThumbnailTaking Things A Bit Easier (or No More Injuries)

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Having Some Realizations About My Workouts (or Still Adjusting My Thinking)

Posted on January 21, 2019 | Comments Off on Having Some Realizations About My Workouts (or Still Adjusting My Thinking)

Before I get into my workout recap, I want to mention something that I realized this week. Here’s a little behind the scenes with my workout recap posts: I work on writing these throughout the week. After each workout I write the section for that day’s class because I never would be able to remember it otherwise. And because I do that, things might seem a bit disjointed or I repeat things. And when I was working on the recap of last week’s workouts, I realized that I often will give my reason or excuse for why I’m using the bike and not the treadmill. There’s no reason I need to do that, but I feel like I have to explain myself. I might still do that from time to time, but I’m going to be making an effort to not do that as much as I have.

Having that realization was kind of a game changer for me. It happened midway through the week and it really made me think about the reasons I’ve been giving myself for using the bike. This is something I’ve been struggling with for a while and I’ve said before how I’ve been working on my mindset. But even when I was working on my mindset, I didn’t realize that I was putting negative thoughts into it by putting reasons and justifications when I was writing these posts each week.

Now, on to the workout recap.

Monday’s workout was a strength based class. I’ve been working more and more with the resistance levels on the bike so it was exciting to see what I would be able to do this time. We didn’t have that high of inclines/resistance levels to work with this time, so I didn’t do anything too crazy. But I am noticing that the resistance levels that seemed like my legs were pedaling through jello before now seem much easier. It’s really motivating to feel the progress in the resistance levels that I’ve been making because I still struggle to notice the progress a lot with the bike.

On the floor, we had 5 blocks and 4 of them were add on blocks. Everything was timed for us and those 4 blocks started with lateral lunges with shoulder work. The combination of the lunge and shoulder work was a bit tough for me so I split them into 2 different moves instead of one smooth move. Each block we added on another exercise like static over under, sit-ups, and static crunch heel taps. The last block started with a plank and then had all the ab exercises (but not the lunges). With the ab work, I had to modify almost everything. With the weather we’ve been having in LA, my hip has been hurting and I had to make things a little easier on my hip. But I’m working on figuring out how to make things easier on my hip but not easier in general.

Wednesday’s workout was a 3 group class (I think now my Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday workouts will all be 3 group classes) and it was a mix of endurance, strength, power but it did feel much more endurance and power based. For cardio we had 2 different 6 minute distance runs (or bikes). The first one was paced by the coach with different push and base paces and the second one was on our own. For the second one, I used the resistance level between my base and push and I was able to go further on the second attempt than I had on the first.

On the rower, we started with a 5 minute row for distance. I was able to get just over 1000 meters in 5 minutes and then we had squats to shoulder presses with the medicine ball. Then we were supposed to row half the distance we did before and then more squats to shoulder presses. Finally we cut the row in half again with more squats, but I was still working on my row when the block ended. And on the floor triceps with a dumbbell, chest presses on the straps, sumo squats, and single arm chest presses. I did go a bit heavier on my weights than I normally do because the weights I usually use were being used by other people. That is a good motivation to move to heavier weights, but I also was lucky that all the rep counts were really low.

Friday’s workout was another strength based day, but we only had limited hill work. We had 2 blocks for each section of the room and we switched between blocks (there were 6 blocks total). For the cardio blocks, we had similar patterns. We had a push pace, base pace, base pace at incline/higher resistance level, flat base pace, and an all out pace at an incline/higher resistance level. For the first block I did 2 levels higher than my normal all out level for the incline work and the second block I did 3 levels higher. Those levels made my legs work so hard, but it was a really good hard feeling!

For the row blocks, we started with a 400 meter row and then had squats with overhead presses and calf raises using the medicine ball. Every round we went down 50 meters on the rower and did the exercises between each row. They were all pretty short rows which was nice after having cardio blocks but I wasn’t as fast as I would have liked to have been. And on the floor for the first block we had deadlifts, shoulder presses, and leg raises. For the deadlifts and shoulder presses we had drop sets. That means we had a low rep count with a higher weight immediately followed by a higher rep count with a lower weight (we had 4 reps and then 12 reps). I went really heavy for the low rep count and it was a nice relief to have the lower weights after. And the second block was a block where I had to modify everything. What I did was lunges with weights, bench tap squats, and crunches.

Saturday’s workout was probably my favorite workout of the week. My hip pain from the rain was finally done and the class was a really great workout with lots of switching. It was an endurance day, but everything went by quickly so it didn’t really feel like endurance work.

We had a 3 group class and the rower and cardio sections did kind of a run/row format. I started on the bike and I started with a 4 minute bike for distance. Then I was on the rower for a 2 minute row with squat twists with the medicine ball. Then it was back to the bike for another 4 minute distance challenge. When I was on the rower side, I did the 2 minute row with squats for the first and third parts and another 4 minute distance challenge on the bike in the middle. Since the cardio side uses the rower second, those blocks were back to back for me so I got all the cardio work done together.

On the floor, we had 2 blocks. The longer block had weight work with bicep curls, upright rows, and hip hinge low rows. After those we had ab work that added each round that we did. I only made it through the first 2 rounds so I had static crunch scissor kicks and sit-ups. The second block was shorter and it was all work using the straps. We had Y-raises, high rows, and low rows. My arms and shoulders were killing me by the end of the workout!

I’ve been using the bike exclusively for a while and I’m still torn on how to work the treadmill into my workouts again. In another week or so I’ll be back to being nauseous so it’s a weird thing to try to figure out. But maybe this time is exactly what I needed to do so I could keep having these realizations to be happier with using the bike.

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A Week Of Bike Work (or Working Through Nausea and Pain)

Posted on January 14, 2019 | Comments Off on A Week Of Bike Work (or Working Through Nausea and Pain)

I knew going into this past week of workouts that it wasn’t going to be a great week. I’m trying to be less pessimistic about the issues I have, but it’s not easy all the time to find a positive side to them. But I do try to remind myself that I at least knew this was coming so I could be prepared. I don’t necessarily know which will be ok days and which will be really bad days, but I’m always prepared. And fortunately this past week did have some bright spots for me even with all the issues I had to deal with.

