Having A Bit Of A Reset Week (or Not Feeling Like I Need To Push Myself)

I was feeling much more like my normal self this past week. This is always good, but it’s extra nice for my workouts. I will always have the potential to not feel great between the pain I sometimes have with my hip and the nausea I get with my injection, but when I know there’s a chance to have a good week it automatically puts me in a much better mood. I did have a little bit of hip pain this past week, but it wasn’t much worse than what I deal with daily. And I must have gotten my injection in the right spot because I didn’t have much nausea. I did inject myself in a spot that caused the worst bruise I’ve ever gotten from a shot, but that pain is a lot easier to deal with since I only have to be careful about how I bend down so I don’t make it hurt.

Typically, when I have a good week like I had this past week, I use it to push myself really hard. I feel like I need to make up for having to go easy the week or two prior. But this past week, even though the workouts always have a mix of endurance, strength, and power they felt more like they focused on endurance. A lot of the workouts focused on being steady with what you were doing in the block or repeating the same thing several times so you could work on improving what you were doing the time before.

For cardio, we had some workouts that were focused on longer hills that didn’t go as high as some of the inclines/resistance levels normally go. We also had some workouts that were long push paces followed by base paces and that pattern repeated itself for the entire cardio block. It allowed me to not feel like I needed to go too crazy on the bike and by not pushing myself I also didn’t need to take as many breaks to deal with my hip pain.

On the rower, we had a lot of repeating rows. Sometimes it was about repeating a specific distance and sometimes it was about repeating a specific time. But it was a lot of repetition and I used that to play around with different rowing styles to see how I could maximize my speed and wattage but not burn myself out too quickly. I know that whenever I do the Dri-Tri next, I will want to make sure that I get through the row quickly but I also know the risks of burning out and having to go slowly for the last part of the row. I don’t think I’ve found the perfect combination of rowing techniques for me yet, but I was happy with how much better my wattage was during this past week’s workouts compared to what I normally do.

On the floor, I didn’t feel like I had the same type of success as I did on the bike or rower. But I was able to play around with some heavier weights for some of the upper body work, which was fun. I learned pretty quickly that I’m not really ready to increase my weights just yet, but I’m so glad I tried. And I felt like they weren’t as much of a struggle as they have been in the past, so I know I’m getting stronger and closer to being able to go heavier with what I use on the floor. I also allowed myself to take a bit more time on the floor and not feel as rushed about getting in as many rounds done so I could make sure my form was ok and I took the time to stretch when necessary. Because of some of the hip pain I have, stretching can be hit or miss with me. Sometimes it doesn’t help me feel better so I’m careful about stretching during the workout. But this past week, it was the type of pain that got a bit less intense with some stretching so I did that when necessary on the floor.

Overall, this wasn’t my typical good week of workouts, but I think this was exactly the type of week I needed. I felt like I found some new baselines for myself that I could use moving forward. I do still like to push myself in my workouts so I’ll probably try to do that this week, but this past week was a good alternative option for me when I’m feeling good and probably a good idea to do from time to time to check in with myself and how my progress with endurance is going.

You Might Also Like

Having My Expected Tough Week (or Feeling A Bit More Prepared For This) Making It Through The Week (or Going From Feeling Horrible To Feeling Normal) Missing My Normal Workouts More Than Ever (or I Needed Someone To Push Me This Week) An Up And Down Workout Week (or Still Feeling Ok With How Things Went) Glad I Was Feeling Better This Week (or Surprising Myself) Not My Normal Workout Recap (or At Least I Was Feeling Ok During The Week)