Tag Archives: fitness

I know that things don’t seem to be getting better as far as the pandemic goes. There are a lot of people who seem to be in denial about that and claim that everything is done and fine even though their area is having more cases than ever over the past year and a half. California and LA aren’t doing great. We aren’t doing worse than ever, but it’s still scary. And I do worry that gyms might have to close again and I really hope that doesn’t happen. We are working out in masks and I would be more than happy to show my vaccination card if necessary to keep working out. I just want to not have to miss my workouts again. And I think that fear is what pushed me a lot this past week.

Monday’s workout was a run/row day. Although I would call it a row/run day because the rower was the focus of the cardio half of class and being on the treadmill or bike was considered a bit of recovery time.

There were different intervals in the row/run, but the rowing always added up to 800-meters. The first was an 800-meter row with 2-minutes on the treadmill or bike. Then it was 2 rounds of a 400-meter row with 90-seconds of cardio after each row. I made it to where we were working on 4 rounds of 200-meter rows with 1-minute of cardio after each row. My longer rows are still a bit of a struggle, but I’m trying to get better. I know it’s partially an endurance issue and partially my form making it harder than it should be. But at least this workout gave me a lot of opportunities to work on that.

On the floor, we had 3 blocks. Each block started with doing 1 set of high rows on the straps before moving on to the rest of the exercises that were focused on upper body and core and we were supposed to use the Bosu for all of them. We had single-arm chest presses, pullovers, running man planks, scaption raises, goblet lunges, plank jacks, hip bridges, chest fly, and Spiderman planks. But for a lot of the exercises, I had to skip using the Bosu because of my stability issues. I usually at least try to use it to start and then make the decision from then. But for some things like the lunges, I knew it wasn’t safe for me to try. But I can still do things on the floor and get the same work done, so that works.

Wednesday’s workout was a strength-based day. And I really pushed myself hard in this one. Ever since my coach pushed me to work with resistance levels more, I have taken that to heart. And strength days are the best days to do that.

We had 3 blocks for cardio and they all had some regular push paces as well as incline work. The inclines got shorter each block but they also got steeper. And we also had some all-outs at inclines, which we rarely have. Just like the past few times I’ve been working with the harder resistance levels, my legs felt like they were moving so slowly and it was really hard. But I know that’s a good thing.

On the floor, we had 2 blocks. And the first block was a mini-band block. We had good mornings, lateral walks, suitcase squats, overhead presses, front walks, and chest fly with weights all with the mini-bands. We also had a few 400-meter rows in that block too. The mini-band work was really hard because it’s tough on my hips. And I had an issue with my hip popping out a lot in that first block that didn’t want to go back in. The second block had step-ups (that I did as lunges), plank low rows, and seated twists. These were hard because of my hip issues, so I had to go a little lighter with the weights than I would have liked. But I still got some good heavy weights in for most of the workout.

Friday’s workout was a mix of endurance, strength, and power. And it was a really great mix although I was a little tired during the power moments so I know I didn’t go as hard as I might be able to do on an only power day.

For cardio, we had 1 long block. We started with a 5-minute run for distance and then had a 1-minute walking recovery. Then we had 4 rounds of 30-second all-outs with 1-minute to walk between each all-out. And then we repeated the entire thing again. Doing a 5-minute distance challenge isn’t anything too crazy and doing 30-second all-outs aren’t bad, but somehow doing them back to back was a lot in a good way. I didn’t change the resistance levels on the bike that much during the 5-minute challenges. I did start at my usual push pace level but had to split the difference between my base and push paces to keep going the entire time. But that was the only adjustment.

On the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first block was longer and started with a 300-meter row. Then we had 2 mini-blocks in the block. The first mini-block had chest presses, bench push-ups, and ab dolly hamstring curls (which I modified to be hip bridges). The second mini-block had hip hinge low rows, bridge rows on the straps, and ab dolly knee tucks. We were supposed to do the first mini-block 3 times, the second mini-block 3 times, and then go back to the rower. But I was finishing my last round on the second mini-block when this block ended so I never did my second row. And the second block on the floor was timed with the all-outs for cardio. We had side planks for 30-seconds and then rollouts on the ab dolly for 1-minute and had 4 rounds of that.

