Tag Archives: Orangetheory

Another Normal Workout Week (or Getting Back To Everything Feeling Routine)

Posted on August 27, 2018 | Comments Off

This past week of workouts wasn’t really too exciting. There were some exciting moments, but in general the entire workout week felt really normal. I even remember during a few of the workouts thinking that I had no idea what I was going to blog about because there weren’t a ton of crazy moments. But like I’ve said before, it’s nice to have things feel routine and normal. It makes it feel like a normal habit in life and not something extreme.

Monday’s workout was a partner workout and I was equally excited and nervous about that. I like partner workouts because it motivates me to keep going so my partner isn’t waiting on me. But I was nervous because I was partnered with someone I don’t know and I didn’t want to let him down. But he seemed to be very understanding and not too worried about things so that helped me feel better.

The partner workout had 3 blocks. The first block had the first partner (me in this case) walking on the treadmill at 15% incline. Everyone was a power walker for this part. While I was on the treadmill my partner was doing pulsing half squats. After I was done, we switched and I did the squats and my partner ran to get the distance on the treadmill to .2. We didn’t reset the treadmill every time we switch so every time my partner was on the treadmill he was getting to the next round even distance (.2, .4. .6, and .8). For this block, we were pretty equal time wise so I felt good about it.

The next block was rowing and floor work. One partner rowed for time until they were tagged (my partner did the bike but I did the rower). The other partner had lateral raises with weights, seated bicep curls to stand, lunges, and crunches with over under legs. This block was another good one for me since it still felt equal with the time we were taking.

The last block was the one that worried me. It was the same as the first block but the partners switched. So my partner was the power walker and I ran to get to the next distance marker. I knew that I could run because it was about 90 seconds each time for me to complete it, but that was longer than my partner was on the treadmill. And doing those pulsing half squats weren’t easy after all the work we had already done! I did apologize at the end of the workout to my partner for making him do the squats longer than I had to do, but he really didn’t care. And he said we both got an amazing workout in so that was all that matters. And I have to agree with him.

Wednesday’s workout was a run/row day, but it was also an endurance day so I decided to not try any running. And that really did end up being the best thing for me because the floor work was all mini-band work which isn’t the easiest thing on my hips.

The run/row had an easy format to follow. The run portion was always .5 miles (I did power walking so it was always .25 miles at 6% incline) and the row started at 800 meters and went down 200 meters each time. I was back to my normal power walking speed and it went well for the first few rounds. I did have some hip issues (I think I was tossing and turning in my sleep the night before) but nothing that bad. The rowing was tough because they were longer distances and I did end up needing to take some breaks during the row. That was a bit frustrating because I know I could have done those rows without breaks, but I was also probably mentally preparing myself for the floor work.

The floor was all mini-band work and it was all timed work. I’m trying to love the mini-bands, but they don’t seem to love me back. They like to roll up a bit on my legs and when that happens they hurt, so I have to take time to unroll them. The first block on the floor was front walks, squats with weights, and alternating plank leg lifts. The second block was lateral walks, half squat flys, and toe reaches. And the last block was doing everything we had done in the previous 2 blocks. After we were done with the floor work, I was so happy to get the mini-band off my legs. I tried to love it more during this workout, but I guess it will take other workouts to love it enough to not worry about when it rolls up my legs.

Friday’s workout was a 3 group power workout. Normally I would be running during those, but it was just a morning that I wasn’t feeling like running was the right choice. There were 3 blocks at each section and the treadmill blocks kind of built upon each other. The first block was a 2 minute push to a 1 minute base. The next block had a 30 second all out at the end. And the last block had a 1 minute all out at the end. But it was good that the first block didn’t have an all out because on the rower we had a benchmark challenge.

