Tag Archives: Orangetheory

Being Social Outside Of Workouts (or Making OTF Friends)

Posted on October 23, 2018 | Comments Off

Pretty much since the first Orangetheory location opened in Los Angeles in Brentwood, there have been social events for members. They want to make the studio feel like a community and I love that about Orangetheory. They have done hikes, beach days, yoga classes, and other fun things. I’ve only made it to the yoga class though.

A lot of the social events happen on Saturdays. The beach days and hikes have almost always been on a Saturday. While I could go after I’m done with work to the beach days (especially if I skip my workout that day), I could never make the hikes because I have to work. I guess I could use some of my banked hours to miss a shift, but since Saturdays are one of our busiest days I feel bad when I do that. And some of the other social events have been on a Friday evening. For me those were tough to go to because of my schedule and drive time. If I went after a workout on a Friday evening, I had 2 options. One would be to shower at Orangetheory, wait a few hours, and then be a part of whatever event was happening. The other would be to drive home (which sometimes took over 90 minutes), shower, drive back to where I was, and then be late for the event. Neither of those were good options for me so I never went.

But once the Culver City location opened, I knew that I’d have a better chance of going to one of the fun things they would be planning. Some of the events are the same ones that the Brentwood one does because they are regional events (like the hikes and beach days), so I had missed those. And they did do a wine tasting event at a bar near the studio, but since I’m not drinking right now I didn’t feel like paying for an event that I couldn’t really participate in.

But this past Friday, there was finally an event I could go to! It was hanging out at Rush St (where I seem to go all the time) and while that is a bar it wasn’t necessarily an alcohol event like a wine tasting. We had the back patio area reserved for Orangetheory for a few hours that evening and we could hang out, order food and drinks if we wanted to, and just have a fun time. And since I work out in the mornings, it was super easy to go to something that night!

I’ve joked to people that when someone from my workouts sees me in normal clothes, a lot of times they are shocked. I have long hair but since I have it in a top knot during a workout most people don’t realize that. Plus since my hair is so thin, the top knot doesn’t look like it’s holding a lot of hair. The first time people from the Brentwood studio saw me with my hair down, many of them couldn’t stop saying that I have long hair. I guess they weren’t expecting that. So I thought I might have the same situation with this event.

When I got there a couple of coaches as well as front desk staff were there. But I didn’t recognize anyone from class. I knew that there was a chance that even if I was next to someone who usually is in class with me, I might not recognize them. People do look different in normal clothes and I’m usually in my head and focusing on myself during workouts. I don’t really pay attention to others, but I think a lot of people are the same way. I tried to not be shy when I didn’t really know anyone there, and fortunately there were people who brought me into their conversations so I wasn’t there alone and looking awkward.

I had gotten there toward the beginning of the event and it wasn’t that packed when I arrived. But people were quickly showing up and before I knew it the patio area was packed and there were so many people hanging out! I still didn’t recognize anyone from class, but I didn’t mind it after a bit. Several of us said we should have written what class times we take on the name tags we had so we could tell who might have been in class with us. But since everyone was in the same situation with wondering who they have seen in class before, it wasn’t that weird. We all were joking about it whenever we were meeting someone knew.

Since I didn’t see anyone I knew from class (or if we had been in class before, it was only a few times), nobody was shocked by how I looked out of workout clothes. But when one of my coaches arrived an hour after it started, she took a look at me and couldn’t believe that I had long hair. It was funny seeing her shocked at my appearance, but I also think that it’s a good thing that I look very different in a workout compared to when I’m in normal clothes. I never look good during a workout because I don’t really care how I look, so I would hate it if I still looked the same when I make an effort.

I was at the bar for longer than I was planning on being there. I work on Saturday mornings so I usually am not out that late on a Friday night. But I was having such a great time meeting new people and getting to hang out with my coaches in a social setting that time just flew by. I met so many new people who go to Orangetheory, but many of them work out super early or in the afternoon or evenings so I won’t be seeing them in class. But many of us did exchange numbers so we can hang out another time. And many of them have never done Hell Week before so they wanted my advice on how I have done it in the past. I’m always happy to help out people who have questions about the workouts so I was just glad I could help a little bit.

So many people talk about how hard it is to make friends as an adult. I agree completely with that idea because it really isn’t easy. I work from home by myself so I don’t make friends at work. I have made friends from workouts, but those friendships usually take months to happen because most people there aren’t looking around to chat before or after a workout. I do make friends at parties or union events, but that’s not always the case. So to have a night out with people that I know have one big thing in common with me was such a great opportunity to make new friends. And I’m so glad that’s exactly what happened.

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Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged fitness, friends, hangout, Orangetheory, social

A Week Of Progress (or Feeling More Like Me)

Posted on October 22, 2018 | Comments Off

Last week, I wrote about how I was hoping this past week of workouts wouldn’t be a week where I felt nauseous. It seemed like I would be feeling back to normal by Monday, and I really was optimistic. But it didn’t end up being that way. But with the issues I had, I found new ways to make progress and ended the week on a high note.

Monday’s workout was a power day, but I decided to stick with the bike again. I wasn’t feeling nauseous before the workout, but I was scared it might kick in during class. And I’m working on what I can do to help keep the nausea away when there is a chance I’ll have it but not experiencing it. And I think using the bike instead of the treadmill is one of those things that is a good option to do.

We had 5 blocks on cardio and they all had a similar pattern with a push pace, base pace, and ending with a push to all out pace. Each block the push pace before the all out got longer so it became a bit more challenging to do an all out after it. I was using my normal resistance levels for all the bike work but tried to do some faster pedaling with the push and all out paces. When we got to the longer push paces, I tried to do almost like my run/walk intervals with the pedaling. I would do some speedy pedaling and then recover a bit with pedaling slower but still being at the same resistance level. It was a new challenge and made working on the bike different and fun. And I did feel like I was working much harder!

On the floor, we had one long block with adding on exercises. Each round started with a row, but as we added on exercises the rows got shorter. The exercises included neutral full thrusters with weights, Y raises on the straps, bench tap squats, plank jacks to push ups, and lunges with weights. The rows were all pretty short starting with 300 meters and going down 50 meters each time, so I was able to do those easily and within my time goals. And the floor work was going well for the most part until I got to the plank jacks to push ups. When I’m nauseous I don’t do things that make me face down and parallel to the ground. I was feeling pretty good so I wasn’t thinking about that until I started the plank jacks. Then my nausea came back and it was lasting longer than I thought. So I had to switch to doing them with my hands on the bench to not be totally parallel to the floor. I made it through the lunges which was the last exercise just as the workout ended. There were bonus rounds I was hoping to get to, but I was happy just to finish everything that we were supposed to.

Wednesday’s workout was an endurance day. While my nausea was almost gone, I was dealing with a queasy stomach and was being extra cautious. I don’t know what caused the queasiness, but I was going to do what I do when I’m nauseous to make sure that I was going to be able to do the workout to the best of my ability.

I was on the bike for cardio and we had 3 blocks. The focus of all of the blocks was coming back to base pace after a push pace so most of the push paces were a minute or under. It was nice to not have all 3 minute push paces like we do sometimes for endurance days. I kept my resistance levels at the usual levels and I didn’t do the intervals like I did on Monday since the push paces were shorter. But I did try to keep pedaling faster to make up for the shorter segments. I did have a few moments of nausea hitting me when I had to stop on the bike to let it pass, but I was just so glad that it was even less frequent than Monday because it felt like my nausea was lasting forever this time.

On the floor, we had 2 regular blocks and 1 rowing block. The first floor block was all mini-band work. We had weighted squats, hip bridges, and weighted ab twists. I used 20lb weights for all the exercises which is normal for the squats and hip bridges but a bit heavier than I normally do for ab twists. I’ve struggled in the past with the mini-bands getting really twisted on my legs, but this time they stayed where they were placed so I didn’t have to waste time fixing them. The second block was weighted squats to upright rows, mountain climbers, and half get ups. I had to go to a lighter weight for this block for the squats and half get ups because I was dealing with some shoulder soreness that I’ve had from time to time the past month or so, but that also allowed me to be slower with my movements and in turn that made them feel harder.

The row block was an interesting one. It was using the rowing as the recovery but it didn’t feel like recovery. We had 3 rounds of doing 30 seconds of squats followed by 1 minute to do a 150 meter row. That row should take under 45 seconds, but you also have to consider the time it takes to get strapped into the rower. If you finish the row before the minute is done, then you get to have a full recovery. For me, I was finishing the row with maybe 5 seconds to go so it wasn’t really a recovery at all. The end of the rowing block was a 30 second push row to a 1 minute all out row. I did try to increase my wattage for the all out row, but it wasn’t easy with it being at the end of the workout. But I did my best and got the wattage up a tiny bit by the end.

