I’ve been using the bike for my workouts for a while now and I’ve finally started to be able to find my groove as far as challenging myself goes. I’ve had a few different ideas with challenges on the bike and this past week I was able to try them out in my workouts.
I was feeling excited for Monday’s workout with how things went the previous week. I did still have to fight the little voice in my head telling me to try the treadmill because I knew that I shouldn’t. But it was extra tempting because not only was it a power day (which means short push or all out paces), but it was a 3 group workout so the time on the treadmill was shorter than a 2 group class.
I ended up started the workout on the rower and the rower and treadmill workout were actually the same. There were 5 little blocks within the block that were push to all out paces with walking recovery in-between. All of the all out paces were 30 seconds and the push paces started at 30 seconds and went up 15 seconds each time. And for the rower, we did push to all out rows with recovery rows in-between. That meant we would be rowing for 14 minutes. I would have loved to have been able to do that without stopping, but that just wasn’t going to happen. I did limit my breaks to when we had recovery time, but I did have to take a break during each recovery. I had a goal in my head for how many meters I would have liked to have rowed (which was much lower than what I know I could do normally), but I didn’t make it to that goal.
For the treadmill time, I was on the bike and all I wanted to do was see if I could go a majority of the time without needing a break. I stuck with my normal resistances for the push and all out time and during the recovery time I was at my base resistance. Doing that made me realize that I probably could work on increasing my resistance on the bike. I haven’t been doing that since these levels were what I had been using before I was sick, but before I was sick I wasn’t working on the bike as often as I have lately. So this is proof that I’m getting stronger even if my endurance is still down a bit. During the 14 minutes on the bike, I only took 2 breaks and that was because I needed a drink of water. I’m not coordinated enough to drink water and pedal at the same time, but maybe I’ll get there one day!
And the floor was one long block with pull ups on the straps, squat swings using weights, lunges, and squats using weights. I was using my normal weights for the weighted work but it was a little bit of a struggle. I know that I push myself harder on the bike to prove that I’m getting better and that is causing my floor work to not be as strong. I could try doing the floor work first, but to be honest I love my routine and I really don’t know if I want to change it. But even with the floor work not being excellent, it was still good and I was using what I used before I was sick. Using my normal floor work weights is awesome and I don’t have to prove to myself right now that I could do better than that. I do need to keep working on increasing my weights to get stronger, but it doesn’t have to be my focus while I’m also focusing on getting my endurance back.
Wednesday was Global Running Day and Orangetheory had a workout designed for that. It was a 23 minute run for distance and as much as I would have liked to have seen if I could get anywhere close to what I was able to do in the past, I knew this was not meant to be my first workout back on the treadmill. So I decided to use this workout to see what I could do as far as endurance goes on the bike. We also had distance goals to hit that corresponded to various ribbon colors, but based on what the distance was I pretty much knew even before starting what ribbon I’d be at so I wasn’t too worried about that. I just wanted to see how long I could be on the bike before taking a break.
Since it was 23 minutes straight, my original idea was I wanted to wait until at least 10 minutes went by before taking a break. I felt pretty certain that I could do this as far as needing a breathing or coughing break, but since I need to take a break to drink water too I wasn’t totally sure I wouldn’t need water in the first 10 minutes. But since I set that goal in my head, I made it just past 10 minutes before taking my first water break. I went another 8 minutes before my next one. And the entire 23 minutes I never needing a breathing or coughing break. I was really happy with how well I did and when I finished I totally forgot that I set the resistance to be at my push pace resistance at the beginning and never changed it! So I did the entire thing as a push pace!
The floor was 3 blocks and I knew that they would be a bit tough after the cardio. The first block was using the mini-bands for plank work as well as hammer curls plus bench sit-ups to squats. The second block was a 4 minute distance row. I did get over 800 meters which was what we were supposed to at least get to, but I know that in better circumstances I could have done much better. And the last block was upright rows using weights, ab dolly knee tucks, lateral arm raises using weights, and rollouts using the ab dolly. The last block got really tough and I was coughing a lot, but I just took the time I needed to recover before moving on with the workout.
After a big endurance workout on Wednesday, I was glad that Friday was a power day. I’ve got it in my head that I’m going to stick with the bike for at least a little bit longer so even though this could have been a good day on the treadmill I was on the bike. Every block was 4.5 minutes and there were 4 blocks on each side.
The first 3 blocks on cardio were a similar format with a push pace, a base pace, and then a push to all out pace. The difference was that the first push got shorter and the second push and all out pace got longer each block. It was pretty easy for me to not worry about taking a break during each block since they were short and I tried to keep my water breaks between blocks short so I wasn’t taking too much time away from pedaling. The last block was 4 all out paces with walking recovery between and that was the block that I struggled with. I was having a pretty horrible coughing fit during that entire block and it wasn’t getting better with drinking water. I did have to take breaks during each recovery to try to get whatever was caught in my throat out, but whatever it was wasn’t leaving and I finished cardio still coughing up a storm.
The floor was also 4 blocks, but the last block was a rowing one. The first block was single arm snatches with weights and speed skater lunges. The second block was pull-ups on the straps and sit-ups with rotations. And the third block was high rows on the straps and bench hop overs. My coughing was continuing during the floor and I was having to take breaks to let it pass. I started to cough so much I was getting a bit nauseous, but it was mild compared to what I normally have to deal with. The last block was rowing with the same pattern as the treadmills with the 4 all out rows with recovery rows in-between. My rowing was ok, but it wasn’t that strong and my form was getting a bit sloppy. I was trying to slow down to make sure my form was better and not worrying about the distance, but I just struggled. It wasn’t the best way to end a workout, but I was glad I got through it considering how much difficulty I had with all the coughing and the issues with breathing.
Saturday’s workout was endurance, strength, and power based and I had my friend Elizabeth in class with me. We hadn’t been in a class together for a while so it was nice to have her there. And she decided to try using the bike with me so that was an added bonus for me since it’s sometimes a bit lonely being alone on the bike. There were 3 blocks on the treadmill and the first and third blocks were both challenges for distance. Both blocks had some push and all out paces plus a 3 minute distance challenge. For the distance challenge, I used my push pace resistance and was just able to beat my distance the second time I did it. I biked further during this class than I had in any other class and that was awesome. I’ve gotten used to the patterns I have on the bike so I can see when I’m making improvements.
On the floor, we had 3 blocks as well. The first two blocks had a focus with using the BOSU ball. We had running men, kneeling shoulder presses, crunches, plank jacks, sit-ups, and hip bridges using it. I wasn’t able to use the BOSU for the plank jacks, but I did for everything else. I usually don’t try doing hip work on it because I like having more stability for hip work, but I tried it and while it did take me longer to do the set I was able to do it. The last block was a 750 meter row which I did just under my time goal and then chest presses and rollouts using the straps.
Overall, this past week of workouts had a lot of successes for me. There were moments where I had moments of wanting to skip the bike and test myself on the treadmill, but I’m glad I didn’t because I still struggle with getting over this cold. And being forced to use the bike for as long as I have is really giving me an idea of goals to have when I use the bike in the future. I am looking at reorganizing how I track workout records on my own and I think I really do need to add a bike category so I can track my progress.
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