As I wrote last week, the 12 Days Of Fitness were almost like having another Hell Week. Except there were more days for this than there were for Hell Week. And these workouts were just as hard, if not harder, than those. And of course, I ended up making things a bit harder on myself than they probably needed to be. But that’s just how I do things.
Monday’s workout was called Nine Reps Increasing and that was a very accurate description for what it was. Every part of the workout had increasing reps for us to do.
For cardio, we had a run/exercise workout. We had 4 blocks but they were very similar. Our first block was rounds of .25 miles (1 mile for the bike) and then we had ground to presses with the medicine ball each round. We started with 1 ground to press and increased by 1 every time. The distance for cardio decreased each block a bit and we continued working on our ground to presses and increasing them by 1 every time. We didn’t reset those each block, so by the time we finished the last block I was doing 8 of them after my bike work.
On the floor, we had 3 blocks. The first block had shoulder presses, hip hinge chest flys, and bicep curls on the straps. We started with 9 reps for each exercise and each round we added 1 more rep. The next block had side plank hip dips and sit-ups and the reps were based on where we were on the first block. For me, I did 9 and 10 reps in the first block so I started with 11 reps in the second block. The last block had chest presses, pullovers, and knee tucks and again we continued increasing the reps based on what we were able to do in the other blocks.
Wednesday’s workout was Eleven Pikers Piking and it was a power switch day so we had a lot of movement between the different areas of the room. We had 2 blocks that were 4 minutes each and 2 blocks that were 45-second tornados. It was a lot of switching for us to be at each section of the room 4 times.
For cardio, the 4-minute blocks had 30-second intervals with a push pace, a base pace, an all out, a recovery, and then repeating it. I kept my resistance level at my base level and just focused on pedaling quickly. For the 45-second tornado blocks, it was a 45 second all out and again I focused on pedaling quickly.
On the rower, the 4-minute blocks had 300, 200, and 100-meter rows with frogger squats in between each row. One block started at 300-meters and decreased and the other block started at 100-meters and increased. And just like with cardio, the 45-second tornado blocks were a 45-second all out row.
On the floor, both of the 4-minute blocks were the same. We had sumo squats with upright rows, hamstring curls (I did hip bridges with a weight on my hips), rollouts with the ab dolly, and lateral lunges. And the 45-second tornado blocks had 45 seconds of doing pikes on the ab dolly. I can’t do pikes due to my hip issues, so I did knee tucks. I was also struggling a bit with nausea in this workout, but it didn’t prevent me from doing anything. I just had to take a few more breaks than I normally would need to.
My goal was to do 7 of the 12 Days of Fitness, and the only way for me to do that would be to work out on Thursday. I wanted to see if I could get the socks they were giving away to the first 100 people who completed it, but I also knew that there was a good chance that at least 100 people would get it done before the last day (I was right about that, but I still got my 7 days in).
Thursday’s workout was called 12 Runners Running and I had a 2 group class instead of a 3 group one. It was also a strength-based day and I was dealing with the start of nausea. So I struggled a bit to complete it.
The cardio work started with a 4-minute distance challenge. Then we had a 5-minute hill challenge with the incline (or resistance level) increasing every minute. Even with the issues I was having with nausea, I was able to work on increasing my resistance level each minute. I was just pedaling really slowly. After completing those, we repeated it except we had the hill challenge first and finished with the distance challenge.
On the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first block started with a 2-minute row for distance. Then we moved to the floor where we had deadlifts, hip hinge low rows, squats to bicep curls, half thrusters, and running man. I modified a few things with each exercise and took a lot of breaks, but I was able to go heavy with the weights. The second block started with a 90-second row and then we moved to the floor. We had lateral step-ups (which I modified to be lunges), sit-ups, and plank work. I modified the plank work to be on the bench instead of the floor, but that’s something I do almost no matter what since I’ve noticed it helps with my hips too.
Friday’s workout wasn’t a part of the 12 Days of Fitness, but it might as well have been. It was Friday the 13th which is always a tough workout. I also was doing my 3rd day in a row and my pain and nausea were really hitting me. I would have struggled no matter what the workout was. Everything in the workout was themed to be with 13.
For cardio, we had 13 rounds of 30-second push paces to 30-second base paces. And then we ended with an all out. I didn’t change my resistance levels at all and I tried to go a bit faster when we were doing a push pace. But my nausea really prevented me from doing that so I just had to pedal when I could and rest when I needed to.
On the rower, all the rows were 130 meters. Between the rowing, we had squats starting with 13 squats and going down each time. Just like with cardio, I rested a lot during my rowing. And on the floor, we added on exercises each round. The exercises we had were squats, low rows on the straps, triceps on the straps, push-ups, plank jacks, and burpees. I modified any plank type work to be on the bench, but besides that, I was able to do the exercises. I still took a lot of moments to rest and let nausea pass over me, but I’m glad it wasn’t too hard for me to do the floor work.
This week I will be back to normal workouts again, but I also have the pain and nausea to deal with so it won’t be easy. But I’m coming up on the end of the year and I love seeing how close I am to my goals for the year. And I’m starting to think about what fitness goals I want to have for next year and these workouts are really giving me a lot to think about.
You Might Also Like
Starting Off Hell Week (or 5 Workouts And They Were All Hard)
Kicking Off The 12 Days of Fitness (or It’s Like Hell Week Again)
Finishing The 12 Days Of Fitness (or Some PRs and Some Setbacks)
This Felt Like Hell Week (or An Unexpected But Fun Workout Week)
Finishing Hell Week (or I Need To Get Back To Running)
Finishing Hell Week (or Fires and Being Tired)
