I had a longer workout week than normal this past week. But for this post, I’m only going to write about the regular 4 workouts that I did and the last one will be in a different post. I had a few things overall that both helped and hurt my workouts. I did try to drink a bit of the protein milk that I normally have for breakfast before my workout instead of drinking juice. That way, I would get a bit of sugar in my system and I also would have some protein instead of working out on an empty stomach. That actually helped a lot and I’m going to keep doing that. But I also spent the week dealing with the congestion that I’ve had for the past week. I don’t feel sick and I’ve been making sure it’s not Covid, but any time that you feel off, it can make your workouts off. But I did my best for this past week.
For Monday’s workout, we had 3 blocks at each section of the room. And for cardio and rowing, we did the same thing for each block.
For cardio, we started with a 30-second base pace followed by a 30-second push pace. We then had a 30-second all-out and a 30-second recovery before repeating that pattern again for that block. Since everything was short intervals, it kept things from feeling too repetitive, even though the workout was the same in each block.
On the rower, everything was also in 30-second intervals. We had 3 intervals with a medicine ball and 3 intervals on the rower. We had good mornings, squats, and squat presses with the medicine ball. Then we had 30-seconds to get onto the rower before we did the same pattern as cardio for the second half of each block.
On the floor, each block had 2 exercises. The first block had single-arm marches with a shoulder press and rollouts on the straps. The second block had front squats with weights and calf raises. And the last block had clean presses with weights and y-raises on the straps.
Tuesday’s workout felt more like an endurance day even though I know it was still a mix of endurance, strength, and power.
For cardio, we had one long block that started with a 90-second push pace followed by a 90-second base pace. We continued to do push paces followed by 90-second base paces, but the push pace got 30-seconds longer each time. And at the end of the cardio block, we had a 1-minute all-out.
On the rower, we were on our own with the timing between rowing and the exercise we had to do. We started with 3 rounds of a 200-meter row where we tried to improve upon our time each round. Then we had knees to elbows, which I do almost like marching in place but I do try to get my knees as high as I can go. Then we had 3 rounds of a 150-meter row with knees to elbows after completing those rounds. I was working on the 3 rounds of a 100-meter row when the block ended. And for the 150-meter and 100-meter rows, I was able to improve upon each row.
On the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first block had split squat jumps, which I have to do as lunges, and neutral grip thrusters. And in the second block, we had single-arm hip hinge swings, single-arm chest presses, and lateral hop overs. Sometimes I do try to do the hop overs with lowering the bench, but since I was using the bench for other exercises I decided to do skater lunges instead so I didn’t have to take up too much time lowering and raising the bench.
Wednesday’s workout had an interesting cardio challenge. For people on the treadmills, they were doing power walking for most of the block. And because they were using high inclines, that meant I was using high resistance levels on the bike.
We had 3 cardio blocks that all had the same pattern. We had 3-minutes using inclines, and the inclines went down by 1% every minute. And each block ended with a 1-minute all-out within inclines. Since we would have 9 different high inclines/resistance levels to use, I knew I would have to go really high on the bike. For the first block, I felt like I didn’t move that much for those 3-minutes. But each block did get easier and it was nice to have very little resistance when I did the 1-minute all-out each block.
On the rower, we started with a 600-meter base row. After recovering, we did a 300-meter row followed by squats to standing knee tucks. We repeated the 300-meter row and squats to knee tucks 3 times before doing another 600-meter row. I did fine with the first 600-meter row and the 3 300-meter rows. But during the last 600-meter row, I think my congestion was just affecting me a bit more than I thought it would. I had to take quite a few breaks during that row and I wasn’t able to finish before the rowing block was done.
And on the floor, we had 1 long block with 3 mini-blocks. And we were supposed to do each mini-block twice before moving on to the next one. We had lateral lunges and reciprocating rows, bicep curls and rows on the straps, and plank pull-throughs and seated rotations. I was able to get through doing all of the mini-blocks twice and was working on repeating all the exercises again when the workout was done. I don’t always get through all the exercises like that, so I was pretty proud of myself.
And for Thursday’s workout, we had a specialty workout. This was called Shot Clock and it was designed by the NCAA player of the year to be similar to the workouts they do to train for their games. We had 3 blocks for each section of the room.
For cardio, blocks 1 and 3 were the same. For those blocks, we had a 2 1/2-minute distance challenge. And the extra challenge was to go further in block 3 than you did in block 1. And for block 2, we started with 3 rounds of a 30-second push pace and a 15-second all-out. Doing a 15-second all-out is very rare, so we were supposed to try to push ourselves to go faster. And I did try to do that with how fast I was pedaling. And the second block ended with just a 30-second all-out.
On the rower, just like with cardio we did the same thing for blocks 1 and 3. For those blocks, we did 100-meter rows and tried to improve upon our time each time we did it. I was able to do better each time in the first block, but I wasn’t quite able to do that for the last block. And for block 2, we followed the same pattern as cardio with the pushes and all-outs. But when cardio had their recovery after each all-out, we got off our rowers and did quick feet.
And on the floor, the first block was interesting. It was 2 1/2-minutes long and we had 3 exercises in it. We had quick feet, plank jacks, and lateral hops. But our coach told us what to do and when, so we never knew when we’d be switching to a new exercise or how long we’d be doing it. The second block was timed along with cardio and the rower. We had 30-seconds of a goblet squat, 15-seconds of a squat with a calf raise, and during the cardio recovery, we had either side plank reaches or plank hip dips. I did the hip dips since those are a bit easier for my hips. And the last block for cardio was with a partner. We sat back to back and did torso rotations with the medicine ball and passed the ball between us. And we also had push-ups where we passed the medicine ball between us. It was an interesting and different partner challenge and my partner and I were able to get through the exercises pretty quickly so we got in a few rounds of each.
I’m glad that even though I struggled a bit with feeling a bit off, it didn’t affect too much of my workout. I know it wasn’t the best workout week, but it was far from the worst. And like I said, this was just some of my workout week because I had one more workout to go!
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Workout Challenges (or Seeing Improvements)
This Is The Workout Week I Expected (or I Knew It Would Be A Bad Week)