The first block on the rower had a 200 meter benchmark row. I know my 200 meter row PR is pretty quick already but I wanted to get as close to it as I could. Obviously the best thing would have been to beat it, but I just wanted to be not that much worse. I ended up being about 2 seconds slower which isn’t a lot. I would have liked to have been a bit closer but I also know that the fast I get the harder it is to beat my PR. The last 2 blocks on the rower were similar with 200 meter rows and then lunges with tricep presses using the medicine ball in between each row.

The floor was the same exercises each block. We had ultimate burpees, lunges, single leg squats using the TRX straps, and sit-ups. Each block was pretty short so it was nice being able to focus on the same exercises each block and it didn’t feel like I was repeating things too much.

But the big thing that happened in Friday’s workout was it was my last workout with my coach Sam. She is going to be moving to San Diego and Friday was her last day. She’s been my Friday coach since I started going to the Culver City location and it sucks to have to say goodbye to a coach I really connect with. And I haven’t been to San Diego since my grandma moved away, but I do have other friends down there and I really should go down for a visit. And now I have another reason to get back to San Diego!

Saturday’s workout was a mix of endurance, strength, and power and it ended up being a really great running day for me! The treadmill blocks had a similar pattern but they were a bit different.

The first block had 3 rounds of 1 minute pushes and 90 second bases with a 30 second all out at the end. The second block was 3 rounds of 45 second pushes and 75 second bases with a 30 second all out at the end. And the last block had 3 rounds of 30 second pushes with 1 minute bases with a 30 second all out at the end. I ran all the push and all outs and walked the bases and it was the perfect pattern for me to work on running with intervals. I was getting a bit tired at the end because it was a lot of running, but I also knew I needed to do that to keep working on my running endurance.

The floor also had 3 blocks. The first block was 3 rounds of 100 meter rows with recovery in between and then we had clean to presses with weights and speed skater lunges. The second block was 2 rounds of 150 meter rows with recovery in between and then deadlifts and frogger squats. And the last block was a 300 meter row and then half thrusters using weights and mountain climbers. The only downside to the floor work was that my left shoulder was bugging me (I think I slept funny on it) and it was a lot of shoulder work! But beyond that it went pretty well!

Even though there wasn’t anything spectacular about this past week of workouts, it did feel amazing to feel normal again. I wasn’t thinking about pushing myself like crazy to prove that I could do something. I still have a ways to go before I’m back to where I was, but the process of getting back there is feeling good.

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A Week Back On The Bike (or Focusing On The Good)

Posted on August 20, 2018 | Comments Off

This past week of workouts were a bit tough for me. I had a few days of really bad nausea and pain and that really affected what I could do and how hard I could work. I knew this might be happening since my nausea is a recurring issue, but it’s still a bit frustrating when it happens. I try to make the best of the situation but it’s not always easy. But this past week I was able to do a lot better on work other than cardio and that helped.

Monday’s workout was an endurance day and I knew it was going to be a day for me to just try to do my best on the bike instead of doing the efforts on the bike or using a treadmill. There were a lot of 3 minute push paces and 90 second push paces, some of which had an all out pace right after. But for the 30 minutes I was on the bike, I didn’t think about any of the efforts. I set the resistance to be at my base resistance for the bike and just tried to go as long as I could.

I had to stop pedaling every few minutes or so to let the pain or nausea go away. I was not focused on what we were really supposed to be doing for cardio and just did my own thing. I don’t love doing that since one of the things I love the most about Orangetheory is having a coach tell me what to do. But when I feel as badly as I did, just trying to pedal when I could is all I can do.

On the floor, I was feeling just as off as I did on the bike so I again just tried to do what I could. We had 2 blocks but one was a rowing block. On the long floor block we had deadlifts, lunges to upright rows, pullovers with weights on the Bosu, Bosu crunches, and Bosu plank work. I knew I couldn’t do the plank work feeling the way I did, so my coach told me to do lateral single leg lifts instead to get the same muscles working. For my deadlifts I did use a heavy weight since I know I can do a lot for that move. But for everything else I was using medium heavy weights for me.