Monday’s workout was an endurance day and we had the 1 mile benchmark run. I knew that there was no way that I could use the treadmill, so I was going to do my first benchmark bike attempt and I was excited to see what would happen. Because I track my distance on the bike each workout, I have an idea about how long a distance would take me, but I had no idea what my PR would be since I never did that benchmark on the bike before.

When you use the bike, it’s 4 times as long as the treadmill. So the treadmill had a 1 mile run and I had a bike ride of 4 trips (there is a debate if 1 trip is really 1 mile or not). On average, that would take me about 10 minutes to do, but I was hoping to do it in under 9:30. I knew that I had my nausea working against me, but I really wanted to try to push through the nausea and keep going instead of taking a break to let it pass. In the end, I did my benchmark in 8:58 which was significantly faster than I thought I could do! And I did manage to not take any breaks during that time, but I paid for doing that in the rest of my workout. I was dealing with so much nausea and each time I had a wave of nausea I had a very intense cramp. It wasn’t fun. The rest of cardio was a run/row, but I didn’t get that far into it. My benchmark took longer than most people and I was slow on the rower. But I got through 3 rows and was working on the next bike distance when cardio was done.

On the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first block had hip hinge low rows with weights, low rows on the straps, plank rows with weights, and straight leg hip raises. I couldn’t do the plank work so I did single arm hip hinge low rows with a weight. And I also couldn’t do the straight leg hip raises so I did regular crunches. The second block was shorter with sumo squats to high rows and leg lifts. Fortunately I was able to do both of those exercises so that was nice to not need modifications for at least a little bit of the workout.

Wednesday’s workout was an interesting one. With cardio we had treadmill/bike work alternating with exercises and for the floor we had exercises alternating with rowing. Every single block was 2 minutes long and we were constantly moving.

I started on the bike where all the 2 minute treadmill/bike blocks were a push pace for 2 minutes. I was able to use my push pace resistance level even though I couldn’t go as fast as I usually can. The 2 minute blocks between the biking was 3 rounds of 30 seconds on and 15 seconds rest of speed skater lunges, squats, lateral lunges, and sit-ups. I was able to do all those exercises with limited modifications and when I was starting to get nauseous that seemed to be when we had our 15 second break.

On the floor, we had the same pattern of 3 rounds of 30 seconds on and 15 seconds of rest with the exercises. We had bench sit-ups to stands, plank jacks, and then one round that had all the ab exercises in it. And when we were on the rower we had a 2 minute push row. Just like with the bike, I was able to get through it but I wasn’t going as hard or as fast as I normally can. I think I really lucked out with this workout having as much rest as we did because I wasn’t doing anything for that long at one time. I was prepared for so much worse with my nausea and it was nice to be pleasantly surprised.

Friday was the hardest day for me. I wasn’t really feeling nauseous anymore, but I was having horrible cramps with intense pain. I don’t know why my painkillers weren’t helping me, but it was some of the most intense cramping I’ve had that I can recall. All I could do when a cramp hit me was to stop and breathe through it. It’s on days like this one that I’m extra grateful for all my amazing coaches because they know what I’m dealing with and they don’t stress out over seeing me take breaks. They will check in on me, but I’m not always feeling like I have to explain or defend myself.

This workout was a 3 group endurance workout and my only focus was to get through it the best that I could. For cardio, we had 2 blocks that were the same. The idea was to increase our base pace so we could get more distance in the second block, but I didn’t worry about that. I didn’t reset the bike so I only know the distance I did over the entire cardio time. They were pretty classic endurance blocks with a long push pace, a base pace, a shorter push pace, a base pace, and an all out. I was happy with the easy to follow plan so I could just focus on trying to do what I was able to do and not having to worry about what part of the block we were in.

For the rower, we started with a 600 meter row and then we had squat front raises using a medicine ball. The idea was to decrease the row 100 meters each round. I only made it through 3 rounds before the rowing was done, but just like my feeling with cardio I knew I did the best I could with having to take as many breaks as I had to.

And on the floor, I needed a lot of modifications due to the exercises we had. We first had bench toe taps and plank work. I can’t do bench work like that due to my hips, so I did lunges instead. And I did my plank work using the bench so I wasn’t totally facing the ground. Then we had squats and crunches, which I could do just fine. And we ended with bench crossovers and mountain climbers, which I couldn’t do. I did skater lunges and used the bench for my mountain climbers so I was able to do something.

I was finally feeling more like myself by Saturday’s workout. I still wasn’t totally back to normal, but it was the best of the days that week. We had an endurance, strength, and power day and it was a good but hard workout!

For cardio, we started with endurance work with push paces to base paces that kept getting longer. Then we started doing hill work and we finished with a bunch of all out paces that were both on flat incline and hills. I was going almost my normal speed on the bike and I was using all of my resistance levels. I even was able to increase my resistance levels to do the hill work although I wasn’t doing the highest levels I know I could do. I had to take very few breaks during the cardio work and most of those breaks were me needing to drink water (I can’t drink water and pedal at the same time yet).

On the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first block had full thrusters with weights, single arm snatches with weights, and plank jacks. I know I went too light with my weights, but I was feeling a bit off doing them. It was almost like a light nausea feeling mixed with seasickness. So I went a little easy on myself. And I was able to do the plank jacks normally so I knew that was a sign I was doing much better! The second block was rowing and work using the Bosu. We started with a 400 meter row and then did kneeling shoulder work and hip bridges with the Bosu. Then a 200 meter row and back extensions and sit-ups on the Bosu. We were supposed to do a 100 meter row after that, but I didn’t make it to that point in the workout.

Considering I had a goal to be more enthusiastic about being on the bike, I think I did really well this week. I did have some negative feelings about how I was feeling, but that was more about how I felt and not thoughts about being on the bike. I even had moments that I was excited to be using the bike like figuring out my benchmark time for it. I’m still trying to figure out how to use the bike more often than the treadmill and the main idea I keep coming back to is to just use only the bike. I know it might not be the best plan for me, but I think it might be what I need to do while I keep figuring out my options. But whether I use the bike all week this week or do the treadmill a bit, I know it will be a good week of hard work!

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Ringing In The New Year With Workouts (or A Rare 5 Workout Week)

Posted on January 7, 2019 | Comments Off on Ringing In The New Year With Workouts (or A Rare 5 Workout Week)

I had a pretty amazing end to my 2018 workouts and start to my 2019 workouts. Because of the days that the holidays fell on, it also had me doing 5 workouts in a week which I rarely do. But I didn’t want to change up my regular schedule nor did I want to miss a New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day workout.

