Starting Off Hell Week (or These Really Are Hard Workouts!)

I’ve done Hell Week enough to know they are hard workouts. I love the challenge even if during the workout I am struggling. I know that these workouts push me in ways I need to be pushed, and I have never really regretted going to one. Sometimes I wish I had a different Hell Week workout that day, but that’s not exactly a regret.

With this past week, I started Monday off with a regular workout which was one that I had done earlier in the month. But I knew that workout was going to be the easy one for the week and the rest of the week was going to be a challenge. To earn your Hell Week shirt, you have to go to 4 of the 8 workouts. You can earn another piece of swag if you go to all 8, but I know myself enough to know I can’t handle 8 workouts in a row. So I didn’t quite earn my shirt in the first part of Hell Week since I only got 3 workouts in, but I’ll be doing another 2 this week, so by the time you read this, I should already have my shirt.

Of the 3 Hell Week workouts I’ve done so far, I think Tuesday was the hardest day. It might have been because it was the first one and I wasn’t used to how hard these workouts are, but I still think it was the hardest one. The hardest part was the floor work, a mix of timed exercises and exercises on our own. We had 5 short blocks on the floor, 2 of them were timed and 3 had decreasing reps starting at 8 reps. It was a lot of lower body work and a lot of squats. My foot is doing a bit better, but it’s still painful at times. And I discovered that squats put enough tension on the tendon that sometimes it triggers the pain. I just had to take some breaks when we weren’t supposed to so I could stretch my foot.

Wednesday’s workout was focused on inclines, so I had a lot of time to work on using the higher resistance levels on the bike. I do want to increase my resistance level on the bike, but as I was using the higher ones, I know I’m not quite ready for that, at least not for my all-out. I still felt like I was pedaling through jello and wasn’t able to go that fast. I know that still was a good workout because it uses different muscles than pedaling quickly, but since we do a lot of lower body work on the floor, those heavier resistance levels can make those exercises harder for me.

And on Thursday, I had to do a lot of modifications on the floor because it was a lot of jumping exercises. I also was really sore on Thursday from all the workouts earlier in the week, so I didn’t mind the modifications as much. But I did really enjoy the rowing that day because it was all about maximizing the distance you row with each stroke, which I think is something I do pretty well. It takes a lot of patience and understanding that your overall time might be a bit longer, but it’s a great way to use your muscles a different way while rowing.

I heard about some of the Hell Week workouts that I was going to miss on the days I don’t work out, and they all sound so hard! I know all of them are hard, but I think I got the best 3 so far. Even if I wasn’t doing what I felt was my best, I knew I was doing a lot of work and I could feel my strength coming through.

I can’t wait to see how these last 2 Hell Week classes go for me and be a Hell Week survivor yet again!

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