The rowing block was a 4 minute row for distance. We had been given some distance goals but I knew that my rowing wasn’t going to have a lot of power behind it. So I set a goal just to be able to row for the entire time without stopping. I knew that if I had a lot of pain or nausea I would have to stop and that wasn’t something I could control, but I was hoping for the best. And somehow I managed to do the entire 4 minutes without needing to stop.

Wednesday’s workout went very similarly to how Monday’s workout went. It was a strength based day and I was on the bike again because I was feeling pretty rotten. And I went into the cardio portion with the same plan with what I did on Monday. I had my resistance set to my base resistance and just tried to keep going as long as I could. I took more breaks during the 30 minutes on the bike on Wednesday than I did on Monday because the cramps I was dealing with were worse, but I just tried to do my best.

On the floor, we had 3 blocks. The first block was a mini-band block. We had hip bridges with the mini-band on our legs but instead of doing the hip bridges on the ground we had our upper body on the weight bench. That was a bit tough and awkward for me to do, but I was happy to have something new to try as it distracted me. We also had squat lateral walks with the mini-bands in that block. The second block was lunges and plank work but I did upright rows with weights instead of the plank work. And the last block had lunges with upper cuts and lunges with bicep curls which went surprisingly well for me. We also had 150 meter rows in that block which weren’t as great because I didn’t have much power in my rowing. But I was happy with the weight work in that last block which helped to end my workout on a positive note.

I was still feeling a bit nauseous and was dealing with pretty bad cramps on Friday. But I was doing better than I had earlier in the week so I was hoping I could do a bit more with my workouts. I knew I’d still need to be on the bike, but I had a goal to do more than just pedal as long as I could.

This class was a 3 group class so I was only on the bike for about 15 minutes. There were 2 blocks and the first block was one where we did things at our own pace. For the bike, we had rounds of .8 miles and then we had a 30 second recovery. And each round we were supposed to increase the resistance by 1 gear. I started at my base pace gear and got through 3 rounds in the block so I got the resistance up to what is usually my push pace resistance. I still had to take breaks and it took longer to get to the distance than normal, but it was better than what I did on Monday or Wednesday. The second block was shorter and we had 30 second push paces to 30 second all out paces starting at the resistance level (or incline for the treadmill) that we ended the first block on. That went a bit better for me since they were shorter rounds.

Next I was on the rower which was also 2 blocks. The first block started with a 100 meter row and then ground to press using weights. I used a heavy weight for that move and was happy that I felt like I was doing some decent work considering I didn’t feel that way with the bike. Each round we increased our row by 50 meters and kept the ground to press the same. And the second block was the same patterns as the cardio with 30 second push paces to 30 second all outs. My rowing was never really a push or all out, but I just tried to do the best I could.

My best work in the workout was on the floor. The first block was squat low rows with weights, goblet squats, and reverse mountain climbers. Even though I wasn’t feeling my best, I managed to match my PR for weights on the low row and goblet squats! The goblet squats were a bit tough with that weight, but we had a low rep count so that helped. And the second block was single arm snatches using weights, push-ups using the bench, and ab work. I was feeling pretty good about myself after the floor work. It’s never easy to not be able to do what I know I can do in a workout but I was glad to find out that I could still do things on the floor like normal.

By Saturday I was starting to feel better, but I was still a bit off. So I finished my week of workout on the bike. And since it was an endurance workout, that was probably for the best for me. The cardio was a 23 minute block with no walking recovery and I don’t think I could have done that on the treadmill. But since I was on the bike, I decided to push myself and go really hard.