Saturday’s workout was a 2 group class, but it was formatted like a 3 group class. So we had 15 minutes at each section of the room. It was an endurance-based workout and the main feature of it was that we didn’t stop the entire time. Each section of the room had a single 15-minute block. And it wasn’t easy at all! This honestly felt like a Hell Week class!

The cardio block started with a 3-minute push pace and then we had a 90-second base pace. Then it was a 2 1/2-minute push, 75-second base, 2-minute push, 1-minute base, 90-second push, 45-second base, and we ended with a 1-minute all out. It was a lot and I was exhausted. I did have to take breaks during the block to drink water, but I tried to keep those just when we were at a base pace and make them as quick as I could. I wanted to try the challenge as closely as possible with no breaks.

On the rower, it was the same thing as cardio. No breaks and push pace and base pace intervals. This time, I knew I would need breaks. Even when I had the best rowing endurance, rowing for that long was almost impossible. But with my significantly reduced endurance, I just wanted to do as much as I could. I did take a lot of breaks during the rowing. I couldn’t make it through the 3-minute push pace without stopping. But I only had to unstrap my feet once to stretch, so that was an improvement over some of what I’ve done in the recent past.

And on the floor, we had 2 sections to the exercises. The first section was lower body focuses and the second section was upper body focused. The goal was to use the same weights for the first section and then switch to another set of weights and use those for the entire second section. The lower body exercises were lateral lunges, reverse lunges, front squats, and deadlifts. And the upper body exercises were hammer curls, shoulder presses, hip hinge high rows, and push-ups to plank high rows. I did ok with the weights for the first time through the exercises. But then my hips were starting to bother me a lot, so I did all the lower body exercises except the deadlifts without weights. This at least allowed me to have better form and make sure I wasn’t doing something wrong. But for the upper body exercises, I was able to use the weights for the entire block.

This past week of workouts really did feel extra hard to me, but I don’t mind. Maybe it’s harder because I’m not sleeping well or that I’m struggling with working out with my mask. Or maybe the workouts are harder or I’m pushing myself more. Whatever the reason, I’m really proud of what I did last week. I know I will have another tough week soon, so these good weeks really help to balance those out.

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I knew this past week of workouts would be tough for me. I wasn’t sure if I’d be having bad pain and nausea all week or if it would be really bad only for a few days and then taper off. But I was prepared for it to be all bad days and fortunately I was wrong. And it worked out perfectly because I have a new focus on getting better in my workouts and that happened after the worst day of the past week so I was able to accept the new challenge.

But Monday’s workout was what I was prepared for with it being one of the worst days. As much as I want to put a positive spin on it, I was miserable. I was in pain, I was feeling so nauseous, and I had no motivation to do anything. I showed up because I knew something was better than nothing, but I also knew I was going to be very limited in what I could do.

The workout was a signature workout: Catch Me If You Can. I actually like this signature workout and I was sad that I knew it wasn’t going to be a day I could really do the work. The idea is that there are distance checkpoints every 1-2 minutes and as long as you don’t fall behind the distance, you keep going. Because it was a 2 group class, if you didn’t make a checkpoint, you rowed and did squats the rest of the cardio block. I actually missed the checkpoint by the second one (which was 4 minutes in), but I knew I couldn’t row for the next 20 minutes. My coach knew I was having a bad day, so he understood that I just stayed on the bike and kept going, even if I wasn’t doing much.

On the floor, we had mostly exercises I could do without too many modifications. We had skier swings, shoulder presses, hip hinge reverse fly with weights, bicep curls, Y-raises on the straps, and plank dips. I was very slow on the floor and took a lot of time to rest and take deep breaths. But I did make it through class and that was the most important thing.

Wednesday was a power day and I was still feeling off but I was significantly better. I knew I wasn’t going to be 100%, but I’d be close to that so I could try harder. And I had some really great moments in class that made me much happier than what I was doing on Monday.

