I knew this past week of workouts would likely start off with some bad days, but I was hopeful that they wouldn’t last long and things would get better for me. And I’m pretty lucky because I was feeling better at the perfect time for a really great workout moment.
Monday’s workout felt like all endurance work. I’m not sure if the templates are still supposed to always be a mix of endurance, strength, and power or if they are going back to having a singular focus for some workouts. But this one for sure felt like a big endurance day. I was still dealing with a little bit of pain and nausea, but it was tapering off so it was much better than the week before.
For each section of the room, we had 3 blocks. And for cardio and the floor, we repeated the same block each time.
For cardio, we had a 3-minute push pace followed by a 1-minute all-out each time. I did use my normal resistance levels for the push pace and all-out, but since there wasn’t a base pace in each block it felt like I was using a higher resistance level. I had to occasionally take a break during each block because the pain was getting bad, but I tried to not rest beside those moments to push myself as much as I could.
On the rower, the first and last blocks were the same. They were both 4-minute rows and the idea was to increase the wattage on the rower every minute. So ideally, we had a base to push row, a push row, a push to all-out row, and an all-out row. I did try to increase the wattage each minute, but it wasn’t going up as much as I would have liked each minute. But I did try and I did see increases each time. In the second block, we had a mix of lunges and rowing each minute. For the first minute, we had 10 lunges and then rowed for the rest of the minute. In the second minute, we had 12 lunges and then rowed. In the third minute, we had 14 lunges and then rowed. And the last minute was just rowing. And the goal was to try to get to half the distance from the first block. I didn’t quite get to half of my first distance, but I did beat the distance from the first block in the last block.
And for the floor, everything for each block was a 1-minute interval. We had a minute of bicep curls, a minute of arnold presses, a minute of front squats, and a minute of front squats to arnold presses. It was so much shoulder work and I had to go lighter with the weights than I normally would because of that. And for the second and third blocks, I had to rest during the squats because I was starting to have some nausea. And after the last block, my arms were so tired from the shoulder work, but it was a good feeling.
Wednesday’s workout was a mix of endurance, strength, and power. We had power for cardio, strength for the rower, and endurance on the floor. And for each section of the room, we had 2 blocks of work.
For cardio, the 2 blocks of work were the same. We started with 2 rounds of 45-second push paces and 1-minute base paces followed by 2 rounds of 45-second all-outs with a 1-minute recovery between them. I did much better than Monday although I did have a few random cramps during the entire workout that I had to rest to breathe through. But it was so much better than last week and I know I’m pretty much almost done with my bad days.
For the rower, both blocks were focused on doing 250-meter rows. In the first block, between each row we had deadlifts to shoulder presses with a medicine ball. And in the second block, between each row we were supposed to do isolated squats with bicep curls but I didn’t do the squats and just did bicep curls. But I did use a heavier medicine ball than normal. I wasn’t planning on going heavier, but the one I normally use wasn’t available and I didn’t want to go lighter.
And on the floor, the first block was timed with cardio so we had 45-second and 1-minute intervals. For the 45-second intervals, we had suitcase squats and we focused on one side each time. And for the 1-minute intervals, we had to do 12 hammer curls to shoulder presses and then could rest for whatever time was leftover. And in the second block, we worked at our own pace. We had all Bosu work for that block. We had crunches, hip bridges, back extensions, and plank toe taps. I didn’t use the Bosu for the plank toe taps, but I did use it for everything else so I got a good core workout in that block!
Thursday’s workout was a benchmark workout. For this class, we had the 1-mile challenge. The last time I did the mile benchmark was about a year ago, and I PRed when I did that. So I wasn’t necessarily expecting to PR again since that time seemed so fast and I knew I was coming off of a bad week.
Our cardio block was all about the benchmark challenge. On the bike, you do 4 miles (or 4 trips, which may not be the same as miles), but that’s what I’m used to doing. And I knew approximately how fast I had to get to each distance segment to be on track to be close to my last PR. And when I got to 1 mile/trip, I was actually only a little behind what would get me to my PR. I wasn’t expecting to go that fast, but I think seeing that motivated me to push myself harder. So I really went for it and knew that I would be completely gassed out by the end of the challenge. I tried to stay steady with how quickly I pedaled, but I did do a few moments of just going as fast as my legs could go to get a little extra boost. There’s no way I could pedal as fast as I did in a normal workout because that’s a lot longer, but somehow I continued to pick up speed and not only did I get to my old PR but I beat it by 16 seconds!
I was really exhausted at the end of those 8 minutes and I needed to rest and catch my breath before I could walk over to the tracking system so I could enter my new time. And for the rest of the block, we had short intervals to do but I just kept it between a recovery and base pace and took breaks as I needed them.
On the rower, we started with a 600-meter row. Since I was so tired from the bike, I was rowing slowly and needed breaks during it. But I tried my best. And after the row, we had crisscross hops. Each round on the rower we went down by 100-meters, but I only made it to the 300-meter row before the block was done.
On the floor, we had 1 block with 2 mini-blocks. The first mini-block had single-arm low rows with weights and chest presses on the straps. And in the second mini-block, we had single-leg lateral step-ups and single-leg deadlifts. I lowered the bench to do the step-ups since I have been trying to do that when I can instead of doing lunges. I did have to go slowly because my balance wasn’t great, but there was no need to rush through them and I took advantage of having the time to push myself and do them.
Because of how hard I pushed myself on Thursday, I knew I would be taking it easier on Friday. I did still want to push myself when I could, but I also knew that I really needed to pay attention to how I was feeling. We had 2 blocks in each section of the room and again it was a mix of endurance, strength, and power.
For cardio, both blocks had intervals with inclines and intervals without inclines. The first block had 2-minute push paces and 1-minute base paces. And the second block had 1-minute all-outs and 1-minute recoveries. For both the push paces and all-outs, the first time we had no incline and went up by 1% each round. I started at my normal resistance level for each and then went up from there instead of trying to just pedal faster.
On the rower, we were timed with cardio. In the first block, we had 2-minute rows and then we had the minute to do forward and back steps and then rest. And in the second block, we had 1-minute all-out rows and then in and out hops during the minute the cardio was in a recovery. I did ok with the rowing. I did take little breaks during the 2-minute rows, but it was more because of my hip feeling off than being tired. And even though I usually do modifications for any hopping activity, I did try the hops first before I switched to something else.
And on the floor, the idea for each block was to try to get heavier with the weights each round. But I didn’t do a great job at that because I didn’t want to start off too light and I knew I couldn’t get much heavier than the heavy ones I was using. In the first block, we had lateral lunges (which I did without weights) and single-arm low rows. And in the second block, we had bridge hold single-arm chest presses and hip bridges. The hip bridges were supposed to be single-leg, but I did regular ones.
Even though not every workout had a huge win, having that PR on Thursday really made my week last week! And it put me in a great mood for this week’s workouts and seeing what I can do during my birthday week workouts!
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