The 23 minutes of cardio work had 5 different 3 minute push paces with a base pace after it. Some of the base paces were 2 minutes and some of them were 90 seconds. I was changing up the resistance on the bike so that I would be using a harder resistance for the push paces and it felt like a relief when I was back to my lower resistance for the base pace. 3 minutes of biking hard did make me have a few moments of nausea, but they were much less frequent than it had been earlier in the week. And the 23 minute block ended with a 1 minute all out where I did increase the resistance on the bike even more. I was tired after doing that hard work, but it was good tired. After so many days of having to take it easy, it felt good to push myself.

On the floor, we had 3 blocks. The first block was squat reverse flys, plank jacks, and plank Spidermans. The plank work was a bit tough because of the nausea, but I just took my time and took breaks in the middle if I needed to. The second block was deadlifts, shoulder work, and toe reaches. And I was able to use my heavy deadlift weights again. And the last block was squat swings with bicycle crunches. Even thought this wasn’t the craziest floor blocks I’ve had, it seemed like one of the hardest!

I’m glad that while some of my workouts were a bit disappointing with cardio work, I usually did pretty amazing work on the floor. And since that was how I ended each of my workouts, I was able to end each workout on a positive and happy note. It was a good reminder that I don’t have to feel as frustrated as I have been in the past with the workouts where I can’t do everything I wanted to. And fortunately I should be back to normal workouts again this week.

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Not Too Much Progress (or Just Being Happy With What I Can Do)

Posted on August 13, 2018 | Comments Off

I’ve had a lot of great workout weeks lately. I’ve been so happy with the progress I’ve been making and it really has made me feel amazing about myself. But this past week of workouts, I didn’t really have anything amazing happen. In the past, this probably would have gotten me down. But now, I’m just still so happy that I’ve been doing what I can and I know that it’s still better than where I started from.

Monday’s workout was a bit of a tough morning for me. My hips were bugging me (although nothing as bad as the week before) and it was an endurance day so we were on the treadmill for a longer time. The blocks were all pretty short at 6.5 minutes each, but I knew that it was a day that I was going to do power walking only and trying to run was just going to be too painful for me.

Each block had a similar format with starting with a longer push pace followed by a 90 second base pace. Then we had a 30 second push pace, 90 second base pace, and a 30 second all out pace. The first block had a 2.5 minute push pace as the long one and each block went down 30 seconds. I kept my incline for all my push paces at 6% and I did do my all out paces at 8%, but it was a struggle for me that morning. But I’m glad I just stuck with walking and didn’t try to run because I think that would have made things worse.

On the floor we had 3 blocks that all had the same pattern. We had 3 exercises plus burpees. The first block had rocket pushups, bench tap squats, and bench hop overs. The second block had regular pushups, skier swings, and low rows on the straps. And the last block had atomic pushups, ankle reach crunches, and swimmers. For the burpees I was able to jump my feet back and forth by using the bench for my hands. I’m really enjoying doing my burpees that way and I feel like I’m getting much more power out of the move. For the other work, I was toward the middle of the weights I usually use. We had a lot of reps for many of the exercises so I had to be careful about not doing too much weight. The floor went better than the treadmill which was nice since I ended with floor work.

Wednesday’s workout was a 3 group workout and it was a switch format. We had a round of 5 minute blocks, a round of 4 minute blocks, and a round of 2 minute blocks.

On the treadmill, the first block was a 2 minute push pace to a 1 minute all out, a 1 minute walk, and a 1 minute all out pace. I ran the first minute of the push and then walked the second so that block ended up being 1 minute run/walk intervals. The second block was a 1 minute push pace, a 1 minute all out, a 1 minute walk, and a 1 minute all out pace. I walked the push pace so I had 1 minute intervals again. And the last block was a 30 second push pace, 30 second all out pace, 30 second walk, and 30 second all out pace and I ran all the push and all out paces. It was a good amount of running considering I’m still getting back into it.

On the rower, the first block started with a 300 meter row and then 30 squat to presses with the medicine ball. Then it was a 150 meter row and 15 squat to presses. The next block was just repeating the 300 row with 30 squat to presses and the last block was repeating the 150 meter row with 15 squat to presses. My rowing was pretty slow and I’m not exactly sure why. I felt like I was going quickly but I wasn’t getting a lot of power and I couldn’t seem to fix that. So I tried not to focus on my times and just focused on getting the rows done.