Monday’s workout was my last workout of 2018 and I think I ended the year with a pretty good class! It was a mix of endurance, strength, and power and it was a 3 group class so we switched sections of the room every 15 minutes. And it had a theme of counting down with squats so it was a very fitting class for New Year’s Eve!

On cardio we had hill work. I was on the bike so it was resistance level work. Each block we had decreasing inclines/resistances levels using base pace and all out pace. There were 3 blocks in the cardio work and after each block we had to do squats. We started at 12 and went down 1 squat each block.

Next I was on the rower which had sprint rows with medicine ball squat rotations and continuing the countdown of squats. We started with 1 minute rows and went down 10 seconds each round. I wasn’t pushing myself the way I know I can on the rower, but I was more focused on my form because I could feel it getting sloppy after doing all the squats.

And finally I was on the floor where we had sumo squats, frogger squats, bicep curls, pull ups on the straps, and double crunches. And of course we continued the countdown of squats that we had done for cardio and the rower. I don’t know if I was just going really slow or if it was just really tough to make it down to 1 squat because I only got down to the round of 4.

This workout was my 206th and final workout of the year and I had to do a little bit of reflection when I was done with class. It might not have been the year where I had the biggest accomplishments, but it was the year that I was most consistent with going 4 days a week. That counts for a lot and I love that I got to end on such a high note after having so many classes where I was feeling down on myself.

I usually don’t workout on Tuesdays, but I felt like I had to this time since it was New Year’s Day and I always work out then. It was a power workout and also a 3 group class so all of the blocks were only 4 minutes long. It was a class that before I would have wished I could be on the treadmill, but I consciously made the choice to think about it as an amazing class to work on my bike speed.

All of the blocks for cardio were the same pattern: push pace, base pace, push pace, base pace, and all out pace. The difference was we increased the time on the first push pace and decreased the time on the all out pace each block.

I was using my new base, push, and all out resistance levels on the bike and I really focused on trying to go as fast as I could for the push and all out paces. It was a bit tough with the resistance levels being the new levels, but I’m working on getting used to them and this class really helped. And my work paid off because the distance I got on the bike was very close to what I can usually do in a 2 group class (when we have more time on cardio).

On the rower, each block was the same format with rounds of a timed row and squats between each round. We started with 30 second rows, the second block was 45 second rows, and the last block was 1 minute rows. I tried to push myself harder than I have in a long time for the first 30 second row and was shocked at how well I did! I haven’t tracked 30 second rows before, but it was over half the distance of my 1 minute row PR so I knew it had to be good! I went easy on the rest of the rows that block and during the next block because I really wanted to go all out on my first 1 minute row. This row has been one that I’ve struggled with because I know that I can get 300 meters for a 1 minute row when I really push myself. But it’s been a long time since I could do that and I wanted to see if I could. I really thought it was possible and I was flying with all my power on the rower, but unfortunately I was 8 meters short when the clock stopped. It’s not easy to get over that disappointment, but I also know I will have many more opportunities to try for it. And this was one of the closest rows I’ve gotten to doing 300 meters in a minute so that is something to be proud of.

On the floor, we had one long block but it was split into 3 mini-blocks. The first mini-block was single arm squat swings and upright rows. The second was speed skater lunges and arm raises. And the last was plank pull throughs and sit-ups. Each mini-block was supposed to be done 3 times before moving on to the next one, and if we finished it we were supposed to do all the exercises as one long block. I made it through to the end and was just starting on doing them as one long block when the class was over.

Wednesday was a strength day and I was so glad to be on the bike. First, I’ve learned that I do my best cardio for strength days on the bike since I can do much more with resistance levels than I can with incline. But also it was my third workout in a row and I rarely have 3 days in a row. I knew I’d be tired and want to go easy on myself, but I had no idea how badly I’d need that until I started class.

There were 3 blocks for cardio and to be honest I didn’t exactly do what we were supposed to do. During the warmup I was starting to feel nauseous and light-headed and couldn’t figure out why. I knew I wasn’t supposed to be nauseous yet and was worried I was getting sick or something. But after the warmup, I realized that I had forgotten to eat dinner the night before. I don’t eat before a workout, but I also don’t usually skip dinner the night before the workout. So I had to take it easy and I did close to what we were supposed to do which was alternate between base and push paces. It was not a good day on the bike for me, but I did what I could and that was better than doing nothing.

On the floor we had 3 blocks and they all had a type of lunge, a type of ab exercise, and single leg sit to stands using the bench. For the lunges, I had to modify things because they all included a type of step up which I can’t do. So I did regular lunges and lateral lunges. The ab work was straight leg raises, leg raises to crunches, and plank work. And the single leg sit to stand started at 1 rep and we kept going up every round. I wasn’t sure I could do these because I can’t really do single leg stuff, but I was able to do it with keeping my opposite heel on the ground. I was so happy that I could do them and felt proud of myself, which made up for feeling so gross during cardio.

Friday was a mix of endurance, strength, and power and a 3 group workout. And it was also when my hormonal nausea started so I was grateful that all of our blocks during the workout were under 4 minutes and we switched areas of the room after each block.

On cardio, every time we were supposed to have a .25 mile push pace (1 mile on the bike) and then a walking recovery for 45 seconds before doing a push pace until the block ended. I did the first block that way, but then I realized that I was taking enough random breaks to wait for my nausea to pass so I really didn’t need the 45 second recovery. So I did the remaining blocks as a push pace the entire time and stopped whenever I needed to wait out the wave of nausea.

On the rower we had the same thing every time as well. We started with a 400 meter row and then had squats. Then the row went down to 250 meters and more squats. We were supposed to end with a 100 meter row and squats, but I never made it to even the second round of squats. I always finished out the block in the middle of my 250 meter row. I was slow, I wasn’t able to work that hard, and I had to take a lot of breaks. But I did it.

The floor is where we had a bit more variety, but we had double sets so we worked the same muscles twice in a row. The first block was focused on doing chest presses so we had them first with dumbbells and then on the straps. The second block was tricep focused so we did overhead triceps with weights and then triceps on the straps. The last block we had chest flys and tricep extensions using weights on the bench so it wasn’t exactly a double set. But my arms were feeling it after this class!