We had 3 blocks for cardio that were all the same format. We had a push pace, a base pace, a push pace, an all-out, a recovery, a push pace, and an all-out to finish. The difference between the 3 was the all-outs in each block. In the first block they were 1-minute, in the second they were 45-seconds, and in the last they were 30-seconds. I did have to take a few breaks during each break, but nothing too long.

And for the floor, we also had 3 blocks. In each block, we had some rowing to start. The first block had 3 rounds of a 150-meter row before the exercises, the second had 2 rounds, and the last only had 1 150-meter row. While I did try hard with all the rows, I really went all-out with the last one since I knew that was my last one. I was racing with the 2 people next to me on the rowers (I think we all needed that last little boost), and even though I lost the race I did get the highest wattage I’ve ever had on the rower! That was amazing! The rest of the floor blocks involved 3 different exercises in each. Each block had one upper body, one lower body, and one core exercise. I’ll admit that my row in the last block took me out a lot so I wasn’t really able to do much for the exercises in the last block, but that’s ok.

And after Wednesday’s class, I was chatting with my coach because he was giving me some specific guidance for my cardio that seemed a bit high for wattage considering what I usually can do. So he worked with me on the bike for a few minutes and challenged me to stop looking t the cadence I was pedaling and working more on using the resistance levels. I told him I couldn’t promise I would do that for every workout, but I would try.

Friday’s class was a strength day, so it was the perfect opportunity to work on focusing more on the resistance levels on the bike. And that’s exactly what I did.

The cardio had 3 blocks that all had the same breakdown. We had a 2-minute push pace, 1-minute base, 1-minute high incline (it was a powerwalk for everyone on the treadmills), 1-minute base at a lower incline, 1-minute base with no incline, and a 30-second all out. In each block, the inclines got higher. For my work on the bike, I did increase my base resistance level to be 1 higher and I used the resistance levels for the push paces and all-outs. And for the incline work, I did some of the highest levels I’ve ever used. I felt like I wasn’t moving at all, but I know I was working hard and my legs were so tired at the end.

On the floor, we had 1 long block and 1 short block. In the long block, we started with a 300-meter row, but we were supposed to do a really hard pull and then wait until the water in the tank was almost still again so we could do another really hard pull. It took longer to row that way, but it made the focus on our legs. Then we were supposed to do all the work for one side and then repeat the exercises for the other, but I can’t really do that with my hip issues so I just did them back to back. We had deadlifts (that were supposed to be single-leg but I did them with both feet down), lunges, hammer curls, and plank pendulums. Then we had another 300-meter row with the focus being on our legs before going back to those exercises. And in the shorter block, we had swing lunges (which I had to do as regular lunges), sumo deadlifts, and seated torso rotations. It was a lot of lower body work on a day where I did harder work on the bike, but I didn’t mind being sore when the workout was done.

By Saturday’s workout, I was almost completely over my nausea. I still had a tiny bit, but I knew that I would be able to push myself a lot more. And even though it was a power day, I decided to continue working with the resistance levels on the bike and challenge myself with making the cardio tougher for me so I could get better.

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 the longer blocks and we had rounds of push pace to all-outs. The all-outs were always 30-seconds long and the push paces decreased each time in the block. And I increased my resistance level for the push and the all-outs every time. I used the same level for the push paces no matter how long they were, but I think that is fine since it was still a challenge. And blocks 2 and 4 were on the rower with 3 rounds of a 30-second all-out row with 30 seconds to recover between. It was a tough row at the end of the block because I was tired, but I was able to do really well with the wattage I got on the rower and I could feel that my form wasn’t suffering even when I was tired.

And on the floor, we also had 4 blocks. Just like with cardio, blocks 1 and 3 were longer and blocks 2 and 4 were shorter. Block 1 had single-arm clean to press, bicep curls on the straps, and plank rotations (which I had to modify a little bit since I was starting to get nauseous while doing them). Block 2 had tricep extensions with weights and high knees (which I did more like marching in place). Block 3 had single-arm snatches, triceps on the straps, and plank dumbbell taps. And the last block had hammer curls and lateral hops (which I did as pulsing half squats). This workout was a tough one and I pushed myself more than I had all week to make up for what I couldn’t do earlier in the week.