And on the floor each block was 2 moves. The first block was incline chest presses and squats. The second block was incline chest flys and half get ups. And the last block was 1 minute of a side plank on each side (I guess technically that’s only 1 move but it counted as 2). I was going heavy on the weighted work although not the heaviest weights I have used. But for some reason the incline chest work compared to when you are flat on the bench are harder for me so I didn’t feel comfortable with the heavier weights. And because we were moving so quickly through the blocks I didn’t get a ton of rest time so I had to take it while doing the floor work.

Friday’s workout was an endurance day and I really thought I’d just do all walking because of that. But when I saw the format of the workout, I realized it would be a good running day for some of the blocks. And it ended up being a good basic workout to be my first workout of being 35!

All of the treadmill blocks had a similar format with repeating push to 1 minute base paces. The first block was 30 second push paces, the second block was 45 second push paces, and the last block was 1 minute push paces. The first and second block were good ones to run since they were short intervals, but by the last block I was getting a bit tired so I did that one walking for the entire block. But I still ran more than I honestly thought I would going into the workout so that was still good for me.

The first two floor blocks were using the mini-bands. The first block was squat front walks and bench tap squats. The bench taps were a bit tough since I would have liked to not have had to squat as low, but I challenged myself and did it. The second block was hip bridges and knee tuck abs. And the last block was ab rollouts using the ab dolly and rolling sit-ups on the bench. My floor work wasn’t anything spectacular, but I worked hard and felt good about all my efforts.

Saturday’s workout was a strength based one and I knew that I would be doing all walking on the treadmill so I could do the hill work. But it also allowed me to try some things out that I haven’t really done in a while.

Since I got back to the treadmill, I have been using a slightly reduced speed. Before, I was walking at 3.5mph. Since going back I have been walking at 3.4mph. But this workout, I decided to bump it up and go back to my old speed. It’s weird that I can feel the difference even though it isn’t much, but I’m glad I did it because I proved to myself I could!

And I continued to do some great work when it came to the hills too! All of the treadmill blocks were the same with progressive hill work. Each block had hill work that was supposed to be between 6%-9%. I rarely go above 8% but I decided to go for it and try the 9% incline too and while it was hard I did it! I even was able to do some of my all out inclines at 10%! I don’t know if I will keep doing the higher inclines when we have hill work because a lot of hill work has longer intervals than what we had in this workout, but it’s something to keep in my mind.

The floor work was interesting. We had different exercises to try lower weights with and higher weights with. In the first block we had bicep curls and tricep work. For the lower weight for my bicep curls and triceps, I did 15lbs and for the higher weight I did 20lbs. The second block was the same idea with doing bent over low rows. For those I did 30lbs as my higher weight and 20lbs for my lower weight. In that block was also had ab work. And the last block was 200 meter rows with lunges between each round of rowing.

Overall, I’m happy with what I did in this past week of workouts. I would have loved to have had something amazing to write about with a crazy accomplishment, but that wasn’t what was in store for me this past week. But I still did great work and that’s something to be happy about.

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Good Days And Bad Days (or Proving Myself Wrong)

Posted on August 6, 2018 | Comments Off

This past week of workouts was seriously up and down. I was all over the place and thinking sometimes I was having a horrible workout week and at other times thinking that I’m killing it in my workouts. It was really odd and a bit unsettling but in the end I think things were more positive than negative.

Monday’s workout was a tough day for me. I slept poorly the night before but thought maybe it wouldn’t be affecting me too much. Unfortunately, the lack of sleep also meant I was going to have a bad hip day. I felt it pretty quickly and debated about going on the bike, but I was just hoping it would get better as I walked.