Saturday I was still nauseous but feeling a bit better than I had on Friday. So with the power workout we had I really tried to work hard on the bike. We had 6 little blocks for cardio and they were all a push, base, all out pattern. For 3 of the blocks the push was 90 seconds and for 3 of them the push was 60 seconds. And the base and all out varied each block too. They were really good power blocks and I was proud of myself for not even having a glimmer of a thought that I wish I had been able to do the workout on the treadmill. I was happy on the bike and proud of what I did.

On the floor we had 1 long block. There was a row and 6 exercises that added on each round. We started with a 100 meter row and 1 exercise. Then a 150 meter row and 2 exercises. It went up to a 350 meter row and all the exercises. The exercises were single arm hip hinge swings, high rows on the straps, squats using the straps, roll outs on the straps, squats, and plank work. I couldn’t do the plank work because of my nausea so I did side twists instead. We were supposed to get through all the exercises and then there was a plan to work back down, but I just finished the last of the 6 exercises when time was called. But I was glad I was able to get through everything at least once.

Even though I dealt with unexpected and expected nausea, I’m still happy with how I did this past week. Not only did I work hard, but I did a 5 workout week which is always a challenge for me. I know this week will likely be all bad nausea days, but I’m feeling more hopeful about what I can do during those days after this past week.

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Orangetheory Goals (or A Blog/Vlog Partnership!)

Posted on January 4, 2019 | Comments Off on Orangetheory Goals (or A Blog/Vlog Partnership!)

I am so excited for this post! For the past few years, I’ve written about my personal goals at the beginning of the year. And ever since I started going to Orangetheory, one of my goals has been how many classes I wanted to make it to that year. And while I’ve had other personal goals I wanted to accomplish that related to my fitness, I’ve never really shared a list of Orangetheory specific goals. But that changes this year!

I’ve made a list of some goals I have for 2019 at Orangetheory, but I didn’t want to do  this alone. So I reached out to Andrew Coleman Smith, who has a vlog channel with the amazing Fat Tuesday series where he talks about his fitness and health journey including Orangetheory, and he’s joining me with making 2019 our best OTF year yet! We are going to be holding each other accountable for our goals throughout the year and we will be checking in with each other at different times. When we have our check-ins he will be making an appearance (at least in writing) on here and I’ll be making an appearance on his YouTube channel! The vlog about us working together will be going up next week as his Fat Tuesday video, but this blog is a preview of our goals.

First, here are mine.

My first one is one that I mentioned in my main goals post. I want to do 200 workouts this year. This goal is the one that I look at as my easy goal, but I still need to make sure that I don’t slack off in getting in all my workouts each week.

Next is another one I’ve mentioned before in my workout recaps. I want to use the bike more than the treadmill for my cardio. I need to do this so I stop looking at the bike as not as good as the treadmill. I know I can work just as hard if not harder on the bike than I can on the treadmill and I need to remember that. I’m not exactly sure how I will decide what will be bike days versus treadmill days other than biking when I’m nauseous. But I’m going to be tracking what I use to make sure I stay on the bike more.

I also want to get a new PR of some sort on the rower. It’s been a while since I’ve gotten a PR on the rower. When I started at Orangetheory, I was getting a PR almost every time I rowed because I started with so little rowing skills. It’s easy to make progress when you are starting at the bottom. When you get better, progress comes in smaller increments and that’s where I’ve been getting stuck. But I’m going to make more of an effort to be aware of where my current PRs are and use them to help me try to beat it in class.

Along with tracking my rowing better, I have another tracking goal. I want to track my work I do on the floor. I have been tracking things on the treadmill, bike, and rower for so long and it seems so easy for me to do that.  But I don’t really track my weights on the floor so it is harder for me to know if I’m making progress. I know I have made some progress over 4 1/2 years because I never used anything higher than 15lbs in the past. But now, I can’t remember if 20lb or 25lb is my record for different types of lunges or things like that. And I want to know and be aware of what I am doing and when I move to using heavier weights instead of guessing when that happens.

And my final goal for 2019 at Orangetheory is one that I need help with. I want to bring more friends with me to a class. I love the friends that I’ve made at OTF, but it’s so special when I get to take a class with a friend. I want to do that more often so more people in my life can know why these workouts are so special to me.

And now it’s Andrew’s turn!

My name is Andrew! Every week I document my journey to become #NotFat on my weekly YouTube series, Fat Tuesdays! I’ve recently fallen in love with Orangetheory and it’s changed my entire life! Every Tuesday I share about that journey and more. I’d love to have you stop by and check it out!

My first goal this year is to go to a minimum of 3 times a week to Orangetheory. My attendance the last few months of the year were spotty and we all know consistency is key, so I feel like this goal will ensure a lot more progress in my journey. Plus Orangetheory says themselves that 3 to 4 times a week is what you should shoot for, so it’s right on track with “crushing it”.

Next, I want to level up on my push pace. It’s crazy to think that when I first started at Orangetheory, my push pace was a brisk walking speed and now it’s a 6.5! That being said, after crossing over the one year mark in my journey, I think it’s now time to up my push to a 7 (while still keeping my true base of 5.5) It’s a small change that I feel will really make a difference over the course of a year.

For my third goal, I want to FULLY prepare for my classes. My typical morning workout usually looks like this: I’m late to arrive, I can’t find any of my heart rate monitors (yes, I have multiple and yes I sometimes lose them all), I have to buy a water bottle, didn’t get proper sleep the night before… a MESS. (All things I feel a #FitnessPerson shouldn’t do)

And finally, be a better tracker. I’m all about documenting my progress with my health journey on my YouTube channel, but I don’t have the right stats. I don’t know really any of my markers for benchmarks in Orangetheory nor do I have proper measurements of my body. I want to measure every few months or so and keep a detailed journal of what’s changing (since the bathroom scale doesn’t really tell the full story) I also recently took some professional before pictures as a way to get an accurate look at where I’m at in my journey at the top of the year.

So those are our goals for this year at Orangetheory! If you have any fitness goals (Orangetheory or otherwise), I know we’d both love to know more about them! And please hold us both accountable as well. Andrew and I will be making sure that we hit our goals, but having more people checking in on us will be helpful too!

Here’s to us all having our best fitness year ever!