I’m looking forward to this week’s workouts since I should be feeling like myself for the week. I know in the beginning of the week I might still be dealing with a little nausea, but it shouldn’t be too much and each day should be easier and easier. And we have a benchmark class this week that I’m both nervous and excited about. Hopefully, when I do my recap in a week I will have a lot of positive news to share about how each workout went!

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I know I’ve said this a few times, but I’m seriously so grateful that I’m back at Orangetheory and doing my regular 4 workouts each week. I know there were a lot of things that were making me feel out of sorts when I wasn’t able to take class at the studios, but not having my regular workouts was a big part of it. And each week as I’ve been back, I feel more like my old self. I know things are still not completely back, but even having a regular (and maybe boring) workout week means a lot to me these days.

Monday’s workout was a strength-based day. I was grateful to have a Monday that I was feeling good since I haven’t had a lot of good Mondays lately. This workout was a pretty classic strength one for cardio.

We had 3 blocks and they were all similar. We started with a push pace, a base pace, a base pace at incline, a flat base pace, and ended with an all-out. The push pace to start the block decreased each block and the incline/resistance level increased each block. The idea was to have the incline work feel similar to the push pace, and when the push pace is shorter you need to increase the incline to recreate that feeling. I tried to keep my pedaling consistent from block to block when doing the same thing (so every push pace was similar and every hill section was similar), but the last block was tough with the highest resistance level.

On the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first block had goblet squats, lateral lunges, and crunches using the Bosu. I had to do some minor modifications due to hip pain, but nothing too bad. The second block had weighted front squats, single-leg deadlifts (that I modified to be regular deadlifts), single-leg hip bridges (which I modified to be regular hip bridges), side plank hip work, and then a 300-meter row. Even though I had a lot more modifications in the second block, I also tried to push myself more with the weights I was using. I know I’m still not back to where I was before the shutdown, but I was able to use heavier weights for a lot of the exercises.

Wednesday’s workout was a mix of endurance, strength, and power. I was feeling a little off, but that had more to do with lack of sleep and not any nausea issues.

The cardio work had 2 blocks with short push pace to all-out intervals and 1 block with incline work. The blocks with push pace to all-outs had 30-second push paces and 45-second all-outs. Those are all fast sprints which were fun to do. And the incline work was all 30-second all-outs with decreasing inclines. I’m glad they were short because increasing the resistance level on the bike is still something that challenges me a lot.

On the floor, we had 3 blocks. The first block had skier swings, lunges, and plank jacks to push-ups. The second block had full burpees with squat jacks and a 150-meter row. The burpees took me a really long time, so I only got to do 1 row, but I was able to get the highest wattage I’ve gotten since the shutdown (and close to my all-time highest wattage) and my time was very close to my PR! And the last block had deadlifts (they were supposed to be single-leg but I modified them), lunges, and running man plank work. By the end of the workout, my hip was really sore, but I know when I’m tired that can be an issue that comes up.

And Friday’s workout was a strength day. My pain and nausea started to kick in so I had to work through that. Fortunately, unlike most of the time when they are both bad, this time only the pain was bad. So I still had to breathe through the cramps, but at least I didn’t have to do the same for the nausea.

For cardio, we had 5 blocks that had similar formats. We started with a 90-second push pace, then a 60-second base pace, then a 30-second push pace at an incline, and we ended with a 30-second all-out. Each block, the first push pace increased the incline and time and the second push pace decreased the incline and time. But every block was always the same length in total because of the change. I didn’t have to bring the resistance level up too high on the bike, but because of the cramps I had, it felt a lot harder.

