This past week of workouts was an epic one for me. First, it was the start of Hell
Week. I do love Hell Week workouts and enjoy the challenge they bring. But it was a tough week for other reasons too. I was also dealing with the end of the nausea cycle and I did 5 workouts this past week! And 4 of those workouts were back to back! That’s crazy, especially considering everything else I was going through. Hell Week didn’t start until Thursday, so I started the week off with normal workouts.
Monday’s workout was a strength day, and it was also a run/row class (which I usually can only have on Mondays since that’s my only 2 group class). It was a good class even though I wasn’t feeling great because of something that happened at the beginning of the workout. I didn’t realize the cleaning wipes and trash can were right behind the bike. And when I got off the bike the first time, I swung my leg over and karate kicked the can. It fell right over with a huge clunk. I would have been embarrassed if it wasn’t so funny. It really put me in a better mood even though physically I wasn’t feeling great.
The cardio run/row had 3 blocks, and the first and third were the same. Those blocks were the only run/row ones and they were all short segments. The rowing I got to were the 100 and 150-meter rows for each block. And on the bike, all of the things I did were under 2 minutes. We were switching a lot and that was nice. The second block was a more traditional strength block. We had incline work with increasing inclines and I was able to use the resistance levels on the bike.
On the floor, it was a day of lunges. We had 3 blocks and they all had lunges as a part of them. The first block was lateral lunges to suitcase squats (I split these two moves up and did them separately), regular lunges, and hip hinge low rows. The second block had swing lunges (I used the straps to help with these), single-leg bicep curls, plank spiderman (modified by using the bench), and crunches. And the last block had lunges to scaptions and plank low rows. It wasn’t a horrible floor block to do with my nausea, but I did take a few breaks to let the nausea pass when it started to feel really bad.
Wednesday’s workout was the last pre-Hell Week workout. But it felt extra hard because I injured myself on Tuesday. I chipped the bone on my little toe, and even though I buddy taped it there was still some pain. Fortunately, my nausea was done by Wednesday so I was only dealing with one issue. But it still made the workout interesting.
It was a strength day, and there was a lot of hill work for cardio. We had 2 blocks and each block had hill climbs with us increasing the incline/resistance level every 30 seconds. I was working with the resistance levels and they weren’t too high for me on the bike. I was getting to just 1 above my all out level so they didn’t seem as bad as some of the other strength days that we’ve had. I was happy with the work I was able to do and my toe wasn’t hurting too much on the bike which was a surprise.
Unfortunately, I discovered that rowing with an injured toe is very tough. The pain wasn’t as bad as it could have been because of how I taped my toe, but I lost a lot of power not having a flat foot on the rower to push back. The first block started with a 100-meter row and then frogger squats. We kept increasing the rowing by 100-meters each round and had the squats in between. The squats weren’t too bad and a nice break from the rowing. In the second block, we were supposed to row the total we rowed in the first block before doing squats again. But by this point, I was hurting a bit more so I never got beyond rowing the distance I got in the first block.
And on the floor, we also had 2 blocks. The first block was all weight work. We had upright rows, pullovers, and seated twists. And the second block had high rows on the straps, hip hinge reverse fly with weights, and we were supposed to do bear steps. I had to skip the bear steps because of my toe, but doing bicycle crunches was the closest thing I could do to modify it. I was proud of the work I did considering having issues with my toe. And I felt ready for the start of Hell Week, which was going to be the next day.
Because I want to get 5 Hell Week workouts in, I had to add an extra workout at some point because my normal schedule would only get me 4. I was excited for Hell Week so that took over any feeling of nerves from doing so many workouts in a row. And the first day of Hell Week was called Pulse.
This was an interesting workout and it’s not the easiest to explain, but I can share what my group did (every group had a slightly different workout). I started on the bike and the first block was a 14 minute cardio block with rounds of runs for distances or all outs followed by recoveries. We started with a 90-second run for distance and it went down 15 seconds each round. When we got to a 30-second all out, then we started to work our way back up.
Next, we switched between cardio and doing pulsing half squats (which is what inspired the name Pulse for the workout). The timing was the same as it was for cardio, but we alternated what we did during the active time. We did half of them on cardio and the other half was doing the pulsing half squats the entire time. It wasn’t easy to do squats for that long and my legs felt like they were in cement when we finished. But the bike was a nice break from the squats for me.