Friday’s workout was really working in my favor. I was finally not nauseous, it was a power day, it was a switch day, and it was a 3 group workout. So I knew I could be on the treadmill and really do my best. I was never going to be on the treadmill for that long and there would be a lot of opportunities for me to work on my running. I had been craving running (even when I was nauseous) recently and I was so happy that I’d get to do that.

For the treadmill, the first and last block were the same and the middle one was different. The first and third block were really short and since I knew I’d be coming off the treadmill when the block was done I really went for it. Those blocks were a 45 second push pace, 45 second base pace, and a 30 second all out. For the first block I ran my push and all out at my normal running speed and walked my base pace. But for the last block I wanted to try to do more so I increased my speed for the all out and ran the fastest I’ve run in probably a year! The second block was a little longer with a set of 1 minute intervals with push paces, base paces, and all outs followed by a set of 30 second intervals doing the same. I was using my normal running speed for all the 1 minute push and all outs and for the 30 second push paces. But I increased my speed for the 30 second all out (which is what inspired me to do more in the last block) and I was just so happy.

On the rower, the first and third block were the same with 3 rounds of a 30 second all out pace followed by 15 seconds to recover. 15 seconds of recovery feels like nothing so it just felt like a few minutes of rowing. I wasn’t getting my wattage as high as I would have liked, but I tried. The middle block was rounds of rowing with lunges between each round. We started at a 100 meter row and went up 50 meters each time. My hips were feeling a bit tight when I was doing the lunges (probably due to the running), so I didn’t have the easiest time with them. But I used the rower for balance and almost used them more as stretches.

And on the floor, just like with the treadmill and rower, the first and third blocks were the same. We had timed exercises with squats with medicine ball presses, sit up with shoulder presses using the medicine ball, and atomic mountain climbers. Each exercise was for 30 seconds with 15 seconds of recovery between to get ready for the next exercise. The second block had good mornings to tricep kickbacks, single arm clean to press, bear steps, and singe arm chest presses. I used my normal weights for the weight work because I was getting a bit tired and didn’t want my form to suffer. But I could feel how hard I was working even though I didn’t use super heavy weights.

Saturday’s workout was endurance, strength, and power based and it ended up being the highlight of the week for me. I was feeling so great after running on Friday that I wanted to do it again. And I had a great opportunity to do that during the treadmill portion of class.

The first block was endurance based with a 3 minute push pace, 2 minute base pace, 1 minute push pace, and 1 minute all out. I did the long push pace as 1 minute run/walk intervals, walked the base pace, and ran the last push and all out pace. 2 minutes of running felt long, but I felt awesome after doing it! The next block was focused on strength so we had incline work, and I walked for all of that. But we still ended with a 1 minute push pace to a 1 minute all out and I ran those 2 minutes again. And the last block just had 2 rounds of 1 minute push paces to 1 minute all out paces and I ran those too! The last few were tough and I think I might have overdone it a bit with the running, but I really just wanted to do it and I’m glad I did.

For the floor work, we started with a block on the rower. We had rounds of rowing with body weight exercises between each row. For the first 2 rounds, we had 100 meter rows. The next 2 rounds were 10 pulls on the rower. And the last round was 30 second rows. I only got through 1 of the 30 second rows. And between each row we had either squats or lunges. The next block was weighted work with lateral lunges and plank rows. And the last block was a partner core blast where one partner held a side plank while the other had bicycle crunches and leg raises. For some reason my heart rate was so high during this workout and it wasn’t coming back down like it normally does, so I was using the time I was supposed to be side planking as a little bit of a rest. I didn’t want to be slacking while I was doing the core work because my partner was waiting on me!

I’m so glad that this past week of workouts ended on a high note. I have needed this victory feeling and I’m feeling much more optimistic about my workouts than I was the week before. And I’m glad I’m in a better workout mindset because this week is the beginning of Hell Week! I’m doing 3 days of Hell Week this week and 2 days of it the week after, so I’ll be writing all about it over the next 2 weeks!

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Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged fitness, Orangetheory, progress, running, workout

Biking and Burpees (or Some Nauseous Workouts)

Posted on October 15, 2018 | Comments Off

This past week of workouts were pretty tough for me. I was dealing with some of the worst nausea I had ever experienced (although I was fortunate that the worst day was on a rest day) and I figured that was what made these workouts so hard. But after almost all my classes, the coaches were saying how tough these workouts were. So I guess it wasn’t just me. Since Hell Week is coming up soon, a bunch of us thought of these classes as preparation for it. But knowing that it wasn’t just me struggling didn’t make these workouts any easier!

Monday’s workout was an endurance day, and right when I got to my workout I started experiencing some bad nausea. I took medication right before class, but I knew it would take a bit of time to kick in. So while I was on the bike for the cardio part of class I was battling how I was feeling.

The idea for the cardio workout was a 23 minute distance run, but it was coached with different push to base paces. I tried to follow the coaching and use the resistance levels on the bike that I normally do, but when I was feeling off I brought the resistance down and just focused on not stopping. I wasn’t doing too bad during the bike considering how I was feeling before class, but I also know that I wasn’t doing my absolute best either.

On the floor, it was one long block that had two parts. The first part was regular floor work and the second part had rowing and squats. The regular floor work included dumbbell swings, lunges, uppercuts, and plank leg lifts. At first, we did 3 rounds of that before moving to the rower for a 150 meter row and 8 squats. Then we went back to the floor and did 2 rounds of it plus 2 rounds of rowing and squats. Finally it was 1 round of floor work and 3 rounds of rowing. I made it through the doing just 1 round of floor work before class was over. I was using slightly lighter weights than normal and my rowing wasn’t quite as fast as I usually go, but consider the issues I was dealing with I didn’t really care.

Wednesday’s workout was a strength workout and my nausea was even worse. Not only was I dealing with nausea, but I was in a lot of pain from cramps and I was very bloated. All of those things didn’t make me too excited to work out, but I also knew doing it would help me feel a bit more normal.

Each of the cardio blocks had a similar format with a long push pace, a base pace, a base pace at an incline, a base pace back on a flat treadmill, and an all out pace. I was on the bike and tried doing what I could with my resistance levels. I managed to get pretty close to what I normally do, but I was pedaling much slower than normal. Compared to other classes, I only did about 75% of the distance on the bike. I was a bit surprised how much less I did when it felt like I did more effort. But I think the effort was from overcoming how I felt that morning.

On the floor we also had 3 blocks. Each block started with a 200 meter row. We were supposed to do stroke counts and work on increasing our wattage, but I just tried to do it without stopping. All of them took more than a minute which is pretty long for me. Then we had one row type exercise with weights and one core exercise each block. For the row type exercises we had split stance low rows, split stance high rows, and upright rows. And for the core work we had double crunches, plank pull throughs, and half get ups. I was using some good weights for all the weighted work which helped me feel better after doing less than what I hoped on the bike.

I got through the worst of my nausea on Thursday which was a rest day, but I was still not feeling that great on Friday. But I was happy that I got through the worst part and that I might be able to do some better work in the workout. But then I discovered that this workout was a special one for World Burpee Day and it wasn’t really designed for someone who couldn’t bounce around too much or be parallel to the ground without being nauseous.

Fortunately, that class was a 3 group one, so I was at each section of the room for about 15 minutes. I started with cardio on the bike and we had 3 blocks that were each 4 minutes long. We had a 90 second hill which had decreasing inclines every 30 seconds, a flat base pace, a push pace at an incline, and an all out pace (I don’t remember if this was at an incline or not for the treadmills). I worked on trying to do my best with my resistance levels on the bike and I actually did a bit higher resistance levels than I had to with the 90 second hills because I used the same resistance pattern each time when it was supposed to be a bit less each time.

On the rower, we had rounds of rowing with mini band arm raises between each row. We started at a 700 meter row and we were supposed to decrease by 100 meters each time we got back on the rower. My only goal was to try to row as long as I could without stopping. I managed to do that for the 700 meter row, but that might have been a mistake because that was the only row I could do without stopping. For the 600 and 500 rows, I was only able to go about 45 seconds before I was having waves of nausea and needed to pause. I didn’t get as much rowing done as I would have liked to because of the breaks, but I did my best.

And then I was on the floor for all the burpees. We had 5 types of burpees to do in the workout. We had regular burpees, burpees with a plank jack, rolling burpees, burpees with step ups, and ultimate burpees. Between each type of burpees we had crunches and the goal was to make it through all of the burpees before class was done. I knew that I’d have to do modifications for every single type because of my nausea. I had to use the bench for my hands for all of them because I didn’t want to be flat on the ground. Normally when I use the bench I can jump my feet back and forth, but I had to step back and step together again. I also can’t do step ups so I do lunges instead (and I had to split it up so I did all the burpees first and the lunges after). Even with all the modifications, I still needed to take a lot of breaks. But somehow I was on the last round of crunches when class was done so I did make it through all 5 types of burpees.