And on the floor, we had one long block that was broken up into 3 mini-blocks with 2 exercises each. You did each mini-block 5 times and then did a 300-meter row before moving on to the next mini-block. The mini-blocks were deadlifts and front squats, chest presses with weights and seated low rows, and shoulder presses and squats to high rows on the straps. I did try to go heavy on the weights since that is the goal with strength days, and I was using heavier weights for some of the exercises. But my rowing wasn’t very good that day. I had some horrible cramps while sitting on the rower and I just had to be slow and go easy. But I did complete 2 different 300-meter rows, so that’s better than nothing.

Saturday’s workout was a power day, and again I was struggling with pain and nausea. It wasn’t as bad as it can usually get, but it was worse than Friday. But I was grateful that there were very few exercises that could make me feel worse, so that’s a bonus.

For cardio, we had 5 blocks. Every block had a push pace, base pace, and then a run for distance or an all-out. The push pace and the run for distance/all-out were always the same amount of time. They started at 90 seconds and decreased by 15 seconds each block. It wasn’t the hardest cardio workout I’ve done, but I was happy we had a decent amount of base pace time because I did use that to recover and rest when I needed to.

And on the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first block had sumo goblet squats, lateral hops (I did these as lateral lunges), sit-ups (I did these as crunches), and a row. The row started at 100-meters and increased by 50 meters each time. And the second block had sumo squats, squat jumps (I didn’t jump but did calf raises), plank punches (I used the bench so I wasn’t totally facing the ground), and a row. This time, the row started at 250-meters and decreased by 50 meters each time. I had to take my time on the floor, but I still did almost 3 full rounds of each block.

I know my workout posts don’t share a ton of crazy stories. I haven’t had a lot of exciting news other than me being back in the studio. And I’m sorry if they aren’t as interesting as they used to be. But I am getting back to where I think I will have some great accomplishments and hopefully I’ll have some fun workout news to share in the future!

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I usually have very clear good weeks and bad weeks with my workouts. They tend to be predictable even if I don’t know exactly when things are going to be good or bad. And whenever there is something I’m not prepared for or expecting, it can throw me off quite a bit. And I had that this week, but fortunately, it only affected one out of my four workouts.

On Monday, I didn’t work out at my normal time. Since I had the day off, I was able to work out a little bit later. It was nice to have the extra time in the morning, although I didn’t sleep in any later since my body is really starting to get used to the new wake-up time. And working out later may have been the issue that ended up cursing me during the workout.

Normally, I don’t take most of my morning medications before my workout. They can make me feel a bit nauseous, so I take them once I get home. But I thought I had enough time to take them and make sure I felt ok, so I took my meds before my workout. And I felt fine going to class. Famous last words.

We had 4 blocks for cardio. Blocks 1 and 3 were almost the same and blocks 2 and 4 were the same. In blocks 1 and 3, we had rounds of all-outs with walking recoveries. All of the all-outs were 30 seconds and the recoveries varied from 1-minute to 30-seconds. And in blocks 2 and 4, we were on the rowers. We started with a squat hold for as long as we could do it. Once we couldn’t hold a squat, we had rounds of 30-seconds on the rower followed by lunges.

Overall, this should have been a great workout and nothing too crazy. But in block 3, I knew that my medication was hitting me and I was going to be sick. In all the times I’ve been nauseous in class, I have never left class because I needed to throw up. I have left to take medication to make sure I don’t throw up, but I joke that my body knows when I’m working out and won’t let me get sick there. But I guess medicated nausea is different from hormonal nausea. I jumped off the bike and ran to the bathroom to be sick. It wasn’t pleasant at all, but I guess I’m lucky that I’m used to this so I was able to get over it and get back to the workout. I did make sure I took some time to drink water and let my body settle before pushing myself again. But I had to go easy the rest of the workout because I was scared it would happen again.

So on the floor, I was going very easy because I was worried. And I did modifications that I normally do when I’m nauseous. Even though I was feeling better after I left the bathroom, I was still scared it would hit me again. For the floor, both blocks 1 and 3 started with 1 minute of burpees and 30 seconds of a plank. I did the burpees modified with the bench but I ended up being ok with the plank. The first block also had full thrusters with weights and hop overs (which I did as lunges) and the third block also had sumo squats with froggers and hop overs (which I did at the end of the bench as little side to side hops). In blocks 2 and 4, we had a lot of core work. Block 2 had mountain climbers and sit-ups and block 4 and plank kick throughs and crunches. Fortunately, I never got sick again during class. But I am still surprised that it happened at all since I have avoided that for so long.

