This past week of workouts were up and down for me. I really thought I’d be doing better with my medication but I also ended up allowing myself to feel ok with doing what I can do. I feel a bit lackluster in some of what I was doing because I keep comparing myself to what I was doing recently. But I think if I wasn’t comparing myself against that version of myself and maybe focused on comparing to where I was in the beginning to where I am now I could be happier. But the struggle is real and I am really working on accepting it.
Monday’s workout was a strength based workout. I wanted to use the treadmill (even with having to do inclines), but I was dealing with some random and unexpected nausea that morning. I debated about using a treadmill, but I knew that walking would probably make me feel worse so I ended up on the bike. But because I’ve used the bike a lot lately, I decided to try to do things a bit harder than normal. There were two blocks on each section and for the cardio it was a pretty similar pattern with a push pace, a base pace at an incline, and a push and all out pace at an incline. With the bike, you use heavier gears to replace incline so I tried to make my gears higher than I normally do with the regular push and all out paces on the bike. I did end up at a gear that made it really tough to keep going, but I was able to keep my wattage up on the bike which is what my coach emphasized I should be focusing on for my workout.
Next I was on the rower and finally my nausea was starting to go away. The first block on the rower was rounds of 500 meter rows with some rest between each round. I don’t know if my rower was acting weird or I was just having a bad rowing day but all of my 500 meter rows were taking longer than they normally do. I was trying to go at it a bit harder, but I wasn’t able to get my time to what I’m used to. But with the second block, we had 250 meter rows with bicep curls using the rower handles between each row. And with that block, I was able to get my rowing to be just a bit longer than normal. But that it to be expected when I’m getting tired so I was feeling much better about the rowing. And I ended class on the floor. The first block was chest presses, lunges, and plank work. I was using some pretty heavy weight with my chest presses which made up for not using weights in my lunges in my head. And the last block was using the workout bands for hip bridges and plank side leg lifts. I put the bands lower on my legs this time (which made things much harder) and I did much better with the bands. They were still twisting a bit, but not nearly as bad as the first time I used them. And I’m sure that in time I will get more and more used to using them and will get better at it.
Wednesday’s workout was an endurance, strength, and power day. This was after I talked with my therapist about my medication and I felt much better about taking things easy. I still didn’t like doing it, but it seems like it’s not just an issue I’m having. And while it is frustrating having this issue last longer than I expected, it does help to know that my doctor thinks I’m doing the right thing and it’s ok to ease back into normal workout endurance. And as much as I wanted to try to run during the power block, I held back. And I knew I needed to because even walking at my normal speed was spiking my heart rate. During the strength block, I didn’t go too high with my inclines but I did work with them. I wish I had more interesting things to say about my treadmill work, but it seems like this might be the trend for a little bit longer.
On the floor we had one long block and I really enjoyed it. We had 1 rep of 5 different moves that were supposed to be done as a single movement. We had a deadlift, a low row, an upright row, a squat, and a shoulder press. I could have gone heavier with my weight for the deadlift, but because we were supposed to use the same weight for the entire circuit I used my normal deadlift weight (which was heavier than normal for the rest of the moves). After doing 6 rounds of that, we had 6 burpees and then ab work before we went to the rower. Then it was back to the floor to do it all over again. It was a challenge to do those 5 moves as a single movement, but it was a good challenge to have and I was really focused on my posture and form during the entire thing.
Friday’s workout was a special partner day for the Olympics. On cardio we were supposed to have teams of 4, but with my group there were 10 people so they did 2 groups of 4 and 1 group of 2. My friend Grace and I volunteered to be the group of 2. We thought it would be good because we were both stressed about letting a team down and knew we would be fine not worrying about that with each other. But it turns out having our group of 2 actually made things harder for us! It was a run/row format with 1 person on the rower setting the pace and the rest of the team on treadmills. When the first partner was done with the row, they tagged the next person and they rowed (and the first partner went to a treadmill). They went through all the partners this way. But because Grace and I were on our own, we were just tagging each other. So we had much less rest time between rowing than the other groups. In the end I was just taking my 30 seconds on the treadmill to catch my breath and drinking water, but I tried to do a bit of walking each time I was on there.
Once the partner workout was done, we were on the floor for the second half of class and it was much more of a standard format without the partner work. The first block was speed skater lunges, shoulder work with weights, and running men. The second block was skier squats with weights, regular squats, and sit ups. And the last block was Y raises on the straps, pop jacks, running men, and sit ups. The floor work was so tough after the cardio, but I tried to limit my breaks. But I was definitely feeling done mid-way through the floor work and I know that I wasn’t doing my best in class.
Saturday’s workout is where I feel like I turned things around. I could have used the treadmill, but I decided to use the bike. I was thinking about how when I started doing 4 workouts a week that I set the 4th workout to be on the bike. And I worked hard on the bike each time. But lately I have looked at the bike as a second choice, and while I have been working on it I knew I wasn’t working as hard as I could. It was an endurance based workout with 3 groups so I was on the bike for the first 15 minutes of class. We had longer push paces with base paces after each and I really focused on pushing myself on the bike. I wasn’t using as high of resistance on it so I could focus on pedaling faster. And it seemed to work because it felt like the hardest bike workout I’ve ever done! I’m thinking I should probably use the bike once a week or so while I’m getting over this medication issue and I bet it’s going to benefit me when I’m back to running.
Next I was on the floor where we had 2 blocks. We had upright rows with weights, bicep curls, and high rows on the straps in the first block. And in the second block we had squat low rows with weights, side plank pendulums, and lateral lunges. And I ended on the rower where we had decreasing rows with lunges between. We started with an 800 meter row and I managed to get within 5 seconds of my PR! Not bad for the end of a workout! I didn’t do quite as well with the 600 meter row but I did PR by 2 seconds on my 400 meter row which was the last thing I did in class! It’s pretty tough to do that well when I had been working so hard during the rest of class, so I was pretty impressed with myself.
The beginning of the week was a bit of a frustration, but I did come to the realization that I could focus on things I can do and try to not think about what I’m struggling with. And by the end of the week I was able to create new goals and accomplishments for myself which was awesome! I do still want to get back to running and that is going to be a focus of mine, but I’m continuing to practice patience and I think it’s finally starting to kick in.
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