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Holiday Workouts (or Making Myself Enjoy The Bike)

Posted on December 31, 2018 | Comments Off on Holiday Workouts (or Making Myself Enjoy The Bike)

This past week was my last full week of workouts for 2018, and I have to say I think they went pretty well! I had some random issues, but I also had some victories over issues that I have been dealing with for a while. And as always, I enjoyed having a bit of holiday fun during my workouts too.

Monday’s workout was the traditional Christmas Eve workout with the Present and Coal cards. We drew cards out of a Santa hat that had different workout assignments. Some were easy (the Presents) and some were hard (the Coal). I’ve had a mixed bag with what workouts I’ve gotten in the past and I figured I’d have the same this time.

I started on cardio with the bike. I’m still trying to figure out what I want to do with enjoying the bike more often, but I was glad I used it for this workout.  I did 3 different cards and they were all Presents. The first and third cards that I drew were 3 rounds of .15 miles (which was .6 on the bike) with 30 seconds of recovery in between each round. Each round took me about 90 seconds to complete so it was a 90 second push pace for me. I forgot what the second card said exactly, but it was shorter than the other card. I think it might have been 3 rounds of .1 miles (.4 on the bike) but I’m not totally sure. But again, I did it as a push pace and I was using my new push pace resistance level on the bike.

I was on the rower next and I only drew one card, and it was a Coal card. I had 2 rounds of an 800 meter row with 50 squats using a medicine ball between the rows. The first row wasn’t too bad and I was able to do it in a decent time without stopping. But the 50 squats were a killer! I thought I could do them with only 1 break in the middle, but I had to rest every 5-10 squats. I was so happy to be back on the rower for my second 800 meter row even though I did it slowly and needed breaks. I was just finishing it when that block was done and I went to the floor.

I’m not sure if I was just normal tired or tired from the workout, but I got really confused when reading the card. We had 6 different exercises on the floor (low rows on the straps, sumo squats to presses, crunches, burpees, squats, and plank work) and the first card I drew said Exercise 4 x 25. I thought that meant 4 rounds of 25 reps of everything and started working on them. But after the second exercise, I realized that had to be wrong and I checked with my coach. The card meant I only had to do the 4th exercise (which was the burpees) for 25 reps. All the cards I got on the floor only had been doing some of the exercises, but by the end of the block I had done all 6 of them pretty equally.

I have a tradition of getting a photo with my coach Bruce before Christmas with him wearing a Santa hat, but I knew this year it might not happen. I don’t take his class anymore and I rarely see him. So I had to do some creative photo editing to make it happen this year.

Wednesday’s workout was a strength day, and I was on the bike again. We had 3 blocks with cardio and 3 blocks on the floor, but the cardio work seemed extra tough to me that morning.

The cardio was a similar pattern with a regular push pace, a hill, and ending with an all out with base paces in between everything. The push pace and hill work were 2 minutes each for the first block, 90 seconds each for the second block, and 1 minute each for the last block. And the hill work was 2 different inclines/resistance levels each time so we went higher and harder halfway through each hill. I was using my new base and push resistance levels and kept my hill work around what my all out resistance level is at now. I had Chinese food the night before and I think having that the night before an early workout did affect me because it felt so much harder than it had felt in a long time. I struggled a bit with the hill work, but I tried to not think about keeping my cadence the same and just focused on moving. The one really good thing was that my new base pace resistance level is feeling much easier and such a relief when I get to come back to it after higher resistance levels.

On the floor, we got to pick our own work for each block. We had 3 different row distances and 6 different exercises. For each block we picked 1 row distance and 2 exercises and by the end of 3 blocks we did them all. The rows were 200, 300, and 400 meters and the exercises were hip hinge low rows, double crunches, shoulder presses, single arm fly, pullovers, and toe reaches. I decided to do the longest row first and go down with each block. And I didn’t have a plan with the exercises more than I was going to do 1 and 3 for the first block, 2 and 4 for the second, and 5 and 6 for the last. We were told not to do the double crunches and pullovers in the same block since they were the same movement, and for some reason the way I split things up made the most sense to me. I wasn’t using the heaviest weights I could because there is a small chance I have a pinched nerve in my right arm (I’ve got some recurring pain and weakness in my hand) so I wanted to be careful. But using light weights really did help me see my progress since those weights were ones I would have used for those exercises toward the beginning of the year and they felt very easy to me in this workout.

Friday’s workout was a mix of endurance, strength, and power and it was a workout that made me happy to be on the bike. For cardio, we had a mix of progressive pushes and incline work. And neither of those are things that are easy to do on the treadmill. So being on the bike really was the best option and it made me appreciate knowing I can do some good work on there.

We had 2 blocks and each block started with a 4 minute progressive push and ended with 4 all outs using different inclines. For the progressive pushes, I increased my bike resistance by 1 level each time starting at the resistance level between my base and push. And for the incline work I did high resistance levels starting at my all out level and going higher from there. As it’s been since I increased my base, push, and all out resistance levels; it was really tough but felt really great. The base resistance level is feeling so much more normal even if the other levels are feeling much tougher than I’m used to.

On the floor, we had 2 blocks as well and they all had rowing plus regular floor work. The first block started with a 100 meter row and then we had 1 round of lateral raises, single arm snatches, and bench hop overs. Then we had a 200 meter row and 2 rounds of the exercises. The block ended with a 400 meter row and doing the exercises again. The second block was a similar pattern but started with the highest row and moved down. And the exercises were Y raises on the straps, plank rows, and sit-ups.

Saturday’s workout was a power day and it would have been a perfect day for me to work on my running. But I’m working on being happier with the bike so I tried to reframe my thinking and look at it as the perfect day to work on being faster on the bike.

There were 5 blocks for cardio and 5 blocks for the floor. The first and last blocks were 2 minutes, the second and fourth blocks were 3.5 minutes, and the third block was 5.5 minutes. For cardio, it was a run/row format. The first and last blocks were a .1 mile run (.4 on the bike) and then row until time was done. The second and fourth blocks were .2 miles (.8 on the bike) and then row until time was done. And the third block was .3 miles (1.2 on the bike) and then row until the block was done. I was able to get through the bike work pretty quickly and had a decent amount of time on the rower each block. But I was never on the rower more than 2.5 minutes which was nice. I felt pretty great about my biking speed and my rowing for all of the blocks and also felt like I had worked harder on the bike than I would have on the treadmill.