Saturday’s class was a mix of endurance, strength, and power. I was a little sore from the workout the day before (and Friday night I was at Disneyland but I’ll write about that tomorrow) and I was still getting over the nausea. But it was one of the lighter nausea days so I knew I’d be able to do some really great work on the bike.

We had a switch class where all the blocks were 4.5 minutes and we switched between cardio and the floor every block. All the cardio blocks were the same with a 30 second push pace, 1 minute base pace, 2 minute push pace, and 1 minute all out. For the first block I used my normal resistance levels on the bike, but I realized I could do more. So for the other 3 blocks, I had my base, push, and all out resistances 1 level higher than I normally use. It was a bit tough doing that for all the 2 minute push paces, but it felt really great each time when I completed the block and moved to the floor. I felt really strong and fast and I needed that little victory.

On the floor, we had 3 floor blocks and 1 rowing block. For each of the floor blocks we had 1 Bosu exercise and 1 other exercise. The Bosu exercises were single arm chest presses, back extensions, and pull overs. I had the do the back extensions on the ground because of my nausea, but for everything else I used the Bosu and had some good weights to use. And the other exercises were single leg V ups, single arm power jacks, and single arm clean to presses. Again, for the weights I was using what I have been using lately so that was great. And for the rowing block, we had a 600 meter row and then 20 seconds to recover. We were supposed to do a 300 meter row next followed by a 150 meter row, but my 600 meter row took so long that I only had time to recover for 20 seconds and then do just under a minute of rowing to finish class.

I’m really hopeful this week I won’t have any bad nausea days. I might have some mild ones toward the beginning of the week, but I know that it won’t be as bad as what I had this past week. And I’m so glad that for Hell Week it should be a good week too because I can’t imagine how it would be doing those workouts feeling how I did this past week. Of course, there is always a chance that I might have some nausea during that week, but hopefully this week prepared me for how to make it through!

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Tagged fitness, Orangetheory, sick, struggle, tough, workout

Working On Some New Challenges (or It’s A Partner Month)

Posted on October 8, 2018 | Comments Off

This past week of workouts was a really good week for me. October has a lot of fun things happening at Orangetheory and I’m excited about them. Of course, there is Hell Week coming up at the end of the month. But there is also a triple buddy challenge happening for the entire month. I’m a part of a team of 3 and we need to complete 45 workouts this month as a group. I’m pretty sure this will happen no matter what with my group since we all go so often, but I also know not to slack off on things.

Monday’s workout was an endurance day with a benchmark challenge. It was the 12 minute run for distance and I knew that I couldn’t focus on the distance part of the challenge. In the past, I’ve been able to run the entire 12 minutes and that wasn’t going to be how this attempt went. But I tried to just focus on seeing what I could do and not what my distance was going to end up as.

For the 12 minute challenge, my original idea was to do 1 minute running/2 minutes walking intervals. I was able to do that for the first 4 minutes, but then I realized that running for a minute was just a bit too long for me. I was feeling a bit defeated because I did think that I was taking it easy, but my body was telling me that I was still going too hard. So I switched to 30 seconds running/90 seconds walking until the final minute. And for the last minute I ran and I knew that it was probably not the right choice but I still did it. Even though I told myself I wasn’t worried about the distance, I did have a goal in my head to try to be at least at .75 miles, and I was so happy and relieved that I was able to beat that.

Next I was on the floor where we had increasing rep counts. Our exercises were chest presses, tricep extensions, hip bridges with weight, crunches, and plank work. Since the rep counts were higher than what we had during the Orange X workout, I did go a bit lighter on my weights and used 25lb dumbbells.

Then it was back to cardio where technically it was a row challenge with running for distance when we were done. The idea was to take the distance we got on the treadmill and used that as our meters for the rower. And power walkers had to double theirs or they could do 1500 meters. Since 1500 meters was less than double my distance, that was what I was supposed to do. But we only had 7 minutes in that block so I was just on the rower the entire time. Very few people made it to the treadmill, but I think everyone was happy rowing after a tough treadmill challenge.

I ended my workout on the floor where we had decreasing rep count work. We had chest presses using the straps, plank alternating reaches, and more crunches. The 7 minutes for the floor work seemed to go by really quickly and I made it through 2 rounds before the workout was done.

Wednesday morning was a weird morning for me. I woke up to some texts from someone I didn’t care to hear from that really put me in a bad mood. I also slept funny and my shoulder was bugging me. I really wasn’t in the best mindset when walking into Orangetheory but I also knew a workout would help to improve my mood.

But because I was in a bad mood and a bit punchy, I didn’t want to use the treadmill. When I am in those moods, I know that sometimes I push myself too much to try to make something better in my day. So I did a bike day instead. It was a power based workout but it almost felt more like an endurance day. All of the blocks were either 4.5 or 5 minutes long. For cardio we did the same thing for the first and third block and then had the same thing for the second and fourth block. All the blocks had a push pace, base pace, all out pace, walking recovery, and all out pace; but the timing of the pushes and all outs changed between the 2 different formats. I stuck to my normal resistance levels on the bike but tried to increase how fast I was pedaling. I definitely felt like I was working hard and like I expected it did help to improve my mood.

The floor was also 4 blocks and they had an interesting format. Every block had 5 exercises. The second exercise in every block was always an ultimate burpee and the fourth exercise in every block was also a pop jack to squat. But the first, third, and fifth exercise (which was the same thing within a block) changed. In the first block that was a sumo squat, in the second block it was a pop jack, in the third block it was a plank jack, and in the last block it was a sprinter sit-up. I did have to do some modifications for several of these things. For the ultimate burpees, I started doing them the normal way but I never do the push-ups while holding the weights (I put my hands on the ground). By the third block, I switch to splitting up the moves so I did the burpees and then the bicep curl to shoulder press after. For the pop jack to squats, I started with them normally but switched to frogger squats after the first block. And instead of doing sprinter sit-ups, I did regular ones since the rotation is tough for me to do.

The floor work was tough and felt like we had endless burpees and squats, but I was glad to not have to worry about my should hurting too much. I did have to be careful with the shoulder presses, but the soreness and pressure I had in my shoulder wasn’t happening while working out. And I was right that being at the workout put me in a better mood for the rest of the day.

Friday’s workout was 3 partner workout. I got to work with one of the people from my triple buddy challenge and it was a really interesting workout. Even though there were 3 people in each group (one on the floor, one on the treadmill, and one on the rower), the pacer was always either the treadmill or rower. There was a distance to do on each and whoever finished first initiated the switch.

The treadmill distances were between .2 miles and .1 miles (each block got shorter) and the rower distances were between 650 meters and 350 meters (again, each block got shorter). When I was the person on the treadmill, I always finished before the rower person so I started the switch. And when I was on the rower, the treadmill person finished first so I never did the full row that we were supposed to do. But that’s ok because I was working so hard and didn’t mind missing a little bit of the distance on the rower.

On the floor, each block had its own exercises and we just worked through them whenever we were on the floor. The first block had lots of ab dolly work with push ups to knee tucks, rollouts, pikes, and hamstring work. The second block was mainly exercises on the straps with full body pull ups, tricep extensions, lunges into Y raises, jump squats. And the last block was mainly core work with double crunches, toe reaches, torso rotations, and plank pull throughs.

Even though the treadmill and rower distances were different each block, we seemed to pretty much do 2 rotations through all the stations for each block. These types of partner workouts are tough, but they are also so motivating because I don’t want to let my partners down. The only time I was taking breaks was on the floor, but I didn’t do that too often because I wanted to make sure I was doing as much of the floor work as possible to not slack off. Sometimes it’s annoying to do my workout and then be stuck sitting at my desk for several hours to work, but this time I was grateful for the break.

Saturday’s workout was a strength based class and I was feeling a little bit nauseous. I’m not sure if this was due to hormonal nausea or because I splurged a bit too much with food the day before, but whatever the cause was I knew that being on the bike was the better option. I think I’m starting to like doing strength based classes on the bike because I can do more work with the resistance levels than I can with inclines on the treadmill.

There were 3 blocks that all had similar patterns. We had some push and base paces at inclines (or higher resistance level for me) and some moments where everyone was a power walker with a really high incline. The first time everyone had that power walking moment, I decided to really go for it with the resistance on the bike. Normally I don’t go that much higher than level 10, but this time I went to 15. My legs felt like they were moving through jello, but I managed to do the work at that resistance. Each block the incline (or resistance) went down so I didn’t have to do anything that hard again. But I did still keep some of the minutes at higher resistance levels than I usually would use.

