Mayhem Week (or Completing Another Orangetheory Challenge)

This past week was Mayhem at Orangetheory, a fun and crazy week of workouts. This is a challenge that I’ve done before and I’ve always enjoyed it. It’s similar to Hell Week, with extra tough workouts. And you can officially sign up for the challenge and earn swag like a t-shirt. I don’t always sign up for the challenge as I do for Hell Week, but I always try to complete the challenge. And that’s exactly what I did this past week. You need to complete 4 of the 7 workouts, and I got all 4 done back-to-back.

Monday’s workout was a 3 partner workout and it was divided into 3 separate blocks. In each block, one partner was the leader so each partner was the leader once. And if you weren’t the leader in that block, you did work at whatever station you were in until the leader had everyone rotate.

If you were the leader, when you were on cardio you had a .15 mile (or .6 mile on the bike) distance. When you were on the rower, you rowed 400 meters. And when you were on the floor, you had one round of body weight work with hop-overs, leg raises, sit-ups to squats, and bridge rows on the straps. And as the leader, whenever you finished your work you had your group rotate around the stations.

If you weren’t the leader, when you were on cardio or the rower you just went for distance until the leader had you rotate. And on the floor, you had weighted work with bicep curls, skier swings, and plank rows and repeated those until you rotated.

I think my group was pretty similar with how we all did as the leader and we usually rotated about the same number of times within each block. It wasn’t an easy workout since there was only minimal rest during the entire class. Between each block, we had about 90 seconds to make sure we all knew who the new leader would be and get everything set. But that’s not a lot of time during an hour-long class!

Tuesday’s workout was a switch class, so we had 2 blocks in each section of the room and we rotated between blocks. So we had 2 rotations around the room to complete the workout.

Both cardio blocks were the same with 30-second intervals. We started with an all-out to a walking recovery. Then we had a push pace, all-out, and recovery. Then we added a base to push pace at the beginning before doing the rest. And finally, we added a base pace before everything. So the longest segment we had was about 2 minutes long but since the recovery was limited, it felt like we were working much longer than that.

On the rower, the first block started with a 200-meter row. Then we had lunges and a ground to press with a medicine ball. Each time we did the exercises, we increased the reps by 2. When we got back to the rower for the second block, we still had 200-meter rows and the same exercises. But the reps for the exercises started at whatever number of reps we left off at in the first block and we reduced them by 2 reps each time.

And on the floor, we were timed with cardio with 30-second intervals. In the first block, we started with squat jacks and then had a rest. Then we did push-ups, squat jacks, and had a rest. Then it was toe taps, push-ups, squat jacks, and a rest. And finally, we had pulsing half-squats, toe taps, push-ups, and squat jacks. In the second block, we started with cleans with weights. Then we added arnold presses. Next added reciprocating rows. And the last time we did all the exercises we added in pulsing half squats. Just like with cardio, even though we did have time to rest, it was really quick and didn’t really give us the time to recover.

On Wednesday, I had the added struggle of starting to deal with pain and nausea. It wasn’t too horrible since it just kicked in, but it was something that affected my workouts. But since the workout was going to be extra challenging anyway, I figured this was just adding to what the challenge was all about.

For cardio, we repeated the same pattern throughout the workout. We had a 1-minute base pace, a 1-minute base to push pace, and a 30-second push pace. After the push pace, we were back to the base pace but we increased the incline/resistance level by 1. I started the workout a bit lower than my normal base pace resistance level so I would be able to increase it each time. And at the end of the cardio block, my push pace was a few levels higher than what my normal all-out would be.

On the rower, we had rounds of a 2 1/2-minute segment so we were following cardio. In those segments, we had an exercise and then a 350-meter row. And if you finished the row, you could rest until you had to get up to do the exercise again. We had 2 rounds of the exercise being froggers and 2 rounds of the exercise being lunges. And for the last round, we could choose which exercise we wanted to do and I went with froggers. But I never really got a break because I was always working on the row when we had to get up to do the exercises again.

And on the floor, we also had rounds that were each 2 1/2 minutes long. We had 4 exercises to get done and if we had time remaining we would rest. We had 2 rounds of froggers, bicep curls, high pulls, and reverse grip low rows. And then we had 2 rounds of lunges, sit-ups to stands with shoulder presses, incline chest flys, and chest presses. And for the last round, we got to pick which set we wanted to do and I did the last set. This time, I did have some time to rest at the end of each segment, which helped me not feel too nauseous on the floor even though we were moving a lot.

I was still dealing with pain and nausea on Thursday, but it wasn’t that much worse than Wednesday so that was helpful. I was really expecting it to be a lot worse and I was grateful I didn’t have to work through some of the really high levels of pain I can sometimes be in.

For cardio, the focus of the workout was doing a push pace and then a surge of speed during the push pace. We had a 45-second push pace followed by a 15-second surge 3 times in each block. I kept my push pace resistance level the same as I normally do and just tried to pedal faster during the surge. I thought about trying to add a resistance level during the surge too, but it was enough of a challenge for me just to pedal faster.

On the rower, we also had 3 blocks. Each block started with a row and then we had rounds of a front raise and front press with a medicine ball before rowing for distance until the block ended. The first block had a 250-meter row and each block decreased by 50 meters. And the goal was to match your distance each time since you should have more time to row after the exercises in each block. I was able to increase my distance in each block and got my furthest distance in the last block.

And on the floor, we had similar timing to what cardio had with 45-second and 15-second intervals. In the first block, we had 45 seconds of clean to front squats and 15 seconds of a squat hold with 45 seconds of a v-up at the end. In the second block, we had 45 seconds of a hip bridge and 15 seconds of a bridge hold with 45 seconds of a boat hold at the end. And in the last block, we had 45 seconds of side-to-side push-ups and 15 seconds of a push-up hold with 1 minute of v-up and 15 seconds of a boat hold at the end. I did have to modify a few exercises so I did weight squats instead of clean to press and I just did regular push-ups instead of side-to-side ones. But I did try to use a heavy weight for my hip bridges even though we had the option of doing them without weights. And I used the weight for 2 of the 3 times we had to do a bridge hold as well.

It wasn’t easy to do all the Mayhem workouts in a row, but it was a good challenge! And I am so glad I completed it because I really like to take on the challenges that Orangetheory sets out, even if they do sometimes happen when I’m not feeling my best. I proved to myself I could do it, and that’s a great feeling!

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