This past week of workouts was the end of Hell Week. I was sad that I didn’t work out on Halloween since it’s always fun to work out in costume, but I couldn’t make that work with my schedule. Hell Week was hard and the workouts after it were hard from not getting enough sleep, so it felt like a full week of Hell Week workouts.
Monday’s workout was my 4th Hell Week class. This one was called Us. But even before getting to my workout, things were crazy. We have been having fires here lately, but they usually aren’t too close to my house. But I woke up on Monday morning and saw that there was one much closer. And the evacuation area was very close to Orangetheory. Looking at a map, I realized it was still a few blocks away from where they were requiring people to evacuate and the fire wasn’t too close.
I called the studio to confirm they were still open, and when I got there I saw all the smoke in the air.
A lot of people weren’t in class because they were evacuated in the middle of the night. Our workout coach had been evacuated, but his family was safe and he was still going to coach class. The mood was weird in the room, but I’m glad that we all were there and worked out since there wasn’t anything we could do about the fires.
The workout was a 3 group format even though we only had 2 groups in class. The cardio and floor switched back and forth every 3 1/2 minutes and it was the same format every time we were on cardio or floor. Cardio was always a 3-minute push pace to a 30-second all out. And the floor had hip hinge swings, low rows on the straps, overhead tricep extensions, and single-arm snatches. We had to remember where we stopped on the floor each time we switched and we picked back up where we left off. Because of all the switching we did, I was grateful we didn’t have a full class. It helped to keep things calm and that was needed that morning.
And on the rower, it was simple. We had a 13 1/2 minute row. That’s it. I’ve had a 2 group Hell Week workout where it was a 23-minute row and I’ve had long rows since then. But this time the row was the very last thing I did in class. I would have loved to have rowed the entire time without breaks, but I did need to take some breaks from time to time to either drink some water or tighten the straps on the footplates. We were told to try to keep our split times under 2:30, and except when I was starting back up after a break, I usually was around 2:27. I didn’t get as far as I had hoped to because of the breaks I took, but I still rowed over 2500 meters and that’s a lot!
Wednesday’s workout was the last Hell Week class for me. This one was called Psycho. It wasn’t the hardest workout I’ve done, but it was still a good ending for Hell Week. But what did make it challenging was that we were switching back and forth between cardio and the rower a lot.
This one isn’t the easiest to explain, but basically we did an all out on cardio and then switched to do the all out on the rower. And we went back and forth during the block. When I was starting the block on the rower, it was the same thing with switching each all out. It wasn’t a lot of work, but it was a lot of movement (if that makes sense).
On the floor, we mainly had lower body work. We had burpees, hip hinge low rows, sumo squats with upright rows, regular squats, and full thrusters. I tried to go heavy with the weights when I could, but it wasn’t easy because the exercises weren’t easy.
But even without going super hard, I still completed the Hell Week challenge! I will be getting my Hell Week shirt soon (there was a mixup with the order so most of us get our shirts in a week or so), and all I wanted was to earn my shirt so I’m happy.
Friday’s workout wasn’t a Hell Week class, but it still was tough. I slept horribly the night before and that really made me sluggish in the workout. It is also the start of a rowing focused month, so I knew I was in for a lot on the rower.
For cardio, it was a pretty standard power workout with rounds of push paces, base paces, and all outs. It was nice to have something that wasn’t too crazy on cardio since that’s where I start for the workout.
The rowing had 2 blocks. The first block was rounds of 250-meter rows with 8 squats. And we just repeated that until the block was done. The next block started with a 500-meter row and then we had 16 squats. The row went down by 200 meters each time but the squats stayed the same. If you finished that, you held a squat, but I didn’t make it to the end.
I felt my tiredness kicking in the most on the floor. A lot of the movements were things I had to modify and that was also making me feel a bit low. We had burpees to a squat jack, plank work, plank jacks to push-ups, and low rows on the straps. I used the bench to modify most of the exercises and that helped a bit. But they weren’t easier just because I modified them.
I was feeling a bit better by Saturday. But I still was a little tired. It was a strength workout and I wanted to work with the resistance levels, so being tired wasn’t as big of an issue.
On cardio, we had rounds of push pace and base paces at inclines. I was going higher with the resistance levels on the bike than I normally use for push and all outs. I had a few moments where my legs felt like they weren’t moving much at all, but I know that also means I’m working hard and using lots of muscles.
On the rower, it was all about stroke drills. We started with a 15 stroke count and then we had 15 squats with the medicine ball after. We repeated that again and then the stroke count and squats went down by 1. I worked hard at being slow and powerful with each rower stroke since I know my power isn’t as high as most people. But I was feeling really good after completing the rowing work and I know I was doing more powerful strokes than I normally can do.
And on the floor, we had bench sit-ups to sumo squats (I had to modify this by doing each exercise on its own), lunges with front raises, lunges with lateral raises, plank bird dogs, squats, and double crunches with weights. I really liked this floor block because it did have exercises that challenged me, but there were lots of things I know I’m good at and can have great form.
I’m so glad I made it through Hell Week and succeeded at completing my 5 workouts. And I’m glad I made it through the workouts that I struggled with because I was tired. I’m hoping to get back on a better sleep pattern soon (this is a recurring issue for me), and hopefully that will make my morning workouts a bit better this week.
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