It was a strength based workout so it was all incline work on the treadmill. I kept things pretty basic for myself and I did all my base pace inclines at 4% and all my push or all out pace inclines at 6%. We had 3 blocks that all had a similar format of decreasing push paces with increasing inclines (except for me keeping my inclines the same). The first block had a 2 minute, 90 second, 1 minute, and 30 second push pace. The next block eliminated the 2 minute push pace and the last block eliminated the 2 minute and 90 second push paces. And every block ended with a 30 second all out. I really struggled with my hip issues and it was annoying at times, but it was one of those mornings where I just figured that doing something was better than nothing.

The floor was 2 blocks and the first block allowed us to decide how many reps we did for each exercise. We had deadlifts, bicep curls, tricep kickbacks, and push-ups and could to 6-10 reps for each thing. I decided to go heavy on my weights and try to do 8 reps each thing. We had 3 rounds of doing those exercises before we went to the rower for a 500 meter row. My row time was decent considering it was a longer row, but nothing amazing. And when I got back to the floor to keep working on the exercises I went down to 6 reps for each exercise. And we ended the workout with a core blast which I had to modify a bit because anything with my feet in the air is tough on my hip.

Wednesday’s workout was better than Monday’s but it still wasn’t my best day. It was an endurance, strength, and power based workout and I knew that I would struggle a bit to run but wanted to see what I could do.

The first block on the treadmill was 4 rounds of 45 second push paces and 45 second all out paces. I walked all the push paces but ran the all out paces. 45 seconds felt like a really long time to me for some reason! It wasn’t that I was tired or hurting, I just felt off. I really had such a high the past few weeks with my running and this was one of the first times I was worried that my progress was moving backwards. The second block was endurance based with 90 second push paces and I decided to walk all of them. I thought about doing 30 second intervals but decided it would be best for me not to push myself too much. But that block did end with a 30 second push to 30 second all out pace and I ran for that minute. And the last block was rounds of 30 second push paces at inclines to 30 second all outs on a flat incline. But I stuck with just walking at the inclines I set it to be at for that minute and kept my speed the same.

On the floor, we started with a longer block. We had pull-ups on the straps, fly raises with weights, plank press outs, and ab work. After doing that we had a row that started with a 100 meter row and increased each round. I went decently heavy with my weight for the fly raises but I struggled with the ab work. We were supposed to do leg raises to crunches but my body was just not ok with the leg raises. So I decided to do double the crunches and figured it counted as a good modification. I only was on the rower for a 100 and 200 meter row but I did get pretty close to my PR time for my 100 meter row! And the last block was a shorter one with squat rotations on the straps and weighted crunches which went much better than the ab work in the first block.

Friday’s workout was a 3 group workout and it was a mix of endurance and strength. We had 2 blocks at each section of the room and I was starting on the treadmill. The treadmill blocks were pretty basic. The first block was an 8 minute run for distance and the second block was a 4 minute run for distance. For the first one, I did 45 seconds of running and 1 minute of walking. Those intervals were working pretty well for me and I didn’t feel too bad when it was done.

So for the 4 minute distance run, I thought maybe I should push myself and try to run it all. And that just wasn’t going to happen. 30 seconds in I was already tired. But I was determined to do at least what I did in the longer block if not something better. In the end, I ran for a minute and walked for 45 seconds. But I still felt really disappointed with myself. I know that the progress is happening and it might be slow, but I still want to push myself and do better. I can’t help it.

On the rower, we had the same block twice. But the difference was one block was 8 minutes and the other was 4 (just like on the treadmill). We started with a 1 minute row and then we had 10 squats to lunges on each side. Then we repeated that until time was called. The rows were fine (nothing too spectacular) but squats to lunges are tough for me. I had to hold on to the rower water tanks to do them but I still had to take a lot of time to do them too. Because of that, I didn’t do as many rounds as I would have liked to.

