Celebrating My Workouts (or Benchmarks and Milestones)

I knew this past week of workouts would be better than the week before. I was feeling much better, which always helps me have a good workout week. But this week was unexpectedly good in ways I didn’t plan for, which made things even better!

Monday’s workout had an interesting format. For cardio, we had our blocks back to back. But for the rower and the floor, we switched between blocks. So when we started on the rower, we went rower, floor, rower. And on the floor, we went floor, rower, floor.

I started on cardio, and we had 3 blocks that focused on 30-second intervals. We had 3 30-second intervals before a recovery in each block. Sometimes those were base, push, and then all-out. And sometimes it was a push, push to all-out, and all-out. I used my normal resistance levels for these and when we were supposed to be between a base and push or push and all-out, I used the level between those.

On the rower, we had the same thing each time we were rowing. It was a 3 1/2-minute row with a 30-second all-out at the end. Rowing for 4 minutes isn’t the worst thing, but it’s also tough to do sometimes. I tried to limit my breaks on the rower, but I did have to take a few. And on the floor, we also did the same thing each time we were at that station. We had bicep curls, lunges, tricep extensions, and push-ups.

On Monday evening, I went to look at the Orangetheory app because I knew on Tuesday we had a benchmark class. I wanted to see my past times so I would be prepared for the next class. I took a look at that but noticed something else pretty amazing. The app also tracks how many in-studio classes you have taken (it doesn’t could any of the at-home classes done when things were shut down). And I missed noticing this before, but Monday’s class was a milestone one for me!

I knew that this milestone was coming up, but I wasn’t paying that much attention to when it would happen. I couldn’t believe it when I saw it, but I’m proud of myself. When I started going to Orangetheory, I wasn’t sure how long I’d be able to keep things up even though I knew I wanted to. But I was quickly hooked and it’s become a part of my routine now and I’ve missed it when I haven’t been able to go to class. When you could my home workouts, I’m over 1700 workouts, but I also know I didn’t work out as hard when I was at home compared to when I was in the studio.

Tuesday’s class was the 200-meter row benchmark. This is a fun benchmark to do because it’s always very fast. Since I knew my past times for the row, I had a goal in mind for what I wanted to do. I wasn’t going for a PR since I know I can’t PR every time, but I wanted to be close to it so that was the goal I had in mind.

I had my cardio work first, and it wasn’t too intense since we were supposed to save our strength for the benchmark. The first 2 blocks were 4-minute distance challenges. I set my resistance level to be just below my push level so it wasn’t too hard but not too easy either. I think that was a good choice because it did feel challenging, but not impossible. In the last block, we had intervals of a push pace to a base pace with an all-out at the end. I did use my normal resistance levels for those, but I didn’t go too crazy since I was about to row.

On the rower, the first block was more of a warmup and prep for the benchmark. We did have 200-meter rows, but we weren’t supposed to go hard and be closer to a push row. Between each row, we had lunges. I felt pretty ready for the benchmark in the second block. And that’s all we had in the second block to do. I didn’t rush into starting since I had 4 minutes and I knew the row would be less than a minute. And I was very happy with how it went. I was rowing a lot harder than I thought I could do and I was keeping my form to a sprint row form. I didn’t get a PR, which is what I expected, but I was closer to it than I thought I could. Only being .15 seconds off is probably more about a tiny bit of form than anything else so maybe I’ll be able to beat it soon.

The last row block gave us another chance to do the benchmark, but I was exhausted so I just did push rows again instead of going crazy. I also still needed a bit more recovery time from the benchmark, so I was happy I had the time to do that.

And the floor was also a bit easier than normal since the entire workout was designed around the benchmark. Each of the 3 blocks had 2 exercises that were supposed to help people get ready for the benchmark if they did the floor first. We had high lows to low rows on the straps and hip hinge swings, plank pikes and superhero planks, and single-leg deadlifts with the straps and plank pull-throughs. I know I was still a bit sore from the row so I didn’t do anything extraordinary, but I was trying to work harder than I would have if I still had to do the row after.

Wednesday’s workout was a bit of a recovery workout. I might have overdone things on Tuesday or I might have just been having a bad hip day. I wasn’t sure what was causing the pain, but I was hurting so I had to just be cautious. But I was still pushing myself quite a bit.

For cardio, our 3 blocks focused a lot on incline work. We had base, push, and all-out paces with inclines and a lot of base paces without inclines between them. For the resistance levels, I did try to increase them compared to what I would normally use, but I struggled to do exactly what we were supposed to do. So for most of the workout, I did just one level higher than normal when we were supposed to have inclines. It was still harder than normal, but not quite as hard as it could have been if I did what I might have done if I wasn’t hurting.

On the rower, we had one long block. We started with a 600-meter row followed by front presses with a medicine ball. Then we had a 400-meter and 200-meter row also with the front presses. Then we worked our way back up starting with a 200-meter row but we had overhead presses with the medicine ball between each row. I did a lot better with my rowing than I thought I would. Even though I did need some breaks in the long rows, I didn’t need as many as I thought I might have to take.

And on the floor, the focus was on load and explode movements. So we had back-to-back exercises that worked similar muscle groups. We first had goblet squats to regular squats. Then we had lateral raises to uppercuts. And finally, we had bicycle presses to sit-ups. I did have to do a few modifications for some exercises, but they were expected modifications for me and not necessarily because of how my hip was doing.

When I showed up to Thursday’s workout, my coach had set up the brag board to celebrate my milestone. It was set up to say I did 1500 classes, but that class was going to be my 1503rd. So I joked to him that I was going to fix it later, which is exactly what I did before I posted it online.

I really appreciated that because it’s always awesome to be celebrated. But it’s more awesome to be celebrated for something that wasn’t easy to start and could have been very simple to give up on. But I have stuck with it. Even though now it’s something I’m used to, I still make a choice to go early in the morning when I would rather be sleeping in a bit more.

I only celebrated the milestone for a quick moment before the workout started and it was time to get into things. For cardio, we had 3 blocks. The first block was focused on 30-second intervals with a base pace, push pace, and all-out. We did that twice within the block. In the second block, we did bases at inclines, and I was able to use the resistance levels I should have used. And the last block had 90-second base paces with 30-second push paces with the focus being more on the base pace and making sure we could get back to a base without needing to recover.

On the rower, we had 3 blocks that all had 150-meter rows. The first block was just rounds of an all-out 150-meter row. We could take whatever recovery time we needed before doing another all-out row. In the second block, we had 10 step-out squats between each row. And the row was supposed to be a push row instead of an all-out row. And in the last block, the rowing was supposed to be more of the recovery than the focus. We had 10 squats to start and then the 150-meter row was a base row.

And on the floor, we had one long block. In that block, we had skater lunges, cleans with weights, kneeling shoulder presses, lunges, plank taps, and double crunches. I didn’t go extra heavy with the weights I used, but I did try using the heavier weights before going to the normal ones I use. I’m glad it was just one block of work because it allowed me to take my time to work on each exercise and not feel rushed.

When I started this past week of workouts, I knew it would be a benchmark week, but I had no clue it would be a milestone week. I’m so glad I happened to look at the app on Monday so I could see that I hit such a cool milestone the day it happened. Of course, I would have celebrated it even if I didn’t notice until I was past it, but I’m happy I got to celebrate as I did my 1500th class! And based on how many workouts I do on average, I’m about 2 1/2 years away from celebrating my 2000th class!

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