This past week of workouts was pretty tough for me. I knew that my pain and nausea would be returning, but I had not been prepared for it to be so bad or so early in the week. The good thing is that it seemed to be the worst on Monday and got a little better each day. But I was surprised when it hit me on Monday because I was expecting another day or two before I had to deal with it.
Not only was the pain and nausea at their peak on Monday, but it was also one of the really tough signature workouts. This time, it was Orange Inferno. I’ve done this workout before, and I’m pretty certain I’ve done it as a 2 group class. But having a tough signature workout plus my health issues made it harder than any other Inferno I remembered.
The idea of Inferno is that you have a run/row for the entire cardio block. The run (or bike) distance is always the same. And the rowing starts with a 100-meter row and increases by 100-meters every time you are on the rower. You don’t reset the rower the entire 23-minutes, so you are challenging yourself to get as far as you can on the rower in that time. Considering how I felt, I’m happy with how I did on the bike. My time wasn’t great, but it was close to what I would have wanted to do. And on the rower, I did ok with the first few rows since they were shorter. The longer rows were really hard and I took a lot of breaks. But I just tried to go when I could and rest when I needed to. I didn’t get that far by the end, but I’m not too upset about that.
On the floor, we had 3 blocks. The first block had push-ups, chest fly with weights, overhead tricep extensions with weights, and crunches with over unders. The second block had plank low rows with weights, low rows on the straps, hammer curls with weights, and bird dogs. And the last block had hip raises and dead bugs core work. For all the face-down and plank work, I modified it to be using the bench. And for those modified exercises, I took a lot of breaks to let the pain and nausea pass.
Wednesday’s workout was a power day, and while I still felt pretty awful, I was doing better than Monday. This power day had a lot of short intervals, which helped a bit too. But it was still tough work and I pushed when I could.
For cardio, we had 4 blocks. Blocks 1 and 3 were the same and blocks 2 and 4 were the same. Blocks 1 and 3 were run/row blocks. We had a .1 mile run (the bike does 4 times the distance) and then a 100-meter row. We repeated that until the end of the block. I did ok with that since they were all short distances and I was able to take little breaks when switching back and forth. Blocks 2 and 4 were timed and we had rounds of 30-second all-outs followed by 45-second recoveries.
On the floor, we also had 4 blocks. Block 1 had lunges and plank side leg lifts. Block 2 was with the cardio timing and we had rounds of 30-seconds of front squats and 24 foot exchanges in the 45-second part. Our rest was in the 45-second segment for whatever time leftover we had. Block 3 had single-arm hip hinges and thread the needles (which I modified slightly, but still had to be face down a lot). And the last block was again timed with cardio and we had 30-seconds of lunges and 24 high knees in the 45-second segment with a little rest with the extra time.
Friday’s workout was an endurance day, and I really liked the cardio challenge. Even with my pain and nausea, this was a great reminder of what I can do when I push myself and don’t focus too much on anything other than trying.
The cardio was 6 rounds of a 3-minute distance challenge. And after each one, we had 1-minute to recover. The goal wasn’t to increase things each round or to be close to our push pace. It was all about trying to maintain the speed every round because it was naturally going to get tougher each round. I focused on my cadence on the bike and not how hard I was pedaling. And I was able to be within a 6 reps per minute range for every 3-minute challenge.
On the floor, we had 6 blocks and they were all 3-minutes as well. The first block had mini-band work with walkouts and in and outs (I did the walkouts on the bench). The second block was with weights and we had uppercuts, and front bench tap squats. The third block was more mini-bank work with more in and outs and isolated squat walks. The fourth block was TRX work with low rows and bicep curls. The fifth block was mini-bands again with crunch in and outs and toe reaches. And the last block was on the rower for a 3-minute row. Just like the other workouts this week, I took breaks when I needed to but things were continuing to get better so it wasn’t as often as Monday or Wednesday.
By Saturday, I was almost feeling like myself. I was still having some pain and nausea, but it was so different from the beginning of the week. And it allowed me to do more of the workout with fewer breaks. This workout was a strength-based class and it was my only 3 group class for the week.
We had 2 blocks in each section of the room. For both cardio blocks, we had hills with increasing incline/resistance with base pace recoveries between each of the hill intervals. The first block had hill intervals that were 1-minute each and the second block had hill intervals that were 30-seconds each. And the resistance levels on the bike got really high for me. But I took advantage of this challenge and really focused on my cadence during the entire time. I was able to pedal faster when we were doing our base recovery intervals, but I did manage to keep the cadence the same even as we got higher up the hill. I haven’t focused too much on that on strength days before, but it was good to track it and I think I will keep that in mind for the future.
On the rower, both blocks had rowing intervals with medicine ball exercises between each interval. In both blocks, we had overhead presses and front presses with the medicine ball. In the first block, we started with a 200-meter row and we were supposed to count the strokes it took to get there. Then, for each interval after, we reduced 1 from the stroke count. We didn’t reset the rower and we used the total distance rowed for the second block. We did half of the total distance for the first interval in the second block and kept cutting it in half each time.
And on the floor, even though I was feeling better as far as pain and nausea goes, I had to do a few modifications due to my hip. Both blocks started with the same core work with sit-ups (which I did as crunches) and bicycle crunches. Then in the first block, we had lateral lunges and sumo squats. I can do both of those without too many modifications, but I do adjust them a little to make them hurt less. And in the second block, we also had swing lunges and pivot lunges. Neither of those were things I could really do, so I did weighted lunges and then supported lunges with holding on to the wall (I can go lower in my lunges when I’m supported, so it was a good mix). But I was grateful there was nothing face down while on the floor because I knew that would make me feel worse.
Even when I’m prepared for having a week of nausea, it can sometimes still surprise me or hit me in a different way. But I am so grateful that even though it was a bad week, it only started off bad and got better every day after.
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