On the floor the first block was lunges, single arm dumbbell squats to rows, Y raises on the straps, and sit ups. The lunges were fine and I was able to use heavy weights for the single arm work. The strap work was tough (I think my body was just getting tired so I was not able to be as stiff as I should have been) and the sit ups took time too. But nothing too bad. The last block was lateral lunges and tricep extensions and both of those exercises went pretty well.

Saturday’s workout was the day that made everything better in my week. The workout was a power run/row and I had a feeling I could do some good work with the treadmill work. The run/row consisted of a .25 mile run, squat presses with a medicine ball, a 250 meter row, and more squat presses with a medicine ball. And I had it in my head that I needed to prove to myself that I was getting better at running and be able to run the .25 mile run without stopping.

Considering how the day before I was struggling, this was a huge idea. But I’m super stubborn and was determined to do this for at least one round. When I got started running the first time, it felt ok when I was starting. I did feel a bit ready to walk at the 1 minute mark, but I pushed on because I wasn’t feeling that bad. And I just kept watching the distance on the treadmill and doing weird math things in my head (like figuring out that I was 2/25ths of the way through) and that helped to pass the time. And then just over 3 minutes in I did it!

I couldn’t believe that I just ran the entire thing! I was tired and had to take some time before doing the squats, row, and squats; but that time was worth knowing I ran for that distance! I was on the treadmill a total of 3 times during the run/row and I managed to run the .25 mile distance every single time.

I still know that this can’t happen every workout and I might be a bit sore this week, but it was worth it to me to prove that I could do it. I needed this mental boost and it really did put me in the best mood!

On the floor we had 3 blocks and they were all timed exercises. The first block had single arm low rows and sit-ups. I was using a heavier weight for the single arm low rows but it wasn’t the heaviest weight I’ve used for it. I really felt the effort from running when I was on the floor so I had to take things a bit slower and I felt better using a slightly lower weight than the maximum that I know I could use. The second block had pullovers and sit-up to squats and the last block had lateral lunges and pop jacks (I was jumping my feet back and forth and using the bench for my hands). I think the running was the best part of my workout that day but the floor work wasn’t too shabby!

I’m so glad that last week ended on a high note because it’s put me in a great mindset for this week. There’s no guarantee this week will go well, but every time I have a really great workout it reminds me of what I can do and I remember that the bad days aren’t the best representation of my abilities. I’m just hoping that the good days outweigh the bad ones.

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Another Week Of Progress And Practicing Patience (or Having Some Good Challenges)

Posted on July 30, 2018 | Comments Off

This past week of workouts was actually a pretty great one for me. It’s been interesting getting back into running and figuring out how much to do and when it’s too much and I need to take a step back. But this past week of workouts gave me so many opportunities to work on running and figure things out, which is exactly what I needed.

Monday’s workout was a benchmark class and I was a bit hesitant about it. It was the 12 minute run for distance benchmark and I knew I wouldn’t be anywhere close to what my best distance was for that challenge since my best distance was when I ran the entire thing. Of course, I had the thought that maybe I should see if I could run the entire thing, but I knew better than to even try that and went with doing intervals.

For the first 10 minutes I did 45 seconds of running/1 minute of walking like I had done on Saturday the week before. It was the longest I had done run/walk intervals since I started running again and it was getting very tough for the second half of the challenge. I did need to take some breaks to catch my breath and I thought about stopping, but I also knew that a lot of the issues I was having was in my head. Because of the timing of the intervals, the last minute was a bit different so I would end on a run. I did my last interval and then ended on a 1 minute run. That last minute was difficult and I’m so glad I didn’t push my speed at all because I don’t know if I could have done it. My goal was to do at least .75 miles and I’m glad that I was able to do a little bit better than that.

