I’m really feeling like I’m back in my routine and groove with my workouts. Most of my fears about being back at Orangetheory are gone. I do still struggle with feeling like I should be doing more or better, but I’m getting used to my current abilities and finding ways to challenge myself to get back to where I was a year ago. And like I’ve said so many times, having this routine has been so good for me both physically and mentally. Even with having a tough workout week this past week, I still feel so accomplished with what I did.
Monday’s workout had a bit of a surprise for me. One of my coaches from before the pandemic, Tyler, was back! I had no idea that he was back and coaching that morning, so it was a great surprise for me and I loved that it made the workout even more familiar to me. It seems like each week I have something else that makes the workouts feel more like they did before and having a familiar coach did that on Monday.
The workout was power based and we had 3 blocks at each section of the room. For cardio, we had a lot of all-outs with each block that were either 1-minute or 30-seconds. I didn’t do too much with the resistance levels because I wanted to work on getting my cadence up more, and I felt like I was really close to my old speed at some moments.
On the rower, the first two blocks had rows with medicine ball exercises. The first block started at a 100-meter row and increased 50 meters each round. And the second block started at a 250-meter row and decreased 50 meters each round. And between each row, we had squats with medicine ball front presses. And the last block matched the treadmills with a 30-second all-out, 30-second recovery, and 30-second all-out. And for that last 30-second all-out, I was finally able to get my wattage above 100. That’s been a challenge for me and I was so happy that I had a few moments when I was able to make that happen.
And on the floor, it was a lot of burpee work. The first block had burpees with hop overs, step-ups with weights (which I did as lunges with weights), and mountain climbers. The second block had rolling burpees (which I split into sit-ups and regular burpees), full thrusters with weights, and power sit-ups. And the last block, which was 90-seconds, was just all burpees. I did all the burpees using the bench, which helped a bit, but there were a lot and they were tough!
Wednesday’s workout was a benchmark workout: the 2,000-meter row. This is probably the hardest benchmark for me to do and I knew that I was going to struggle a lot. I didn’t look at my past times for the benchmark and I knew that there was no chance I would randomly PR. I just wanted to do what I could and take it from there.
Before the benchmark, I had cardio. But they kept the cardio a bit easier to make sure we weren’t too tired by the time we were on the rower. It was a single block where the treadmills had .25 mile runs (for me on the bike, it was 1 mile each time). And then we had a minute to recover after each time. I know I could have gone harder or faster, but I also didn’t want to burn out before the rower.
When I got to the rower, I had a few goals in mind. My biggest goal was to see if I could do the entire row without taking a break. My slightly easier goal was to only take breaks every 500-meters. And my easiest goal was to complete the row before the block ended (but I knew I could keep going if I wasn’t finished in time). I knew that doing the entire row without a break was going to be close to impossible, but I was proud of myself that I waited until I passed the 500-meter mark before taking my first break. But after that, I couldn’t maintain only taking breaks every 500-meters. I honestly took more breaks than I would have liked. But I was struggling so much and I needed to get myself together before rowing some more. In the end, I did finish before the block was done, so at least I met that goal. I was about 2 1/2 minutes off of my PR, which I don’t think is that bad. I was away from the rower for over a year and only back for a few weeks. I don’t know if I could have expected much more than what I did.
And on the floor, things weren’t too crazy (since some people had the floor block before rowing). We had lunges with weights, alligators on the straps, plank taps, sit-ups, and side lunges with upright rows. I was really tired after the benchmark, so I was taking a lot of breaks on the floor too. But I tried to take breaks only after I finished all the reps for one exercise. And I was able to do that so I consider that a win too.
Friday’s workout was a struggle. I was feeling really lightheaded and had a stomach ache. I wasn’t sick, but I wondered if maybe I had eaten something the night before that didn’t agree with me. But between that and feeling like I still needed to recover from the 2,000-meter row, I took the workout a bit easier than normal. Each section of the room had 4 blocks. 2 blocks were 4 1/2 minutes, 1 block was 1-minute, and 1 block was 30-seconds.
For cardio, the longer blocks had push paces with base paces after. And we had an all-out to end the block. The first 4 1/2 minute block had a 1-minute all out and the second had a 30-second all-out. I didn’t do too much with the resistance levels, but I did increase for the push paces in the first block. The 1-minute block was a 1-minute all out and the 30-second block was a 30-second all-out.
On the rower, the longer blocks were a mix of rowing and squats. The first longer block had timed rows and we did either a 1-minute or 30-second row. And the second longer block had distance rows with either 300-meter or 150-meters. Between each time or distance row, we had squat jacks, which I modified to be regular squats. And just like with cardio, the 1-minute block was a 1-minute all-out row and the 30-second block was a 30-second all-out row. I was having a lot of trouble catching my breath on the rower. I was coughing a lot (something I’ve dealt with for several years now) and I took breaks when needed when I was feeling a bit more light-headed. I also made sure to drink more water than I normally do in a workout in case I was dehydrated.
And on the floor, the first long block had lateral lunges with either a single-arm thruster or a hop plus plank punches. And the second long block had goblet squats, regular squats, and plank rotations. The goblet squats were probably my favorite because I know I can use a heavy weight for those. It wasn’t my best weight for those squats, but I did get to pull the weight from the heavy weight rack. And the 1-minute block had frogger squats and the 30-second block had jump squats. I modified both of those to be calf raises instead of the jumps.
Saturday’s workout was a mix of power and strength. Whatever issues I had on Friday were gone so I was able to push myself a lot. And I had multiple opportunities to do that for cardio.
The cardio block was pretty much on our own. We were supposed to start at an incline/resistance level and then bring it down each round. And each round was a mix of all-outs and recoveries. We started with a 30-second all-out and 30-second recovery. Then we had an all-out for as long as we could hold it before another 30-second recovery. Then one more all-out for as long as we could go before having a 1-minute recovery and then bringing down the incline/resistance. I did start the resistance level higher than I normally do for my all-outs when I use the resistance for them. And when I did the all-outs for as long as I could go, I typically went about 45-seconds before needing to recover. I think that’s pretty good and it was nice testing out a lot of different resistance levels on the bike.
For the rower, it was all about sprints and recovery. We had rounds of 10 all-out pulls on the rower before having 5 pulls of a recovery. After doing that a few times, we had either overhead presses or front presses with the medicine ball. I really tried to go hard with my all-outs rows since I knew they were going to be over really quickly. I didn’t go as hard as I would have liked to, but I was getting better at making sure I focus on pushing back with my legs and not using my back as much.
And on the floor, we had 2 blocks that each had 2 exercises. The first block had rows with weights and then chest presses on the straps. And the second block had chest presses with weight and rows on the straps. And for both blocks, the exercise with the weights was done until we couldn’t do them anymore. We were supposed to push ourselves and then take a little break before pushing some more. I was trying to go a bit heavy with the weights, so I usually had to stop after 5 or 6 reps. But I felt really good about what I did because I pushed myself with the weights.
Even though I feel like I’m in a good routine again with my workouts, just like it always happens, my routine is going to have to change. The workout times are shifting a bit at the studio, and right now I’m not sure which morning class I’ll be taking. As you all are reading this, I’m trying to see if the morning class that is closest to what I was doing will work for me to get home and shower before work. It’s going to be really close. If that doesn’t work, I may have to start going to workouts at 6am! I’m hoping I don’t have to do that because I don’t want to get up that early. But I will do it if that’s what it takes. I guess I’ll report back next week on how this week goes!
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