On the floor, we had the chance to do an interesting challenge. For the first 3 blocks, we had 2 exercises. The second exercise was always some type of core work. But for the first exercise we did it twice in a row. The first time, we only had 5 reps so we were encouraged to go really heavy with the weight. The second time, we had 15 reps and used a weight that we normally would use.

The first block was a hip hinge low row and I know that my challenge weight is usually 35lb. But when I do that, we have 10 reps so I went up to 40lb. It was really hard and I couldn’t do 5 in a row without taking a break, but I did it. And for the 15 reps I did 20lb. The next block was an overhead shoulder press, but because I’m dealing with some shoulder pain I just stuck with 20lb for 20 reps because I couldn’t go heavier without causing pain. And the third block was hammer curls and I went with 30lb for the 5 reps and 20lb for the 15 reps. The last block was just doing the 5 rep exercises over again and I kept the same weights I had used before.

I feel like this week of workouts gave me some fun opportunities to push and challenge myself and I really went for it! I also figured out when I might have been going a bit too hard, but understanding my limitations is a good thing too. I didn’t necessarily improve on all the challenges I had, but I did on many of them which is always nice. And I also know that I’ll have a chance to do these again and hopefully I’ll have improvement by that point.

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Back To Regular Workouts (or Making Improvements On My Dri-Tri)

Posted on October 1, 2018 | Comments Off

Even though my Dri-Tri went well, it didn’t go as well as I had hoped it would be. I wasn’t down on myself, but it did make me realize that I did need to make improvements when I had a chance to do so. And this past week of workouts did give me some chances to do that.

Monday’s workout was another signature workout. It was the Orange X workout that we had a few months ago! I love when workouts repeat like this because I can measure what I was able to do before and what I can do now. I like to see my progress and these workouts are a good way for me to prove that I have improved.

Because I wasn’t as early as I usually am to class, I had to start on the rower instead of the treadmill. But that didn’t end up being that bad because the workout was a switch day so I didn’t have to wait until the second half of class before I was on the treadmill. The beginning of class was a block that had the same pattern on the rower and the treadmill. We had a 90 second push pace, a 30 second base pace, and a 30 second all out pace. It wasn’t easy for me to do a push or all out on the rower. And when I was on the treadmill I broke the 90 second push pace into 30 second intervals so I ran for 30 seconds 2 times. But after that, I realized it was going to be a walking day so I walked the base and all out paces.

After that quick rowing and treadmill switch, it was time for me to be on the floor to do the Orange X floor work. My group on the floor had the Orange X challenge for the second half of that block so for the first half we had sit-ups, lunges, and mountain climbers so the other half of the floor group had all the weights to use. When it was my group’s turn, I knew I wanted to challenge myself with the weights. For the chest press, I had to stay at 30lb weights because the 35lb ones are just a bit too heavy and I’m not challenging myself when the weights are above my body. But 30lb is still a lot! For the single arm low row, last time I used a 35lb weight but went for 40lb this time. And for the goblet squats last time I used 45lb and this time I went with 50lb! While both of the heavier weights were a bit of a challenge, they weren’t as bad as I expected them to be. But I still don’t think I could have done more than the 10 reps we were supposed to do.

After that, I was on the treadmill for a short run/row block. For power walkers we had a .1 mile walk and then a 200 meter row after. Each time we were on the treadmill we were supposed to increase the incline 1%. My rowing was a bit slower than normal because I really was tired from the floor work, but I just used that time to work on form and counting the pattern of going back and forth. I made it a few rounds in the run/row before it was time to be back on the floor again for my last floor block.

We had the same exercises as the Orange X challenge but with decreasing weights with the hope that we could increase our weights. But because both halves of the floor group were working on it, there weren’t as many weights for me to pick from. I still got my 30lb weights for my chest presses, but for the low row and squats I could either use 40lb or 60lb. As much as I would have liked to go heavier for my squats, I knew I wasn’t ready for 60lbs so I went with 40lb for them. I didn’t mind having lighter weights but I could really feel the difference in how much lighter they felt.

And finally I was back on the treadmill for my last block which was a regular treadmill block. It was 3 rounds of 1 minute push paces with a base pace in between and ended with a 1 minute push pace to a 30 second all out pace. I walked all of this block but was

Wednesday’s workout was a strength based one. We had regular blocks on the treadmill but on the floor it was a floor/row set up. Run/row days are some of my favorites because the time on the treadmill is limited, but floor/row days are starting to be up there too. I know that rowing is one of the best workouts and I like having time to work on my endurance and form.

On the treadmill, we had 3 blocks that all had a similar pattern. We started with a push pace to a base pace that didn’t have any incline (except the standard incline that power walkers have). Then we had a base pace at an incline followed by a base pace at no incline. Then everyone had a power walk at a very high incline and then we ended with an all out pace. Some of the inclines were getting a bit too high for me when everyone was power walking. I really am not comfortable at the very high inclines. I usually don’t like to go higher than 10% and this time we were supposed to do work at 12 and 15%. I tried 12% and managed to do it, but my hips weren’t feeling the best. So for the last one that was at 15% I kept it at 10%.

On the floor, the first block was a regular block that was all mini-band work. We had forward squat walks, lateral squat walks, and hip bridges. Then it was time for the floor/row block. It started with an 800 meter row and then 3 rounds of lunges and pop jacks. I did my pop jacks using the bench like I do with burpees so I could jump my feet back and forth. Then we had a 400 meter row with pop squats and swimmers. The goal was to do the 400 meter row in less than half the time of the 800 meter row and I did get right under that goal. There was also a 200 meter row, but I didn’t make it to that round before class was over.

Friday’s workout was also a strength day. But since this one was a 3 group class the treadmill work wasn’t as tough as the work on Wednesday and the inclines weren’t as high. We had 2 rounds of a 6 minutes for distance challenge, but since I was power walking I wasn’t as competitive with myself as I usually am.

Each of the distance challenges was a push pace for a distance and a base pace for a distance. And the goal was to do as many rounds as possible to get the furthest distance you could do. The first round was a slightly higher incline as the second round so I knew I’d be able to do a little bit better on the second attempt. The first round was done at my normal power walking speed and the second was .1mph higher. It’s easy to beat a distance challenge on the treadmill since you can set it and guarantee you will do better. It wasn’t that much of a difference between the 2 rounds, but I did do better the second time.

Next was the rowers which was one long block. We started with 2 rounds of 500 meter rows. After the first one we had ground to presses with medicine balls and after the second one we had calf raises. After those 2 rows we had 2 rounds of 300 meter rows with the same exercises after each round. For the 500 meter rows, I wasn’t focused too much on my time because I wanted to focus on my stroke rate. I know that for some of the longer rows it might help to have my stroke rate a bit lower. But it’s not something that I can feel on my own without looking at the screen. So I was focused on seeing what my normal rate was and how much slower I had to go to be at the slower rate I was thinking I’d want to be at. I was still under the time we were supposed to be under, but I know that I could have done it a bit faster if that was what I was focused on. I tried to do the same thing with my 300 meter rows, but I realized that the block was going to be ending and ended up just going faster so I could make it through the 2 rows and 2 exercises.

And on the floor, we also had 1 long block. We had a range for the number of reps to do for 2 exercises and that was to allow us to challenge ourselves. Those exercises were hip hinge low rows and bicep curls. I usually would use 20lb for the low rows and 15lb for the bicep curls. So I went with 30lb for the low rows and 20lbs for the bicep curls. The range was 6-10 reps and I was able to do 8 reps with using those heavier weights. In that block we also had single arm low rows using the TRX straps, double crunches, and plank weight pull-throughs. It was an exhausting floor block because I was using heavy weights, but it was worth it.

Saturday’s workout had a bit of a different format. When you started on the treadmill you had 1 block on the treadmill and 1 block on the rower. And when you did the floor work 1 block was the floor and rower and the second block was the floor and the treadmill.

The treadmill and rower block that we had when starting on the treadmill were the same pattern. It was 4 rounds of push pace to all out paces, and the push pace went down each round. I did walking for everything and did my normal speed and inclines. I thought about doing a bit of running, but I stuck with walking since I knew that I still had a lot of rowing and some more treadmill work ahead. The rower is a bit tougher to do push to all out paces, but I tried to increase my speed each time. I didn’t get it up as much as we were supposed to, but there was a bit of difference in speed.

On the floor, the strength work was the same for both blocks. But the first block was adding on exercises and the second block was taking away. We had single arm snatches, push-ups, v-ups, single arm presses, and squats. For the first block, we started with a 300 meter row and the first exercise. Then we went down 50 meters on the row and added another exercise on. I only made it through the 3rd round before that block was done. Then we had sprints on the treadmill followed by all the exercises. Then the sprint increased and we took away the first exercise. I only made it through 2 rounds that time, but that meant I did all the exercises at least twice which is good.