The floor blocks were the same amount of time as the cardio blocks. The first and fifth blocks had push-ups and sit-ups, the second and fourth blocks had tricep extensions with weights and chest presses with weights, and the third block had tricep extensions on the straps, plank shoulder touches, and toe touch sit-ups. I tried to not go too quickly with the exercises so I could keep my form the best I could, so I didn’t do too many rounds each block. But that’s ok.

Overall, I’m happy with how my feelings about the bike were at the end of this past week. I was looking at it more positively and started to think of ideas of challenges for 2019 for the bike (more on that soon). I’ve got just today’s workout left for 2018 and then it’s time to start working on my 2019 fitness goals!

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An Almost End Of The Year Review (or Looking Back At My Goals)

Posted on December 28, 2018 | 1 comment

I know there are still a few more days left in the year, but I wanted to get my end of the year recap done before the new year started. I feel like it’s a nice transition to have a clean break from year to year and I didn’t necessarily want to spend the beginning of the new year going through the past. So I figured with a few days left I would have a good idea on where I would stand with my goals by the end of the year.

My first goal I had this year was to do 199 Orangetheory workouts. That one I accomplished and I’ll finish out the year with a few more! I should be at 206 workouts by the last day of the year unless something happens that prevents me from going to one of my planned workouts. But even if I didn’t go for those classes, I will still be ahead of the goal! I did 4 workouts a week almost every week which made it easy to make it to over 199. I thought I’d have more 3 workout weeks over the year but I didn’t have that many. I tried to look back at my schedule and I don’t think I had any 5 workout weeks (I could be wrong) which is what I thought I’d need to do a few times to make sure I made it to my goal. I’m so glad that this goal ended up being relatively easy to accomplish since it seemed like one that would be tough for me.

And I’m lucky that first goal was easy for me to accomplish because it ended up being the only goal I really did accomplish that I had set for myself. I don’t want to make excuses for myself, but for some of these goals I didn’t meet there is a reason. But I still need to hold myself accountable for why I didn’t do what I was hoping to do.

The next 2 goals I had are somewhat related. I wanted to find a 5K race to do and I wanted to get a new PR on my mile time. Neither of those happened and if I’m being totally honest I really don’t care too much that they didn’t happen. Doing 5K races was a big part of my life for a long time, but that was also a while ago. I didn’t have Orangetheory when I did a bunch of races every year and I think having a regular workout has made me not feel as motivated to find races. I had a few races that I kept doing, but once they stopped having races each year I didn’t try to find a replacement. And with wanting to get a new mile PR time, I really thought I’d be able to do much more running this year than I have been able to do. This is due to multiple factors like getting sick, my hormonal nausea, and other things that have prevented me from using the treadmill as much as I wanted to do. Getting a new mile PR used to be so important to me and a sign of my progress, but I’ve had to learn new ways to measure my progress and the mile time has lost some of the importance it used to have.

The next goal I failed on is one that I feel like I have the most excuses for. I had a number in my head that I wanted to get my debt below. I was making real progress toward this for the first part of the year and I was so excited about it. But then I didn’t have as many hours with one of my jobs as I thought I would have and then that job wasn’t able to offer me a new contract like we expected. Being down one job meant that I didn’t have the money to put toward paying my credit card that I used to and I had to start using my credit card for more things than I would have liked to. Losing a job and using my credit card to pay for regular expenses is how I got into debt. I’m trying to stop this before it gets as bad as it did before (and I’ll have more on that in my 2019 goals), but it did increase how much I owed on the card. It’s unfortunate, but it’s my reality. I wasn’t expecting to lose a job and I don’t make enough money right now to really have savings to cover a job loss. I know this is bad and I want to fix this, but for now I have to just focus on finding a new job so I can get back to paying down my debt.

And my last goal I had for 2018 was to keep doing what I’ve been doing with my eating disorder recovery. While I wouldn’t say I necessarily failed at accomplishing this, but it didn’t go the way I planned it would. I did keep doing what I was doing and I’ve found new things that do work for me and I’ve dropped things that I found weren’t working for me anymore. I had the hope that I would feel like I made more progress by this point, but I also know that recovery is a weird journey and it’s not always easy to judge progress.

Even though I really only accomplished one of my goals I set for the year, I don’t see that necessarily as a bad thing. Instead, I feel like I had a minor failure to plan with my goals which is a newer issue for me. I think I need to allow myself to alter and change my goals throughout the year. If I had that as the plan, I would have switched out my running related goals before the year was half over to something else that was fitness related. Maybe I would have had a goal to be able to use a certain weight for an exercise or I would have changed it to a goal on the rower or bike. But I felt like my goals were set for the year and I didn’t want to alter them. That is something I will be changing as well as adding to my monthly challenge planning reminder to look back at my goals for the year to see what steps I need to make and if there are any changes that should happen.

It’s so funny to think about how happy I am to have goals I failed at because it has given me a lot of insight into myself and how I can make the next year even better. And I’ve got some interesting goals in mind for 2019 that I’ll be sharing next week that have been inspired by me not reaching my goals. Sometimes you need a setback to help you think clearly and I think that’s exactly what I had this year.

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Default ThumbnailMy 2017 Goals (or I Know This Year Will Be Amazing!) Default ThumbnailMy 2016 Goals (or I’ve Got Some Big Ideas This Year) Default Thumbnail2020 Goals (New Year, Not All New Goals) Default ThumbnailReflecting Back On 2017 (Kind Of Reaching My Goals) Default ThumbnailWhat I Plan To Do This Year (or 2015 Goals) Default Thumbnail2014 Goals (or Hoping To Get More Goals Done This Year)

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Almost End Of The Year Workouts (or Hitting A Milestone And Debating A New Plan)

Posted on December 24, 2018 | 1 comment

I never should predict how a workout week will go. In my post last week, I said how I would expect the coming week to be a good week of workouts because my nausea was done. I clearly spoke too soon.

Monday was a weird day for me. I’m not sure if my pain and nausea was due to hormonal things (it should have been over by then) or if I got food poisoning or something, but I wasn’t feeling good that morning. It was not just the pain and nausea that I’ve dealt with for the past 2 years but I was also having hip issues that morning. I don’t know why everything was happening for me, but I went into my workout with the mindset that I was just going to do what I could and that was better than missing my workout.

