We just had Mayhem Week at Orangetheory and that was a week of challenging workouts. And this past week of workouts, the workouts were technically normal but they were still a challenge for me. It was my week of nausea and that makes things feel so much harder than they should be. But the past few times I’ve had to deal with the nausea I have been finding new ways to work through things. And that’s what I continued to do this time.
Monday’s workout was a themed workout and it was supposed to be a 3 partner class. I usually love partner workouts because it pushes me to work harder and do more. But in this class I was so nauseous and I didn’t want to slow a team down or have my partners wait on me so we can switch. So I told my coach that I volunteered to be on my own, and it happened to work out that way. I was glad that I could be alone because I did need to take a lot of breaks in the workout.
The way the partner workout was supposed to go was to have the rower as the pacer. The floor and treadmill switched back and forth until the rower was done and they all switched. For me, I just did 1 round of whatever we were supposed to do at each section of the room and switch when I was done. The cardio work was the easiest for me. All the bike distances were very short and I was always done in under 3 minutes. I kept the resistance level at my base pace level which helped me not have too much nausea on the bike.
For the floor, it was always the same exercises and the reps decreased each time. We had low rows on the straps, burpees, pushups, and sit-ups. I used the bench for the burpees and pushups which did help the nausea a bit, but it was still slow for me on the floor with the breaks I needed to rest.
The rower was the toughest part of the workout and what made me most grateful for being on my own. They were all long distance rows and I took significantly longer than I usually do. It started with a 1600 meter row, then 1200 meters, and I was doing the 800 meter row when class was done. If I had partners for this workout, I would have been so stressed out on the rower. For example, 1600 meters should be 8 minutes or under and I usually can do that. But because of needing the breaks to let the nausea pass, it took me almost 14 minutes. I would have hated knowing my partners had to wait almost twice as long to switch. I was happy knowing I was on my own and just doing what I could.
Wednesday’s workout was an interesting day with a mix of endurance and power. It was also another bad nausea day so I went into the workout just planning on doing the best that I could. We had 4 blocks at each section of the room and 2 of the blocks were about 5 minutes and 2 of the blocks were only 1 minute. Sometimes we had time to work through different exercises and sometimes it was just a quick change around the room.
For cardio, for the longer blocks they were pretty standard endurance blocks. We had push paces and base paces with an all out at the end. I did manage to change up the resistance levels a bit, but they weren’t what I usually use. And for the 1 minute blocks, we had 1 minute all outs. Again, I did go up a bit with the resistance level but it wasn’t what I normally do.
On the rower, the longer blocks were rounds of 100 meter rows and lunges. And the shorter blocks were 1 minute all out rows. The first time we had a longer block I was fine with the lunges. But the second time I was just not feeling ok and it was taking me so much time to get on and off the rower. So I just rowed that block without the lunges.
And the floor had side lunges, skater lunges, upper cuts, and leg lifts for the longer blocks. And the 1 minute blocks were 1 minute of burpees. I was glad the longer block didn’t require modifications but I did use the bench for the burpees. Considering how I was feeling going into this class and how much movement there was, I was happy with what I did even though it didn’t feel like much.
Friday’s workout was a benchmark challenge day. It was the 12 minute run (or bike) for distance. I’m still newish to doing benchmarks on the bike, so I didn’t feel the same sort of competitive spirit as I did on the treadmill. I’m grateful for that because I didn’t feel like I had to push extra hard to beat myself when I wasn’t feeling so great.
I did set a goal for myself on the bike and I was very happy to see that I did pass that goal. I kept the resistance level between my base and push level so I wasn’t going as hard as I probably normally would for a challenge like this. But it worked for how I was feeling and I still felt like I was doing more than I normally would.
On the rower we started with a 3 minute row. Then we had single leg bicep curls and hip hinge rows using weights. We continued that pattern but decreased the row each time. It was a tough row block and I did take a lot of breaks. And doing any single leg work is difficult for me so the bicep curls were hard. But I was grateful that the work we had on the rower were things that I didn’t have to modify too much because of how I was feeling.
And on the floor we had a mix of strap work and ab dolly work. On the straps we had Y raises, high rows, and low rows. On the ab dolly we were supposed to do rollouts and pikes, but I couldn’t do either of those. I did the rollouts on the straps instead of the ab dolly because of my nausea and I did knee tucks instead of pikes because of my hips.
Saturday’s workout had a heads or tails theme. Each section of the room had a heads option and tails option. We had 2 blocks at each section so we did do both, but the coin flip was to see what we started with.
For cardio, one block was doing a specific distance and then squats after you completed the distance. You repeated the pattern until that block was done. The other block was rounds of 30 second all outs with 30 second recoveries. I was doing much better by Saturday and was able to use my new resistance levels for everything.
On the rower we had a similar pattern to cardio. One block was rounds of all out rows with recovery rows and the other block was distance rows with squats between each row. The floor had different blocks but the heads or tails determined if you had to start the block doing burpees to squats. The first block had lunges, sit-ups, and triceps on the straps. And the second block had pushups to plank jacks, sit-ups, and sumo squats using weights. I used the bench to modify all the exercises that involved plank work, but other than that I was doing everything normally.
Obviously this wasn’t the same type of challenge as Mayhem (or Hell Week), but it was still a challenging week for me. I’m just glad that I made it through and I’m hopefully back to normal now. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see how this week goes!
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