And by Wednesday’s workout, I was back to my normal schedule (so no medications before class and no nausea). We had an endurance day and it was a good one that had a lot of rowing considering it was a 2 group class.

We had 2 blocks for cardio and the first block was all rowing. We set the rowers for 11 minutes and we had 4 rounds of 2-minute rows. Between each row, we had recovery time with front and back shuffles. After completing all the front and back shuffles, we were back on the rowers doing recovery row strokes until the next 2-minute row. I’m proud of myself for getting at least 400-meters for each of the rows and I’m so glad that my foot is finally feeling better so I can put more pressure on it when I row. And the second block was on the treadmills and bike. We had intervals of push paces and base paces. All of the base paces were 1-minute and the push paces started at 2-minutes and went down 30-seconds each round, ending with a 30-second all-out. It was a great bike block for me and I was able to get my pedaling speed up quite a bit during the push paces.

On the floor, we also had 2 blocks. The first block had 2 mini-blocks and we were supposed to do the first mini-block for 3 rounds before moving on to the second. The first block had speed squats, hip hinge swings with weights, and high rows to low rows on the straps as the first mini-block. And speed skaters, plank work, and alternating superman for the second mini-block. And the second block was a regular block with alligators on the straps, lateral lunges with upright rows, hip hinge reverse grip low rows, and side plank pendulums. I had a bit of trouble with the pendulums, but I took my time and got through them without needing to take too many breaks.

Friday was a power day and it was all about exploding motions on the floor. I’m not that great at those exercises since I am so careful with balance, but I was happy to challenge myself. And it gave me a great chance to work on my rowing.

For cardio, we had 3 blocks. Each block had rounds of push paces to all-outs. The first block had 2-minute pushes, the second block had 1-minute pushes, and the last block had 30-second pushes. The all-outs were always 30-seconds long. Even with the 2-minute push paces, the time before we had some recovery was pretty short so I was able to pedal pretty fast. I still want to get the watts on the bike higher, and right now I only notice that when I’m increasing the resistance level. But I want to see if I can do that just from my power as well.

On the floor, we also had 3 blocks. And every block started with rowing work. We had a push pace stroke drill, 100-meter row, stroke drill for recovery, another push pace stroke drill, and ended with another 100-meter row. Even though it wasn’t a lot of rowing, I was getting tired at the end of the rowing work so I know I didn’t have my fastest 100-meter rows. But I was still happy with what I got done in each block. After the rowing, each block had 2 exercises that were connected. One exercise was doing the motion but a little more stable and the second was the same motion with more explosive action. The combinations were chest press with weights/power push-ups, goblet lunges/jumping lunges (I modified the second to be regular lunges), and double crunch with weights/power sit-ups. The last block was exceptional hard for me with it just being core work, but overall they were awesome exercises.

And as things continue to change for the re-opening, the classes I take change too. I thought I would get to still have a 3 group class on Saturdays, but now all my classes will be 2 groups. Some of my morning ones might eventually go back to 3 groups, but I don’t think that will be soon if it happens. And since this class was 2 groups, it allowed it to be a run/row day.

The run/row for cardio was one long block. We started on cardio with a 30-second all-out with the incline or resistance level set to be 4% higher than a base level. Then we had 30 seconds to recover before going back to the all-out but holding it as long as we could. Then it was another 30 seconds to recover before one last all-out as long as we could go. And every time we got back on the treadmill or bike, the incline or resistance level went down by 1%. And on the rower, we had 3 rounds of 10 strokes at an all-out pace followed by 5 strokes to recover. Even though I was doing recovery during my row, I was surprised to see how far my distance was getting on the rower. I was close to some of my old PR times for 300-meter rows! When I do those PRs, I usually just go all-out the entire time, but I know I get tired. It was interesting to see that I could do almost the same thing with the recovery in there so I didn’t get as tired.