Even though it might not sound like it from my recap, I feel like each day this past week had some sort of improvement. Sometimes I used heavier weights, sometimes I used higher inclines, and sometimes I improved on my form or pace with rowing. Each day had something that I pushed for and that’s exactly what I need to do. This should help me get ready for the next Dri-Tri, but even sooner it will be getting me ready for Hell Week later this month!

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Another Dri-Tri Saturday (or Just Trying To Show Improvement)

Posted on September 25, 2018 | 2 comments

I’ve done the Dri-Tri 4 times before the one I did this past weekend. 3 of those were individual ones and the most recent one was a relay where I did the rowing only. No matter if it’s an individual one or a relay, I want to do my best. I always want to see signs of improvement and proof that I am getting stronger and fitter.

It’s tough to do that because the Dri-Tri is different from regular classes. No matter how prepared I feel, I always feel a bit overwhelmed in the middle of the event. I do everything I can not to feel that way, but it was the same thing with the 5K races I did.

This time, I was feeling a bit uncertain about a lot of it. I hadn’t been doing as much treadmill work as I normally do and even though we had lots of rowing and even some endurance rowing I was still unsure about my rowing abilities. But no matter what, I knew that I would be able to do this and finish. It was only a question if I could PR on any part of it.

This was the first time I had the Dri-Tri at the Culver City location and I think that I was the only person in my heat who had done one before (this was the first Dri-Tri for the Culver City studio). Since I am there more often than the Brentwood studio, it was nice to have it at a studio I am used to going to 3 times a week. And I do think the room set-up there is a bit better for the event.

Before we got started, the coaches went over everything. It was the same as the other ones I did. We started with a 2000 meter row, then we had 300 body weight floor exercises (push-ups, squats, burpees, step ups, hop overs, and plank jacks) and then a 5K on the treadmill. There were some people in my heat doing the sprint Dri-Tri which means they did half of all the sections. But almost everyone was going to do the full one and the room was a mix of excitement and nerves.

When we started on the rower, I focused on not going too hard. Burning out on the rower is something I’ve done before and something I was scared to do again. My goal was to try to stay pretty steady with my pace the entire time and then pick it up for the last 200 or so meters. The rowers were set with our 500 meter split times so I was able to track that and try to do the math in my head if I was on pace or not. I knew I wanted to be under 9 minutes but I really to be under 8:45 to get a PR.

I was doing really great with being steady on the rower. Some of the coaches were complimenting me on how strong my form was. That was nice to hear because I know my form can get sloppy when I’m tired. I knew that I would likely be the last person off of the rower, so I didn’t focus on people around me. I was in my head a lot trying to distract myself at times and just time my pacing when I felt like I was going too hard. And for the last 200 meters, I towed really hard and went for it. I finished in 8:51 which was under my goal but not a PR. But I couldn’t focus too much on that because I needed to get to the floor work.

I took a moment to catch my breath and drink some water, but I tried to quickly get started with the push-ups. I wasn’t trying to compete and place, so I did them on my knees to make things a little easier for me. The squats were easy and fine for me. For the burpees I did my modified ones using the bench so I could hop back and forth instead of stepping my feet out. I can’t do step ups because of my hips so I did lunges instead (which is what I did every other time). And the hop overs and plank jacks were both easy enough to do, but still tough because I was tired.

The floor work is done as 2 rounds so once I finished the first round I took another break to catch my breath. The floor work has always been tough for me in the Dri-Tri, but getting to that halfway mark really helped this time. I knew what I had already done and what I still needed to do. And I was ready to go through it again. I was also keeping my eyes on the clock because I knew what time I needed to be on the treadmill by in order to be under my goal time.

For the past few Dri-Tris, I’ve wanted to do the treadmill work as a run/walk. Power walkers only do a 2.5K, so I have had the idea that I would do the 2.5K and record the time to compare it to my other Dri-Tris and then I’d continue on to do the full 5K and record that time too. I would love to have goal times for both. And that was my intention with this one. I told the coaches of my plan and they understood what I was hoping to do. So when I got on the treadmill I was optimistic that this would be the time that I did it.

Since my running has been very limited, the run/walk intervals I had in mind were not what I have done for 5Ks in the past. I was thinking about walking for 2 minutes and running for 30 seconds. If I felt good I could change it, but that seemed like a good plan to me. And I did do that to start out. I think starting with the walking was smart and allowed me to do the little bit of running. But I managed to do the intervals twice before I realized running just wasn’t going to be the right choice for me.

So I went down to my power walking speed and just kept going. I was still watching the clock and trying to do the math in my head if I was going to make it under my goal time. And I realized I would need to pick up the pace a bit to make it. So I did intervals similar to the run/walk one I had planned but just did it with increasing my power walking speed.

I knew it would be close and realized that I would need to run a little bit more to hit my goal. So for the last .1 of the 1.55 miles I did, I ran at my normal running speed. As much as I would have liked to have sprint, just running felt like a sprint at that point.

I didn’t really have a goal time in mind for the treadmill, just an overall goal time I was mindful of. I wanted to finish in under 50 minutes (I knew my PR was significantly faster than I could have gone so I didn’t even think about that time). And when I finished my 2.5K, I looked up at the clock and it said 49:08! It was such a relief to finish and to finish under the goal time. It was a bit frustrating to not PR in any section or overall, but I also know just completing it is more than many people do.

And there was no way I could keep going on the treadmill. I was done. My hips were killing me and I needed to recover. I didn’t even think twice about stopping and was so happy to be off the treadmill. I sat on the floor to stretch, drink water, and cheer on those who were still working on finishing.

I love that everyone stayed to cheer others on. It’s so supportive and I know if I was the last person on the treadmill I would feel better about it if I didn’t have to be alone. I finished toward the middle of the group so there were several people I got to cheer on. And watching them finish and be so proud of themselves was so great to watch.

And of course once we were all done we had to take a sweaty group photo.

All the coaches at all the Orangetheory locations I’ve been to have always been so supportive, but I felt like I got a bit of extra support this time. When I was on the rower, my foot straps were getting loose and that makes it harder to row. I didn’t want to stop rowing so I asked my coach Jenna to help me out. She didn’t hesitate for a second and got things much more secure for me so I could keep going. And when I was on the treadmill, my coach Hart came by to check in on me. I was struggling, but I asked him if he could help me refill my water bottle. I was out of water and didn’t want to have to get off the treadmill. Again, there was no hesitation to help out so that I could focus on finishing.

I’m guessing the next Dri-Tri will be in the spring since that is usually the timing of them. And as always I plan on doing that one and seeing what I can do. I really want to PR somewhere in the Dri-Tri and would seriously love to be able to do the full 5K. I know both things will require a lot of hard work and training on my part, but I want to see what I can do. And I love that I am so motivated to try! That’s not easy for me to want to do!

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Dri-Tri Prep Workouts (or The Beginning Of My Workout Week)

Posted on September 24, 2018 | Comments Off

This past week of workouts consisted of 3 regular workouts and the Dri-Tri. My experience of the Dri-Tri is going to be in a different post (I feel like it always deserves its own post), so this is just about my first 3 workouts of the week.

Monday’s workout was a weird one for me. I got to the workout feeling really good and doing my warm-up on the treadmill since I wasn’t feeling nauseous anymore. I was fine during the warm-up but as soon as I added incline to do the first push pace, the nausea returned. I was really disappointed in this because this workout was a power day and it was going to be a great day to work on running (which I wanted to do to prepare for the Dri-Tri), but I couldn’t keep going on the treadmill feeling like that and switched to the bike.

With the exception of the first push pace in the first block, all of the blocks on the cardio side were about doing all out paces and walking recoveries. Each block had the same pattern with the all out pace being the same amount of time and the walking recovery increasing by 15 seconds each time. Each block had 4 all out paces and 3 recoveries and the all out paces were 1 minute, 45 seconds, and 30 seconds. Since I was feeling frustrated on the bike, I decided to push myself more than normal. I did my normal all out resistance for the 1 minute block. For the 45 second block I did 2 levels higher which I rarely use. And for the 30 second block I went another 2 levels higher which I usually only use if there is supposed to be a high incline on the treadmill for hill work. It wasn’t easy, but it made me feel better about being on the bike.

On the floor, we ended each block with an all out on the rower to go along with the last all out that the people on the treadmill were doing. But before that row, we had regular exercises to do. The first block was clean to press with weights and goblet squats. I went really heavy with my weight for the goblet squats and my legs were really feeling that the next day (probably the work with high resistance on the bike also made my legs sore). The second block was squats to high rows with weights and running man. And the last block was plank leg raises and double crunches. And with all the rowing all outs, I tried to get my rowing to be the best form possible while going quickly and with a lot of strength coming from my legs. Our rowers were set to MPH instead of wattage and I was able to get the MPH higher each time I was on the rower.

