I knew this past week of workouts were going to be tough for me because my nausea was going to start at some point. I try not to stress out about this happening because I know I can get through it. But it doesn’t necessarily make it easier when I’m dealing with it. All I can do is work hard where I can and modify what I can’t do so they are things I can do.
Monday’s workout was themed for Veterans Day, so we covered all the sections of the room to celebrate the strength of different military branches. So even though my class was a 2 group class, it really felt like a 3 group one. It also felt extra tough, but I think it was designed to be that way.
For cardio, we had a 12-minute distance challenge. But instead of going at our own pace for the challenge, it was coached and we had different push paces or incline work. I kept the resistance at my base level for the push and all outs, but I did work with it for the incline work. And the end of the 12-minute challenge was 90 seconds on our own so I did try to go extra fast for that section. Then we moved to the rower to finish our cardio work.
The rower was essentially a 9.5-minute row for distance. We did have different times that we did the rowing together as a group and then we had a break to do squats. But whenever the break is doing more exercise, it doesn’t feel like much of a break. I tried to not rest during the rowing, but I was getting tired toward the end and was starting to feel my form getting sloppy. So when I noticed that, I took a quick break to catch my breath and refocus so I could get back to my rowing with the correct form.
And on the floor, we had the same exercises for each block. We had low rows on the straps, squats, sit-ups, plank jacks, and leg raises. Each block had a different number of reps that we were supposed to do, but it was always the same exercises. And at the end of each block, we had a 1-minute plank hold. I did change up the order I did the exercises (sometimes doing them in the regular order and sometimes doing them in reverse order) so I was able to do all of them at least a few times. But it was still hard with the high rep counts and having the same muscles getting sore each block.
Wednesday’s workout was a power day, and I was glad because that’s when my nausea started. Power days have the most recovery time for me and I really needed it. Fortunately, my nausea wasn’t too bad that day, but it was still causing issues for me from time to time.
The cardio was really interesting. We started with a 1-minute push pace to a 1 minute all out and then a recovery. Then we kept the push pace at a minute and did rounds with a 45 second and 30 second all out (with recovery after each all out). Then we repeated the round with a 1-minute push pace and 30 second all out before working the push pace down 15 seconds each round. It was fun working with the push to all outs so many times in a row. I kept my resistance level the same each time and focused on pedaling. And I did try to keep my breaks to when we were in a recovery minute since the active time was so quick.
The rower worked along with the treadmill but we didn’t do the same thing. We started with a 300-meter row and then 15 squats after that. If we finished those and the treadmill was still not to their recovery we had to hold a squat. Each round we went down 50 meters on the rower but the plan with the squats stayed the same. I got to the squats each time, but I never finished them before the treadmills were in their recovery. So I never had to hold a static squat. But it was a lot of fast work and fast rowing and I enjoyed it.
And the floor was 1 long block with mini-blocks in it. We repeated each mini-block twice before moving on to the next one. The first mini-block had push-ups and hip hinge low rows with weights. The second mini-block had push-ups with plank work and skater lunges. And the last mini-block had child’s pose push-ups and sumo squats to high rows with weights. I did all my push-up work using the bench and I had to break up the sumo squats and high rows into 2 different moves. But for some reason, it didn’t feel like that much modification even though I had to modify over 50% of the exercises.
Friday’s workout was a signature workout. This one was Catch Me If You Can. The goal is to hit certain distances at specific times to keep going. If you are on the treadmill and you don’t make it to that distance (aka get caught), then you power walk at a high incline for the rest of the time. You want to keep running because you want to get as far as you can over the entire block.
The odd thing about doing this on the bike is that if you don’t get caught you are pedaling for distance. If you do get caught, you are doing the same thing. I was very nauseous that day and I would have worked harder to hit the distance goals if I was feeling better. But it was nice to know that I could pretty much do the same thing either way on the bike. I made it to about the halfway mark with the distances before I wasn’t hitting the goal anymore. I wasn’t trying to take too many breaks while I was still hitting the distances because each break got me closer to being caught. But once I wasn’t worried about it anymore, I allowed myself to relax a bit and go easy on myself when I needed to. I think pushing myself might have been a bit too much because the rest of my workout was harder than I thought it would be.
On the rower, we started with a 600-meter row and then 20 squats. Then it was 2 rounds of a 300-meter row and 10 squats. There were supposed to be 4 rounds of a 150-meter row with 5 squats, but I only made it through 2 rounds before the block was done. Doing the 600 and 300-meter rows were so tough on me. I really couldn’t do more than a minute of rowing before I had a really bad wave of nausea or a horrible cramp. I had to take so many breaks to let them pass before I could start rowing again. But I knew that I still had the floor work to do and I didn’t want to push myself to a point where the floor work felt impossible.
I had to do a lot of modifications on the floor. It was supposed to be a day with lots of Bosu work and I didn’t use it at all. The only things I did without modifications were skier swings with weights and y raises on the straps. We were supposed to do plank jacks and crunches on the Bosu and I did them both on the bench. And we were supposed to do back extensions, but I can’t do face down work when I’m nauseous. So I asked my coach what a good modification would be for those and he told me to do lunges instead. I was glad when this class was done because I really needed to rest and recover after it.
Saturday’s workout was a mix of endurance, strength, and power. I was having another bad nausea day, but I was trying to be hopeful that maybe this would be the end of the really bad nausea days and the rest of them would be a bit easier (I guess we’ll see if that’s true this week).
For cardio, we worked with both push paces and base paces at inclines. The goal was to feel the same way with pushes and inclines because they are supposed to be equally hard on us. The first block had a 2-minute push pace as well as a 2-minute base pace at incline. The second block had the same idea but they were 1-minute intervals instead of 2. I kept the resistance level at my base level for any work that didn’t have incline and used the level between my push and all out for all incline work. I didn’t worry too much about changing up the resistance levels for the hills to feel the same throughout because the nausea makes it hard for me to judge how I really feel.
On the rower, we started with a 450-meter row. We were supposed to do lunges with hops between each row segment, but I did squats since that’s easier for me. I really don’t like having to hop out of the rower and I can do the squats by just unstrapping my feet and standing up. After the squats, the row went down 50 meters and that pattern continued the entire block. The goal was to get down to the 100-meter row before the block was done, but I was working on the 300-meter row when we were done on the rower and moving to the floor.
The floor work had 3 main exercises and then add on exercises. The 3 main ones were full thrusters with weights, plank rows, and burpees. I modified the plank rows and burpees to be using the bench and I didn’t go as all out with them as I can when I’m feeling ok. The first round we added on sit-ups which I modified to bicycle crunches. In the second round we did the sit-ups (or crunches for me) and also straight leg hip raises. I didn’t finish the third round so I never added on that exercise, but that’s ok because it was back extensions and I knew I couldn’t do those.
I know we have a benchmark coming up this week and I’m hoping I’m feeling a little better for that. And I know the nausea should be ending this week so that is something for me to look forward to. But if it’s still bad through the entire week, I know I can just do what I can and I will get through it one way or another.
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