Finally, we had a run/row type workout for the second block. Again, we had the same timing as we had for the first block, but we switched between having our active time on cardio or on the rower. And the rower person used the cardio when we were on the rower. There wasn’t always a lot of time to switch back and forth, but we did our best to make it work. Even though I spent more time on the bike in that workout than I normally would, I’m glad I had the extra time there. I think if it was on the rower it would have been too hard for me. And the people who had extra time on the floor had to also do burpees and I was grateful to not have to do those.
Only about 14 hours after I finished my first Hell Week workout, I was back for another one. This workout was called Split I and it felt like a mix of a power and strength day. This workout was a bit more straightforward than the day before, which was nice since it was an early morning class for me.
On cardio, we had a workout similar to the Everest class. Every minute, we increased the incline/resistance level. That’s all we did for 14 minutes. There was no decreasing incline after we reached the top and no recovery. The goal was to keep our base pace going as long as we could. For me on the bike, it’s a bit harder since I actually don’t have a specific cadence for a base (I’ve realized I should probably work on this), but I did want to work on the hill work. Because we would be increasing so many times, I started lower than what my base normally is at. But even starting easier than normal, I ended up with a resistance level higher than I think I’ve ever used on the bike. I think it was 3 or 4 levels higher than my previous best. It wasn’t easy and I was moving very slowly at the end, but I did it.
On the rower, all the rows were 400-meters. We were supposed to do different types of squats after each row with increasing reps, but I couldn’t do much more than regular squats. So I added up the total number between each of the types of squats we were supposed to do at that time and just did that number of regular squats. There were so many squats and I don’t know if it would have been any easier if I had a variety of types to do.
On the floor, we had 1 block but it was split into 2 mini-blocks. And the reps were increasing each exercise and round. We had chest presses, overhead triceps with weights, and push-ups for the first mini-block. And the second mini-block had bicep curls, hip hinge low rows, and low rows on the straps. The way the reps worked was we had 3/6/9/12 reps for the first exercise, 4/7/10/13 reps for the second exercise, and 5/8/11/14 reps for the third exercise. The first 2 rounds weren’t too bad, but the second 2 rounds were really hard and I had to go lighter with the weights I used.
And my last (and 5th) workout of the week was on Saturday and it was called Split II (so I got to resolve the cliffhanger from Friday’s workout). It wasn’t exactly the same as Friday’s workout with the way we went back down the inclines, but it was close.
For cardio, we were on our own timing. Every cardio segment was .1 miles (.4 for the bike). We started at the top incline or resistance level and worked down each round. And between each segment, we had ground to press using weights. We started at 1 rep and added 1 each time. My legs were still tired from all the other workouts in the week, but I also knew I had a rest day on Sunday so I was able to go a bit harder. I did manage to make it down the entire resistance level which was a nice accomplishment.
And on the rower and floor, we had a bit of a partner workout. But we were partnered with the person next to us in the same section of the room. So on the rower, I was partnered with another rower and on the floor, I was partnered with another person on the floor.
The row partner workout started with one of us doing an 800-meter row. While the partner was rowing, the other person did rounds of 10 squats and 10 hard pulls on the rower. Then the other partner did the 800-meter row. Next was a 500-meter and 200-meter row with the same pattern. It was hard because there were no breaks, but my partner and I were pretty equally matched with rowing times.
And on the floor, it was a similar idea as the rower. We had 2 blocks and in the first block, one partner did squats while holding a medicine ball and front raises with the medicine ball while the other partner did lateral steps with the mini-band. And in the second block, one partner did plank jacks and plank side reaches while the other partner did front raises with the mini-band around their wrists. Just like with the rower, there were no breaks while on the floor which made it extra hard. My partner and I were so glad when the class was over.
I’ve got 2 more Hell Week workouts this week and then I’ll earn my Hell Week shirt! And getting the shirt is something I am excited about. This week is back to my normal workout schedule which will be nice. But I am proud of myself for challenging what I can do and going for 5 workouts in a week, but I don’t think I want to do that every week (at least, not yet).
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