Wednesday’s workout was an endurance based run/row and I was a bit nervous about it. My legs were still feeling a bit sore from Monday’s workout (clearly I overdid it a lot) and I didn’t know how I would feel on the treadmill. But somehow, it really felt like we weren’t on the treadmill much at all.

We had 3 blocks of the run/row and it was kind of like we created our own plan. In the first block, we had a 2 1/2 minute row for distance. We had to remember what the distance was and after that we had a recovery row for about a minute. Then we were in the next block. For the second block, we had to row the same distance we got in our 2 1/2 minute row, but the goal was to complete it faster. I managed to take a few seconds off of my row which made me happy. When the row was done, we went to the treadmill and went until the block ended (which was about 4 1/2 minutes for me). I was power walking slightly slower than I normally do because my legs were sore. But it also felt good to be on the treadmill to try to stretch them out a bit. When that block ended, we had to remember the distance on the treadmill. And for the last block, we had to do the distance we got on the treadmill again and then go to the rower to do the distance we did in the first block. And if there was any time left after that, we had to hold a static squat. I finished with about 15 seconds left so I got to do a little bit of squat work before switching to the floor.

The floor also had 3 blocks and in all 3 blocks we had blast-off push-ups. These are push-ups that start with you leaning back like you are getting ready to spring and them push forward to be in a plank to do a push-up. They were not easy to do and they were actually making me feel a bit queasy. It was a different feeling than my hormonal nausea which was interesting to experience in a workout. So I had to be careful with where I was focusing my eyes during these push-ups. In the first block we also had skier swings with weights. The second block we also had uppercuts with weights and triceps with weights. And in the last block we also had weighted squat swings and bicycle crunches. I wasn’t going too heavy on my weights, especially on the squat work because I was sore. But I think because I was sore it felt like I was working harder than I really was, but that’s ok. I also was feeling a bit less sore after the workout than I was when I started.

Friday was my last workout before the Dri-Tri. I was debating if I should go a bit easier on myself so I didn’t get too sore or feel tired the next day, but when I saw it was a power workout I decided not to do that. I was still being a bit cautious and not going too hard, but I also wanted to test myself. I haven’t had a lot of time on the treadmill lately and I haven’t been able to do a lot of running. But with the Dri-Tri I really wanted to try to do some running intervals. So this workout was my last chance to test them out.

It was a 3 group workout so I was on the treadmill for about 15 minutes. We had 3 blocks and they all had a push pace, a base pace, a push pace, and an all out pace. Some of the push paces were a bit longer and over a minute and normally I would try to run those. But since I hadn’t been doing much running at all I decided to limit my running to 30 seconds at a time with the exception of the all out paces which were 45 seconds. While I would love my running intervals to be better and to know at the Dri-Tri I could do better than my last 5K, I’m not there yet. I was already thinking my run intervals for the next day would probably only be able to be 30 or 45 seconds, so limiting my running during the workout was a good prep day for what it would feel like. It wasn’t easy, but I felt a bit more optimistic that it would be possible to do intervals for the Dri-Tri as long as the rowing and floor work don’t burn me out.

Next I was on the rower where we had sprint row intervals. In between the rowing in the first and last block we had squats and in between the rowing in the second block we had lunges. The rowing was all short so a lot of people were pushing themselves to see how fast they could go. I decided to use that time to work on making sure my form is good and that I can stay steady with a pace. I still went a bit faster than I would have liked to, but all my rowing times were under the goal time which is always good. And on the floor we also had 3 blocks. We had lunges, push-ups, single arm chest presses, single arm reverse flys, hopovers, and bicep curls. I wasn’t using the heaviest weights for the weighted work because I didn’t want to be too sore on Saturday. But I still worked hard.

After those 3 workouts, I was cautiously optimistic about my Dri-Tri. I knew that I had done the best I could to be ready for it, but I also knew that there was so much more that I would have liked to do. I would have liked to have more long rowing challenges to test my endurance. I would have liked to be better with my running so I could feel confident that I could do run/walk intervals on the treadmill. And I would have liked to have just felt better about things going into it. There was still a bit of uncertainty on how well I would do, but I had to just keep telling myself that even if I am significantly slower than I ever have been, I will still be able to finish it.

And tomorrow I’ll share about how it went and whether or not I was able to reach any of the goals I had in my head.

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A Week Full Of Rowing (or Figuring Out What I Can Do When Nauseous)

Posted on September 17, 2018 | Comments Off

This past week of workouts were pretty tough for me. I was dealing with a lot of nausea the entire week (even with expecting it to happen, it still took a toll on me). I modified things as much as I could, but some of the workouts just weren’t designed for someone nauseous to be doing them. But I pushed through as much as I could. And I will say that one thing that helped me a lot was that we had a lot of rowing. Rowing isn’t the easiest thing for me when I am nauseous, but getting to work on it this past week has made it so hopefully in the future it will be a bit better.

Monday’s class was a mix of strength and endurance and unfortunately I was having a pretty bad nausea day. I think this nausea was a mix of the usual hormonal factors but also stress and other emotional things happening in my life. I hated that I felt so gross that morning, but as always when I’m nauseous I was just ready to do what I could do and be happy with that.

The cardio portion of the workout was a run/row format (so bike/row for me). Every round we did more on the bike and rower starting with a .4 trip on the bike and a 100 meter row (for people on the treadmill, it was a .1 mile run). Then each round I added .4 on the bike but every .4 I added resistance. And every time on the rower I added 100 meters. Considering how I was feeling, I was actually impressed with what I did. I only had to take a break once during a bike ride, the rest of my breaks were as I was switching from the bike to the rower. And I was able to increase the resistance every time I was supposed to. Both my pedaling and rowing were slower than normal, but I still got it done.

On the floor, we had 3 blocks. The first block had single arm low rows, squats to single arm high rows, and leg lifts to crunches. For the single arm low rows and single arm high rows, I was able to use my heavier weights. I seem to use heavier weights on my nausea days to make up for any issues I had with cardio. I tried to do the leg lifts to crunches but after halfway through the reps I had to split the moves into 2 parts instead of doing them together. But I did them. The second block was goblet lunges, lunges using the bench for one leg, and side plank pendulum. And while I normally can’t do the lunges using the bench for one leg, since I was going extra slow I was able to get my balance and do them. And the last block was a core blast with alternating toe reaches, crunches, sit-ups, and leg lifts.

Wednesday’s workout was a strength based day with a benchmark row. But unfortunately, my nausea got much worse and I was feeling pretty miserable. Because I’m so competitive with myself, I hate when a benchmark event happens when I know I can’t do my best. But I figured I would do what I could and see what happens.

For cardio, I was on the bike. Fortunately even though I was feeling awful I was able to do some decent work using the resistance on the bike. We had a couple of different 30 second hills (or high resistance for the bike) and I was able to go higher than my normal push or all out resistance on the bike. I rarely go higher than level 10, but this time I was doing a lot of those 30 second hills at level 12. So at least I got to feel a bit accomplished.

The benchmark row was a 500 meter row. I know that my record for it is very fast and I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to get close to it. I really wanted to be able to do my row in under 2 minutes, but I also knew that was going to be pushing it. I tried to ignore the 500 meter split time on the monitor because it was driving me crazy. Instead I focused on trying to keep my speed steady. I have the Dri-Tri coming up soon and I know working on being at a consistent pace is something that will help me. My rowing was pretty steady for the first 400 meters and then I went crazy for the last 100 meters. I know I overdid it at the end, but I really just wanted to feel like I tried my hardest. I did the row in 2:07 which isn’t my worst and close to my goal for the day. But I really would have loved to have been under 2 minutes.

For the rest of the floor work, we had a lot of work with weights. We had deadlifts, front raises, lunges with weights, and pull overs. I was able to use my heavier weights for all of those. We also had sit-ups and half get ups for ab work. For the half get ups I did one round with my normal weights but at the end I had to go with a set lighter for the second round. But considering ab work is tough on bad nausea days, I was happy I could use any weights for those.

Friday was a 3 group workout so I knew it would be another class with a lot of rowing. But I was hoping it would be all short rows. But that wasn’t what the class had.

For the cardio, I was on the bike and I did manage to use my resistance levels like I normally would. It was a strength based workout so the treadmills had inclines and I had extra resistance to work with. I did have to take some breaks on the bike to let the nausea pass, but it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting it to be considering how I felt that morning when I woke up.