And on the floor, we had 3 blocks. The first 2 blocks had a similar pattern for the first exercise. We did the exercise 3 times in a row. The first time was for 5 reps and then we had a 10-second rest. Then the next two rounds we did as many reps as we could with a 10-second rest between. So I had a range with how many I was able to do. In the first block, we did that with seated low rows. And in the second block we did that with chest presses with weights. The first block also had scaptions and the second block also had hip hinge reverse fly with weights. The last block was a bit more of the usual thing with the reps being set. We started with 14 reps and decreased by 2 each round. For that block, we had bicep curls and tricep extensions.

Even though my workout on Monday started off my week on a bit of a bad note, I’m so grateful that none of my other workouts were affected by it. I was able to push myself really hard and ignore the one bad workout. And I hope that if I have any bad days this week, I can do the same thing!

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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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This past week, there were a lot of changes at my Orangetheory studio. Some of these changes were back to things that I was used to before the shutdown and some of them were brand new to me. But for the most part, every single workout this week was different from the week before for me. And I know that things will continue to change for me as things continue to get safer and get back to how they were before, but I think having so many changes at once was a bit shocking.

Monday’s workout was my first 6:30 am class, and it worried me about getting up that early. But I have been slowly adjusting my wakeup time so fortunately, it wasn’t too bad when my alarm went off. I had never worked out that early before, but if I wanted to work out before work, that was the latest time option I had with the new schedule. I still am hoping that the schedule will change again soon so that I don’t have to be up quite as early, but it seems like it will be doable until things change.

The workout was a strength-based class and it was a 3 group class (my last morning 3 group class for a while). For cardio, we had 2 blocks but they had similar patterns. In both blocks, we had a set distance we were supposed to do and the incline/resistance level went up by 1 each round. The first block had a bit longer of a distance for each round, but for both blocks, they were pretty short and it was nice to get to a recovery break quickly. I never got the resistance level up too high, but I did most of my work higher than my normal base resistance level.

For the rower, we had one long block. We started with a 250-meter row and it went down by 50-meters each round until it was a 100-meter row and then it repeated from the top. In the first round, we had high knees between each row, the second round had lunges between each row, and in the last round, we had shuffles between each round.

And on the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first block had deadlifts, side lunges, and step-ups (which I modified to be regular lunges). And the second block had sumo squats, hip bridge tricep extensions, and bridge chest fly. I did try to go a bit heavy with the weights, but I’m still using a little lighter weights than I was using before the shutdown.

Wednesday’s class had even more changes for me. Besides it also being at 6:30 am, t was the first class I had where masks were optional as long as you were fully vaccinated. This was something I hesitated on, but I ended up deciding to go without a mask but keep one with me in case I changed my mind. It also was the first 2 group class I’ve had in a long time. 2 group classes used to be what I had all the time, and they are great for a lot of reasons. But I also knew it would mean less rowing for me.

On both cardio and the floor, we had 5 blocks. For cardio, 3 of those 5 blocks were 2-minute distance challenges. And the goal every time was to beat the distance from the previous time. And the other 2 blocks were similar patterns with 45-seconds of base pace at an incline and 30-seconds of a base pace without incline for 4 rounds plus a 30-second all-out at the end. The first one had increasing inclines and the second had decreasing inclines. And they were high and I had to use very high resistance levels on the bike. It was a really challenging cardio section. Not only because of the resistance levels but because this was the longest time I’ve been on the bike for a very long time.

On the floor, we also have 5 blocks. The first and last blocks were both 2-minute row challenges and the goal was to do better on the second row than the first. I managed to get about 50 meters further the second time, which shocked me since I was so tired at the very end of the workout! We also had 1 more 2-minute block in the middle that was just 2 minutes of squat jacks to burpees (which I had to take very slow and didn’t get a lot of reps in). And for the long blocks, we had 3 exercises each. One block had clean to front squats with weights, lunges with hops, and push-ups. And the other block had weighted lunges, plank jacks, and low rows on the straps.