It was a power based workout and we had 3 blocks with cardio. I was on the bike and used my normal resistance levels since I wasn’t feeling good enough to push myself. Every block was a longer push pace, a base pace, a push to all out, a recovery, and another push to all out. For the first block I was feeling not too bad and didn’t need to take any breaks, but for the other blocks I just had to stop when I felt like it was too much. I was frustrated, but not because of how I was feeling. I was frustrated that I wasn’t mentally prepared for a day like this. I thought I was going to be feeling great and I hated how let down I felt when it was a rough day for me. But I did what I could and that’s all I can hope for sometimes.

On the floor, we also had 3 blocks. The first 2 blocks had 3 rounds of 2 different exercises and then a timed row. We had chest presses, squats to upright rows, push-ups using the bench, and single arm chest presses. And then the last block was rounds of 30 second rows with squat jacks using the medicine ball. I couldn’t do the squat jacks so I did regular squats with overhead presses. My rowing wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t great either. But I was able to use heavy weights for the weighted work on the floor so it felt like that made up for something.

The weirdness continued on Wednesday for me. I started out on the treadmill, but my hip was just bugging me. And since I was going to be going to Disneyland later that day, I didn’t want to do anything that would make me hurt too much while walking around at Disneyland. So after I did my warmup I switched over to the bike for the rest of the cardio.

The goal of the cardio work was to work with a new base pace. I ended up being pretty glad I was on the bike since I know I couldn’t go faster on the treadmill yet. What I did for the bike was use my normal push pace as my new base pace, my normal all out as my new push pace, and then go higher with the resistance level for my new all out. It ended up working out well and it wasn’t as tough as I thought it might be. There were a few times where I was wishing the push pace was shorter because my legs were getting tired, but that is to be expected with any workout.

On the floor, we had a long block followed by a short core blast. For the long block we had deadlifts, shoulder presses, back extensions, and mountain climbers. And after completing a round we went to the rower. The first row was 800 and it was cut in half each time we were back on the rower. I didn’t do my fastest row, but it was one of my more consistent speed rows so I was very happy with that. And we ended the workout with a core blast with different types of crunches.

On Friday I pretty much decided to stick with the bike. I’m doing some thinking about not trying to use the treadmill for a while just to get happier with the bike (more on that when I figure it out) so this would be a good chance for me to work with the new base pace I got to on Wednesday. It was a bit frustrating because this would have been the perfect day to work on running, but that’s exactly why I knew I needed to stay on the bike.

All of the blocks were very short and it was a switch day so we were in each section of the room 3 times. On the cardio all the blocks were a push pace, base pace, push pace, base pace, and all out. Each block the last base pace got a bit longer which was a good chance to work on my endurance with that new base pace resistance level. It was a bit easier than it was on Wednesday which was a good sign to me.

On the rower, we started with a 200 meter row and then had different types of squats each block. Then we went back to the rower and finished the row to 400 meters. And since there was time at the end of each block before we switched, we had to hold a squat to complete the block. The last squat was usually about 30-45 seconds for me which wasn’t too long.

And on the floor every block had some form of a lunge movement and some core work. For the lunges we had speed skater lunges, regular lunges, and lunges knee raises (which I was able to do by using the straps for balance). And for the core work we had sit-ups, side plank crunches, and seated torso rotations. I got through 2 rounds of the movements each block before we switched and the time really flew by.

But I did hit an amazing milestone on Friday. I had the goal to do 199 workouts this year, and my workout on Friday was my 200th workout of the year!

I can’t believe that not only did I make it to my goal but I would pass it! And having that milestone happen really did help me feel better about the workouts.

Saturday’s workout was a strength day and I stayed on the bike. But I felt much better about that decision and that helped me feel much better about the workout in general. I was also able to keep working with my new base pace resistance on the bike and combining that with the hill workout made it so hard, but in a good way!

The cardio workout had 3 blocks with a similar format. There was a push pace, a hill base pace, a regular base pace, a push pace, another hill base pace, a regular push pace, and it ended with a push to all out pace. The difference was that each block the hill (or resistance level for me) went down. It was hard doing that work with my new base resistance level, but I think it was a good thing in the end because that new resistance level doesn’t feel as hard as it did when I was using it as my push pace.

On the floor, we had rowing in the first and last block. The first block had a 1 minute row and the last block had a 100 meter row and then a 300 meter row after a 15 second recovery. The rest of the work had a lot of good weight work. We had single arm snatches, goblet squats, shoulder presses, lunges, uppercuts, and sit-ups. I tried to go with the heaviest weights I knew I could use for those exercises to not go easy on myself. I might have done more weight with the goblet squats, but I’m happy with what I did.

I pretty much just have this week to finish up my workouts for the year (except New Year’s Eve which will be the week after) and it’s a good time to evaluate what I want to accomplish in 2019. The idea of making myself use the bike more often is something I think I need to do, but I don’t have the exact plan figured out. But I also want to set more goals beyond that so I can have something to try to reach for in rowing or with weights. Hopefully this week’s workouts will inspire me so I have a good plan for 2019!

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Default ThumbnailAnother Short Workout Week (or Still Can’t Believe My Milestone) Default ThumbnailA Week Of Tough Workouts (or Frustration As Motivation) Default ThumbnailHaving Some Realizations About My Workouts (or Still Adjusting My Thinking) Default ThumbnailWorking Out Into The New Year (or The End of My 2015 Workouts And Beginning of My 2016 Workouts) Default ThumbnailWhat I Plan To Do This Year (or 2015 Goals) Default ThumbnailFitting In My Workouts (or Planning For The End Of The Year)

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Working Through A Rough Week (or Just Keep Moving)

Posted on December 17, 2018 | 1 comment

I knew this week of workouts would be a rough one for me. I am glad that I can plan for these weeks so they don’t take me by surprise, but it doesn’t necessarily make them easier to deal with. But I just have to continue trying new things that might help my workouts (and my life) not as hard and hope for the best. And that’s the attitude I really tried to go into these workouts with.

Monday’s workout was a strength day and I knew that while I couldn’t pedal as hard on the bike as normal that didn’t mean I couldn’t try to work hard. Since there was incline/resistance work for the cardio, I went with increasing my resistance levels on the bike as the incline work was happening on the treadmill. I didn’t get quite as high on the resistance levels as I have before, but I was still doing more than my normal levels.