On the rower, we had all long rows. The first row was 1,000 meters. Since the Dri-Tri is only a week away I should have been excited for a good practice row. But it was just tough to try to keep going the entire time. Somehow I managed to not need to take any breaks during the row, but it was a pretty slow row too. After the row, we were supposed to have jumping jacks but I knew I couldn’t do those with my nausea so I did side lunges and some squats instead. Then it was a 500 meter row, more jumping jacks (or lunges and squats for me), and pulsing squats. I didn’t make it further down the row block because my rowing was slow.

On the floor, we had one long block. We had Y raises on the straps, lunges with weights, ab work, reverse flys, single arm snatches, and skaters. Fortunately, all the floor work was stuff that was ok for me to do with how I felt. The skaters were a bit tough because they can be a lot of up and down movement, but I modified them to be much smoother. I know I didn’t work as hard as I could have when I feel fine, but I was proud of myself for figuring out how to do things as work arounds.

Saturday’s workout was an interesting one, but it ended up being a pretty great class. I was still nauseous so I was still on the bike, but that actually worked to my benefit. It was a partner workout that had 2 blocks of partner work and 1 regular block in the middle.

For the partner work, I was partnered with a girl who was also using a bike for cardio but it turned out that it wouldn’t have mattered. I did feel a bit bad for having a partner who was going to be depending on me to make sure we switch quickly enough, but I found out that this was her first class back from a surgery so it worked out well that we were both not at our best.

The 2 partner blocks were the same, but for the first block I did bike and floor work (my partner did floor and rower) and for the second I did floor and rower (and my partner did bike and floor). The person using the cardio was the pacer and they were all pretty quick. I don’t think either of us was on the cardio for more than 2 1/2 minutes. For both the bike and the rower each time we were back the distance we had to go went down a bit. The rower started at 500 meters and went down 100 meters every time. And the bike started with 1.2 trips and went down .2 each time. I surprised myself with how well I did on both the bike and rower and I think my partner and I were very equally matched.

For the partner blocks the floor work was the same both times. We had burpees, half squat swings, overhead tricep extensions, sit-ups, and neutral full thrusters with weights. I tried using my normal weights for these and it was a bit of a struggle for the swings and triceps so I went down on the weight for those. And for the burpees I didn’t have the bench down so I couldn’t jump back and forth. The burpees were hard because they were making me feel more nauseous, but I was glad that the floor work wasn’t the pacer so I could take my time.

In the middle of the 2 partner blocks, we had a regular cardio and a regular floor block. For the cardio it was 3 rounds of push to all out paces with the push pace getting shorter each time. And on the floor we had squats, reverse mountain climbers, and plank arm reaches. It was a pretty short block for both that cardio and floor block so I didn’t feel too bad on them. I was glad to have them in the middle of the partner work to break things up, but it was better to be able to end the workout with the partner work because that seemed to end things on a higher note.

Hopefully my nausea will only affect the beginning of this workout week. Not only do I want it to end because I hate feeling nauseous, but I have the Dri-Tri on Saturday! I really want to do well on it and hopefully PR in at least one section of the challenge. But I also know that my endurance and strength isn’t quite what it was before so I have to work extra hard this week to get ready for it!

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Posted in Fitness

Tagged fitness, Orangetheory, rowing, workout

An Emotional Workout Week (or Just Making It Through)

Posted on September 10, 2018 | Comments Off

This past week of workouts felt like it was almost split in 2. I hate feeling like I’m teasing a future post, but something happened in the middle of the week that really affected my workouts. I was dealing with a lot of emotions and I know that it changed how I worked out. I had 2 workouts before that and 2 after so it really was a split week.

Monday’s workout was a 3 group workout because they had fewer classes for a holiday schedule. And it also ended up being a partner workout so it was a 3 partner workout. The workout was supposed to be endurance based, but it didn’t really feel that way because of how often the partners were switching around.

We had 2 blocks and in each block the person on the floor controlled the switching. In the first block the person on the treadmill ran for distance and we didn’t reset the treadmills as we switched. The person on the rower had a 150 meter row and then 10 squats and repeated that until they were tagged by their partner. And the person on the floor had lunges, bicycle crunches, and toe touches.

For the second block the treadmill person ran for distance without resetting the treadmill and the rower did 150 meter rows with bicep curls using the row handles between each row. And on the floor we had overhead tricep extensions, weighted hip bridges, and weighted torso twists.

I was feeling fortunate that I was in a group with 2 people who I know and didn’t care too much about the distance challenges on the treadmill. We all worked hard, but we didn’t stress out over things either. On average we were switching every 2-3 minutes which was nice for the treadmill. I was dealing with a bit of nausea (not sure if it was still from my biopsy or I was starting to deal with hormonal nausea early) and I wasn’t going fast on the treadmill. And I was struggling with the rower a bit too. I didn’t struggle as much on the floor but I think that was because I used lighter weights because I didn’t want to let my group down and take too long to switch. But even with the struggles it was a good workout and I liked not having to worry about being at any part of the room for too long.

Wednesday’s workout was a power day and it ended up being a great day for me to work on my running. I wasn’t totally feeling like running, but once I saw what the workout would be I knew I had to make it a run day.

The treadmill work started with a 1 minute push pace followed by a 30 second base pace. I ran the push and walked the base as a power walker. And then we had 11 rounds of 1 minute all outs. I knew I had to run all of them and that was my goal for the class. After each of the all outs we had a walking recovery. We started with them being 30 seconds long and they increased by 15 seconds every other round. I thought with the longer walking recoveries that I would be able to do all of the 1 minute all outs as a run with no issues, and for the first 6 of them I was doing fine.

But starting with the 7th round, my legs were feeling very tired and heavy. I could feel my running form getting sloppy and I didn’t want to risk hurting myself. So while I started each of the all outs as a run, I sometimes had to short myself a bit. I usually was able to do at least 45 seconds as a run before bringing it back down to a walk. And that also gave me a bit more recovery time as well. I think because I did the extra recovery time, it helped me so that for the final 2 all outs I was able to run for the full minute. It was a lot of running and it wasn’t easy, but I’m so glad I did it.

The floor was 1 long block but it was broken down a bit into slightly different blocks. All of the blocks within the block had the same 4 main exercises: chest presses, bicep curls, shoulder presses, and reverse chest flys. But between each of the exercises we had different things. The first time we went through the exercises we had bench hop overs in between, the second time we had squats, and the third time we had pop jacks. Also after completing each round we had a 250 meter row. I was using heavy weights and did my best for all the exercises. My rowing was a bit slow, but I think that was because of all the running I did. I didn’t quite make it through all 3 rounds we were supposed to try to do, but I was almost to the end of the third round when class ended.

Wednesday night was a very tough night for me (again, more on that tomorrow) and I really thought I was feeling much better by Friday morning. But my body was feeling exhausted due to those events so I decided to go on the bike for my cardio. But since it was a 3 group class I wasn’t on the bike that long.

The class was an endurance one and the cardio portion was increasing push paces. We started with a 2 minute push pace, then had a 3 minute push pace, and finished with a 4 minute progressive push pace. Even though I was feeling exhausted I tried to do all of my bike resistance levels like I normally would. I even increased it every minute for the progressive push pace. We ended with a 1 minute all out pace before heading over to the rowers.

On the rower, we had some work that was timed on our own and some work that was timed as a group. We started with a 2 minute row and then we had some medicine ball work. After that we had a 1 minute row with more medicine ball work and we did that until it was time to do a 4 minute progressive push row as a group with the treadmills. I wasn’t able to get my rowing wattage up as much as I would have like to, but I was very proud to see that I did increase the wattage a little bit each minute that we were supposed to. We ended with another round of a 1 minute push row and more medicine ball work.

The floor work was 1 long block, but all of the exercises had 12 reps so I didn’t do many rounds of them. We had Y raises on the straps, tricep extensions on the straps, hip bridges using weights, hip bridge tricep extensions using weights, and lateral raises using weights. I was able to use heavy weights for my hip bridges, but I had to go a bit lighter for the arm work.

I thought I had done pretty decently in class considering how I was feeling, but as soon as class was done I burst into a real ugly cry. It was a release of all the emotions I had been dealing with and while I was a bit embarrassed to cry at my workout I really didn’t care either. I knew that I needed it and I needed that workout and I was glad I got both in.

Saturday I was doing better, but still physically a bit exhausted so I had another day on the bike. And I’m glad I picked the bike because it ended up being a strength based workout and I think I do better on strength days on the bike than I do on the treadmill. I can do more resistance work on the bike than I can do incline work on the treadmill.

We had 3 blocks for cardio and each block had a longer incline/resistance section. The first block had 1 minute, the second block had 2 minutes, and the last block had 3 minutes. I was using my normal resistance levels for the regular base, push, and all out paces but I was using higher resistance levels for those incline/resistance sections. Some of the resistance levels were probably higher than I should have used, but I wanted to push myself.

