This past week of workouts wasn’t that great for me. I wish I could put a more positive spin on things, but that really is the truth for me. And I’m not one to sugarcoat the truth. I’ve been struggling a lot lately, but this past week took things to a new level and I really wasn’t mentally prepared for it. I had one ok day, one horrible day, and one bad day. Not what I was hoping, but that’s the week that I had.
I didn’t have a workout on Monday because I was in Palm Springs, so I only had 3 workouts this past week. But that ended up being for the best for me. Wednesday was a power day and it wasn’t too bad. I think I lucked out because we were switching between blocks and it was more like a 3 group workout than a 2 group workout. So we never really spent that long in one section of the room. The first round was 3 minutes at each section, the second round was 5 minutes at each section, and the last round was 3 minutes at each section.
For the treadmill, it was pretty much push paces and push to all out paces. I walked everything and was able to do my normal speed and inclines which really surprised me. I thought since I missed my Monday workout it would have been much worse, but maybe doing my hiking helped me not feel too bad. On the rower we had 2 rounds of distance rows with lunges between and one round of counting pulls for the rowing. For counting pulls, we were counting for 200 and 100 meters. The goal for 200 is under 20 pulls, but because I’ve been working on taking my time with these challenges I managed to do it in 13 pulls! And on the floor we had burpees, crunches, hop overs, skier swings, and sit ups.
Friday’s workout was just bad for me. I was dealing with pain and nausea and even though I took my medications right before class they weren’t helping. I thought I could do the treadmill since it was a power day, but after the warmup I was feeling so nauseous that I got off and got on the bike. I’m glad I’ve figured out that being on the bike helps keep some of the nausea away (walking is just too bouncy for me when I feel bad), but it’s still a little bit of a disappointment when I can’t use the treadmill. I’m working on getting out of that mindset, but I think the way I was feeling physically was affecting my mental state.
We had 4 blocks for cardio but we didn’t switch between blocks so we were on it for the first half of class. The first 3 blocks were push paces and push to all out paces. I really worked on my cadence with the bike and trying to work on increasing my gears for the push and all out paces. I did have to take breaks from time to time because of the nausea, but I managed to get through most of the workout on the bike just fine.
On the floor, we had 1 long block that was all Bosu and rowing work. We had pop jacks, sit ups, hop overs, back extensions, lunges, and side crunches all using the Bosu. Those were split into 3 sections and between each section we had a 250 meter row. I really had to take my time with the Bosu work, especially when there were exercises that went from standing to sitting or laying down. My stomach wasn’t doing ok with moving like that so I had to take breaks and go easy. With the rowing, the first time I was on the rower it took 2:21 to row (it should be around 2:15). The second time I rowed it was 2:16. And the last time I rowed it was 2:11. To improve with each row is good and I’m glad I finally got it under the time we were supposed to be within. But again, my nausea was kicking up a lot and before and after each row I had to focus on breathing and trying to feel better.
Saturday’s workout was one that I was very nervous for. I was still feeling pretty horrible (I had some blackout cramps before my workout) and I knew it was going to be a partner workout. I usually love partner workouts because it helps keep me motivated and I want to make sure that my partner isn’t waiting on me to finish so we can switch. But since I was feeling so badly, I didn’t want to let my partners down. When I got to class, it was a 3 group partner workout and it turned out that technically no partner was going to be responsible for the switch on their own.
We had 3 blocks that were each 13 minutes long. And in each block we rotated between the treadmill, rower, and floor. And the switch was determined by whichever of the 3 of us was finished with the work first. So even if I never finished first, my team wasn’t going to be stuck waiting on me. That was a big relief.
I used the bike again instead of the treadmill but I was able to use the rower and could do the floor work. The cardio was all short intervals (some of it was on an incline on the treadmills) and I was usually able to get the bike work done in about 3 minutes. On the rower, we had rows that were between 200-600 meters. And on the floor, it was the same work each block but we changed the number of reps each time. We had lunges, squats, crunches, and plank punches.
Even though I didn’t have to worry about my partners waiting on me, I didn’t want to be too slow with my work. And a few times I was actually the person that initiated the switch. I tried to take my breaks on the floor since that section was repeating each block, but there were a few times I had to stop on the bike to let the wave of nausea pass. It’s sad that I’m getting used to dealing with this, but since it’s possibly going to be like this for a long time I guess it’s a good thing that I’m learning to manage.
Overall, while this wasn’t a great workout week for me it was better than not showing up. It sucks to struggle and to feel like you can’t do anything to fix it, but I’m proud of myself for at least going to class. Working out won’t make things worse (except maybe walking making my nausea worse) and there is always a chance that it could be better after a workout. So I have to take the chance to see if it will help and if not, at least I’m keeping my commitment to myself to do at least 3 workouts each week.
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