I was happy to not need to wear a mask anymore. Even though I didn’t struggle too much wearing it in class, it was nice to be able to easily take a drink of water when I needed to. And I’m glad that I didn’t do too bad in my first 2 group class since I knew it was going to be very different from what I have been used to since I started back.

Friday’s class didn’t have any new changes for me, but it was still an early 2 group class that was mask-optional. This workout was a strength-based class and I knew it would still be a challenge with being on the bike for so long. I’m sure I will get used to the longer cardio soon, but for now, it will probably still be tough for me.

For cardio, we started rounds of base paces at inclines followed by base paces with no incline and then an all-out followed by a longer block of just incline work. The incline started at the highest point and then went down and then we started back up the hill again. For the first half, as the incline went down the time we were at an incline went up. And in the last part, as we were going back up the incline, every incline was done for a minute. I was using the higher resistance levels on the bike and I was pedaling really slow for so much of it, but I was really proud of myself for not going easy on myself with the hills.

On the floor, we only had floor work so there was no rowing. The first 3 blocks had a bit of an add-on element and the last block had a takeaway element. The first 3 blocks all started with 1 round of bear steps. The second block added toe reaches and the third block also added on static crunches with scissor kicks. And all 3 of those blocks followed those add-on exercises with rounds of tricep extensions, chest press to reaches, and seated low rows. The last block had all 3 add-on exercises plus plank in and outs and we did 4 rounds with taking away one exercise each round. Then we had the same weighted exercises. My arms were so tired doing all the weight work since I was exercising a lot of the same muscles and the floor was for half the class (instead of a third which is what I’ve been used to), but it was good and I’m proud of what I was able to get done.

Saturday’s class was a 3 group class (for now, that will be my only 3 group class a week until things change up again). But it was at a slightly different time than I’ve been used to. This time change wasn’t as bad as the morning one, I just have a little more time between ending work on Saturdays and when my workout happens so I can get a few things done around my house between the two things.

The workout was a power day and there was a lot of emphasis on making sure we pushed ourselves hard, especially for cardio. There was a lot of recovery time in each block, so if we didn’t push hard then the workout would be much easier than it should be. We had rounds of push paces followed by base paces and then an all-out. The push paces weren’t too long, so I really did focus on getting my pedaling speed up and maintaining it the entire time. And for the all-outs, I really tried to maximize how quickly I could pedal without losing control. When we had the base paces or the recovery time, I was taking little breaks, mainly to drink water, but I was usually ready to pick things up again when we were back to the rest of the block.

On the rower, we had 3 blocks that all had repeats of a certain row distance plus exercises. I actually never made it to the exercises for any block (those exercises were frogger squats and then a squat hold), so I just did all the distance rows. The first block was 5 rounds of 100-meter rows, the second block was 4 rounds of 150-meter rows, and the last block was 3 rounds of 200-meter rows. Between each round, we were supposed to keep rowing but do 5-10 recovery strokes so they could be really slow. I didn’t go too crazy with any of my rowing since I knew I was pretty much going to be rowing for the entire block, but none of my times were that bad or off of what I would want to do.

And on the floor, we also had 3 blocks. The first block had ultimate burpees with half thrusters and lateral crunches on the Bosu. I had to modify the burpees and I broke them down into different parts and did those separately. So I did push-ups, plank rows, and squats. The second block had tripod burpees (which I just modified to be slower and walking in and out) and v-ups. And the last block had hip hinge swings and running man on the Bosu. It wasn’t my best floor block since I had to modify so much of it, but I was grateful it was a 3 group class since that meant I wasn’t on the floor as long.

Overall, considering all the changes I had this past week, I’m proud of how quickly I adapted. I wasn’t too worried about adapting to not wearing a mask, that was more of just feeling ok with it. But getting used to early workouts and going back to 2 group classes worried me. But like so many things I have worried about, I didn’t need to. My body adapted quickly and I’m sure this will feel normal and routine to me in no time. Probably right before things change up again.

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