On the floor we had 3 blocks that all had 2 exercises and if we finished those we rowed until the block was done. And for almost all the exercises, we did 2 rounds of 10 reps and 2 rounds of 6 reps. The first block was side lunges with bicep curls and plank low rows. The second block was deadlifts and squats and in that block I had about a minute on the rower at the end. And the last block was lunges and bicycle crunches, but for the bicycle crunches we had 16 reps of those every time. I could have made it to the rower for maybe 30 seconds at the end, but I just did more ab work to not waste time.

At the beginning of this past week of workouts, I thought it was going to be a normal week. At the end, I really found out how much I needed these workouts for my mental wellbeing. I’ll share tomorrow what I was going through, but I am so grateful that I had my workouts to help make me feel better.

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Posted in Fitness, Tough Stuff

Tagged fitness, Orangetheory, workout

Another Week of Highs and Lows (or Not Letting One Workout Influence Another)

Posted on September 3, 2018 | Comments Off

This past week was another workout week where things were pretty mixed. I had some great accomplishments and some tough struggles. But I think the biggest thing I got through this past week was not letting how I felt one day make me think differently for the next workout. I was able to let it go and move on if I had a tough day and I think that helped me accomplish more than I would have been able to do before.

Monday’s workout was a strength day and it was also a walking day for me on the treadmill. I usually walk on strength days because they involve inclines, but my body was also just feeling off that morning (probably due to my dentist appointment after my workout). But it ended up being a good day to work on my incline work on the treadmill.

We started with 5 short blocks on the treadmill that each built upon the one before. The first block was a 30 second push pace at 9% (for power walkers at least, runners were at 5%), a 1 minute base at no incline, and a 30 second all out pace. The next block added onto the incline work so we had 30 seconds at 9% and 30 seconds at 8%. Each block added 30 seconds at an incline lower so the last block had 2 1/2 minutes of incline work starting at 9% and going down to 5%. I did use the inclines we were supposed to use even though 9% is a bit higher than I like to use. But I just went down a bit with my speed to make it doable for me.

The last block on the cardio side was a rowing block. It was 3 minutes long and we had rounds of 150 meter rows. But the goal this time was to do the row in as few pulls as possible. Usually you row fast to try to get through it in the shortest time, but to do the fewest pulls you have to go very slowly. It’s not easy to go that slow, but I’ve gotten pretty decent at doing it. The goal was to be lower than 15 pulls and our coach said to try to get 12. I was able to do 2 attempts in the 3 minutes and both times I got it done in 11 pulls! I tied for the best in class that morning!

The floor was 6 blocks and it also had a similar format to the treadmill where we added upon each block. The first block was just the ab work we had which was plank jacks, toe touches, reverse crunches, and full sit-ups. I really couldn’t do the reverse crunches because of my hips so I skipped that part and added regular crunches. Then we added on low rows with weights for the next block. Block 3 had us adding high rows using weights, block 4 had us adding lunges with weights, and block 5 had us adding lunges without weights. Each block I skipped the reverse crunches and added regular ones. And the final block skipped all the ab work and just had the exercises we added on. When I saw that this was our floor work, I thought it wouldn’t be too bad. But by the end my abs were on fire!

Wednesday was another strength day and the treadmill blocks had power walking work for everyone. Normally even on strength days the people who run still run but use inclines. But this time, every block had a section where we all were power walkers.

We had 4 blocks on the treadmill and every block had 90 seconds of power walking for everyone at 15%. While I have done a few moments of 15% incline work lately, I’m not that great at using inclines that high and especially not for that long. But I did try the best I could for those 90 seconds. I was using the 15% incline for the first 3 blocks, but I did bring my speed down quite a bit to do it. And for the last block I just wasn’t able to do the incline that high so I used my normal all out incline but was back at my normal speed. Each block we had a push pace after the power walking hill, which meant working at 6% which felt almost flat after doing 15%. I ended up taking a bunch of breaks during the treadmill blocks, but I think that my body was also a bit still due to stress and anxiety and that was affecting my workout.

The floor started with a rowing block. We had 10 pulls to see how far we could get on the rower. It was similar to what we had on Monday with trying to do 150 meters on the rower with as few pulls as possible. We also had some shoulder and tricep work using weights between each attempt on the rower. Then we had 2 regular floor blocks. The first had tricep pullovers, squats, and plank low rows. And the second was a core block with double crunches and half get ups. The ab work was a bit tough after Monday’s workout, but fortunately my soreness wasn’t as bad on Wednesday as it had been on Tuesday.

Friday’s workout was one that I was worried about before going in. I had a minor medical procedure done on Thursday afternoon (more on that coming up in my post on Wednesday this week) and I was prepared to be not at my best. I was a bit sore and dealing with some symptoms that were similar to how I feel when I have hormonal issues, so I dealt with the workout the same way I do when I am having that pain and nausea.

I was so grateful the class was a 3 group class so I wasn’t on the bike for that long. We had 2 blocks and in the first block we were supposed to do a distance at push pace, have a walking recovery, and then do an all out at an incline. But for me, I just tried to keep going on the bike for the entire block. I wasn’t really feeling up for pushing myself too much and I knew that just doing what I could was enough for that workout. The second block was supposed to be a 30 second all out and then 10 lunges and each round we were supposed to increase the all out by 15 seconds. I was able to do that for 2 rounds but then the lunges were starting to get to me so I just stayed on the bike and kept pedaling.

On the rower we had a similar format to the treadmill/bike. The first block was a 30 second all out row followed by 10 lunges and then increasing the row by 15 seconds each time. Again, I was able to do 2 rounds and then the lunges were bothering me so I stuck with just rowing. The second block started with a 400 meter row followed by rounds of 30 second all out rows. I wasn’t doing so great during this rowing block and I just rowed and took breaks when I needed to. It seemed like I needed a break every 100-150 meters so I didn’t get that far on the rower.

The floor was one long block but we had 3 mini-blocks within it. Each mini-block had 2 exercises and we were supposed to do 2 rounds of them before moving on to the next mini-block. We had single leg deadlifts, bird dogs, hammer curls, knee tucks on the ab dolly, tricep kickbacks, and ab dolly roll outs. I was just able to make it to the end of the last mini-block when time was up but I was pretty happy with my floor work. I went slowly, but I did heavy weights for all the weight work which is always a good thing.

Even though Friday was a tough day, I was determined to do better on Saturday. Fortunately I was feeling almost totally better by then and the workout seemed designed to allow me to do some awesome work! I went to a different class time than I normally go to so I was at another 3 group class and it was focused on power work.

We had 2 blocks at each section of the room. The first block on the treadmill was a 1 minute push pace, 1 minute base pace, 1 minute all out, walking recovery, 1 minute all out, walking recovery, 45 second all out, walking recovery, and ending on a 30 second all out. I walked the base pace and walking recovery, but I ran everything else! The second treadmill block was a 1 minute push pace, 1 minute base pace, 1 minute all out, 1 minute walk, and ending on a 30 second all out. Again, I ran everything except the base pace and walking recovery! That was such a huge improvement over what I had been able to do the day before.

On the rower, the first block started with a 100 meter row and frogger squats. Each round the row went up by 100 meters and the frogger squats went down by 2. And the second block had round of 100 meter rows with shoulder work with weights between each row. I had been dealing with some soreness in my shoulder so I struggled a bit with the weights, but I did about half of them with weights and then did regular squats after so I didn’t have to involve my shoulders.

And on the floor, the first block was regular chest presses, pull ups on the straps, and close grip chest presses. And the second block was sit up to squats on the benches, sit-ups, and pushups using the bench. For the weighted work I was using my heavy weights, but more of the floor work was body weight only work.

I’m so glad I didn’t let my performance on Friday affect my Saturday workout. I love when I end my week on such a high note because that puts me in a good mood for the next workout week. Of course, my issues vary from week to week so I have no clue how I’ll do this week in my workouts, but I’m optimistic and hopeful that I’ll have at least 1 awesome day!

Comments Off on Another Week of Highs and Lows (or Not Letting One Workout Influence Another)

Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged fitness, Orangetheory, progress, struggle, workout

Tag Archives: Orangetheory

A Week Of Progress (or Feeling More Like Me)

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Biking and Burpees (or Some Nauseous Workouts)

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Working On Some New Challenges (or It’s A Partner Month)

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Back To Regular Workouts (or Making Improvements On My Dri-Tri)

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Another Dri-Tri Saturday (or Just Trying To Show Improvement)

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Dri-Tri Prep Workouts (or The Beginning Of My Workout Week)

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A Week Full Of Rowing (or Figuring Out What I Can Do When Nauseous)

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An Emotional Workout Week (or Just Making It Through)

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Another Week of Highs and Lows (or Not Letting One Workout Influence Another)

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