We had 3 blocks on cardio and the first block was 1 minute intervals between incline/resistance work and a base pace. Each incline went lower as we went through the blocks, so I started the resistance level at close to the highest that I have done to represent hill work. I went down 1 level each time but I was still above my normal resistance levels the entire block. The second block was 1 minute intervals with incline/resistance work and push paces. During this block, I was getting closer to my normal resistance levels but decided to not go below my all out resistance level for hill work. And the last block was 1 minute intervals with push and base paces and I used my normal resistance levels for these.

On the floor, every block had 2 exercises plus a row challenge. The exercises included lunges, shoulder presses, single leg squats, hip hinge reverse fly, uppercuts, and bicep curls. Each block had 1 exercise that was 6 reps and the other exercises we could choose between 6-10 reps. The idea was to be able to try heavier weights and have the option to do fewer reps. Because of how I was feeling, I did heavy weights but nothing I hadn’t done before. And the row challenge each block was to do 15 stokes slowly on the rower and see how far you could get. It’s not easy to row slowly and that’s the point of this challenge. We were supposed to get at least 150 meters each time, and I managed to do over 200 meters each time. So I guess my nausea was good for something.

Wednesday’s workout was a power class and even though it’s normally not a 3 group class it was this time. So I was at each section of the room for about 15 minutes. On the bike, we had short push to all out challenges and then we had squats right after. We did 5 rounds of push to all outs that got shorter throughout the block and the squats started at 12 reps and went down 1 each time. I wasn’t pedaling as fast as I could on the bike, but I tried my best and tried to work harder during the all outs than I was working during the push paces.

On the rower, we started with a 500 meter row and each round it went down 100 meters. And between the rows we had more squats plus squats to front presses with a medicine ball. We kept working down for the number of reps we did for the regular squats, so I started at 8 squats after my 500 meter row. My rowing time was slow, but it was steady and consistent so I tried to look at that as a good thing.

And on the floor, we had 1 long block that had 4 exercises plus continuing to work down on the number of reps for the squats. We had sumo squats with weights, dumbbell swings, weighted hip bridges, and crunches. The goal by the end of class was to be at the round of doing 1 squat (so you worked from 12 down to 1), but I didn’t quite make it. I did my round of 2 squats and was working on the other exercises by the time class was done. But considering how awful I was feeling in class, getting within a few exercises of making it to the goal is a big accomplishment.

Friday’s workout was a strength day and I was cautiously optimistic that my nausea was over. I was feeling pretty good when I woke up and went to the workout, but when I got on the bike it was only a few minutes before I was feeling nauseous again. But since I had planned for this week to be like this, it did make things a bit easier. Plus, as I’ve mentioned before I do like using the bike for strength days because I can add resistance on the bike much more than I can do incline work on the treadmill.

The cardio blocks were all pretty short and they combined having push work without hills and push work with hills. I was using my normal resistance levels on the bike when it wasn’t hill work but I went to the new higher resistance levels I’ve been using for the hill work. I didn’t get as high up there as I have in past workouts, but the hill work wasn’t as high as it has been in other workouts so that seemed reasonable to me.

On the rower, we had an interesting workout where we got to determine how many reps of exercises we would do by how we did with the rowing. We had different distances to row and we had to count the number of strokes it took us to get to that distance (very similarly to us having to count the strokes in Monday’s class and see the distance we could get). I know that I can do long and slow rowing and that helps to keep my stroke count down. After the first row we had calf raises, after the second row we had squats, and after the third row we had squat presses. I know that my number of reps was much lower than our coach was expecting us to do since I focused on rowing as slowly as possible. But I still had a lot of reps of everything.

And on the floor we had 2 blocks. The first block had deadlifts, double crunches, and bench sit-up to stands. I couldn’t do the sit-up to stands because of the nausea so I just did regular full sit-ups. And the second block had hip hinge high rows, hammer curls, sit-ups, and lunges. Fortunately the majority of the floor exercises that we had were things that weren’t an issue with my nausea, so by the end of the workout I was feeling almost back to how I was feeling before the workout.

Saturday’s workout was a benchmark day. We had the 2000 meter row which is the longest benchmark row that we have. It’s not an easy distance to do, but I’ve done it enough to have a good idea of goals I’d like to accomplish. My PR is significantly faster than I’ve been able to do any other time (I have no idea how I did the row so quickly that one time), so I don’t go into that row expecting to get a new PR. But I still try to do better than other rows so I can feel accomplished.

I started out on the bike where we had a short cardio block with a push pace and ending with an all out. Then we went to the floor to do some skater lunges, woodchoppers with the medicine ball, and lunges with tricep extensions with the medicine ball. I was trying to go easy on the floor work since I knew I’d have the 2000 meter row right after that, but I was going harder than I thought so toward the end of the block I took a break so I could catch my breath.

When I got to the rower, my goal was to see if I could do the row in under 9 minutes. It’s not easy to do that, and I was still feeling a bit off, but I was determined to do my best. What we are told to do with long rows like this is to start with 5 really hard pulls on the rower to get the water moving, then work on finding a steady pace we can maintain for the entire time. I knew if I wanted to be under 9 minutes that my 500 meter split time needed to stay under 2:15. I was able to do that in the beginning, but I was tiring out quickly. So instead of going at that pace as long as I could and then slowing down a lot, I found a pace I could stick with and just had to be ok with not making my goal. I ended up finishing about 15 seconds slower than I wanted to, but I was able to do the entire row without stopping.

After the row was done, we had blocks where we had short cardio bursts with lunges between each burst. I was on the bike and only made it through 2 rounds. I had to take time to recover after my row and that cut into my cardio time. And the last short block on the floor was lunges and superman work, which was easy enough to do even though I was so tired.

While this past week of workouts weren’t record breaking or amazing, I did try to stay in the mindset that I was doing something good. I think I found a small victory in all of my workouts even if that victory was a part of not reaching a goal I had earlier. I should hopefully be back to my normal workout for the next 2 weeks, so I should be finishing my 2018 workouts with some awesome workout days!

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Default ThumbnailA Good, Strong Workout Week (or I Really Love Feeling Like Myself) Default ThumbnailA Week Of Nauseous Workouts (or Just Doing My Best) Default ThumbnailAn Emotional Workout Week (or Just Making It Through) Default ThumbnailBack To My Normal Routine (or Working Through My Workouts) Default ThumbnailNot Exactly A Recovery Week (or Working With Different Challenges) Default ThumbnailAn Up And Down Week (or Working Through The Same Frustrations)

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