For the second block on the treadmill, we had timed push to base paces. It was all 90 second push paces and I started the first one thinking I’d do 30 second intervals. But after those first 30 seconds of running, I realized that I maxed out on running for the day. So for all the push paces I did my walking at an incline. I would have loved to keep working on running, but considering I did the entire 12 minute distance challenge with run/walk intervals I couldn’t be too upset with myself.

On the floor we had 2 blocks. The first block had triceps with weights, chest presses with weights, Y raises on the straps, and plank kick throughs. I used heavier weights for my triceps and chest presses but my body was just not having it with the plank kick throughs. My hips were locking up and it was impossible for me to get my leg to kick through without losing my balance. It was frustrating that I couldn’t even do a real modification for these moves so I ended up doing plank shoulder taps so at least I was doing something that was plank related. The second block had a 200 meter row at the beginning of each round and then it was 2 different arm moves with weights and the mini-bands. We had front raises and hammer curls. I was doing my normal weights for those but with the mini-band it was harder than normal.

Wednesday’s workout was a run/row but it was done in blocks instead of us doing the run/row on our own. So we had 5 blocks for cardio, 3 of which were on the treadmill and 2 were on the rower. On the first and last block on the treadmill, we had a 2 minute push pace to a 1 minute all out pace. I did the 2 minute push pace as a 1 minute run/1 minute walk and then ran the 1 minute all out so it was all 1 minute intervals. And the middle block had a walking recovery after the all out pace followed by another 1 minute all out so I could do it as 1 minute intervals as well. I have said that I was slowly getting back to running, but I have also been moving pretty quickly to increase my running and I realized that I might not be ready for 1 minute intervals yet. I can do them occasionally, but these blocks proved to me that I wasn’t ready to do them over and over.

On the rower we had the same plan for both blocks. We started with a 100 meter row and then had 10 medicine ball squat presses. Then we did 150 meters and more squats and were supposed to keep increasing the row by 50 meters each time. I only made it to the second round of squats each time and those squats were tough because the only medicine ball that was left was the heaviest one when I’m used to either the lightest or medium one. I probably would have gotten more rowing done if I had the lighter medicine ball, but I’ve learned that it’s always good for me to challenge myself with what weights I use from time to time.

On the floor we had 2 regular floor blocks and 1 rowing block. The first floor block had half get-ups and single leg squats using the straps. Single leg stuff is tough to do with my hip issues, but I’ve been picking up tricks to use so I can try them more often. And I was able to do the single leg squats this time with taking some breaks while working on them. The second block had single arm presses, goblet squats, and lunges. And for my squats I used one of the new heavy weights I started using recently and they were hard! I might have overdone it a bit based on what I had done earlier in the workout, but I was only feeling sore after the workout and not pain (soreness is ok). And the rowing block was the same as the rowing block we had during the run/row, but this time I had a lighter medicine ball at my rower so I was able to get to the rower for the 3rd row.

Friday’s workout was an endurance day, but it was also a 3 group class and a class where we switched between blocks so it didn’t feel like a normal endurance day. Every block was 6 minutes and we were at each station twice during the workout.

The first time we were on the treadmill we had 2 rounds of 90 second push paces with 1 minute base paces and ended with a 1 minute all out. I knew I couldn’t run for 90 seconds and wasn’t sure I wanted to try running for a minute again for more than just the all out at the end, so I did the 90 second push paces as 30 seconds of running and 1 minute of walking on my usual push incline as a power walker. And then I ran the all out at the end of the block. The second time we were on the treadmill we had a 6 minute run for distance to do on our own. I decided to do my 45 second run/1 minute walk intervals like I had done before. The only difference this time was for the last 45 seconds of the block I increased my running speed. It was hard to run faster, but it was easier to do that than it was to run longer. I was happy to see that I did slightly better than half of what I did in my 12 minute run on Monday which is proof of my progress even if it’s not much.

The rower was the same for both blocks. We started with a 90 second row for distance and then had 12 squats. Then it was back to the rower for a 30 second row and more squats. We repeated the 30 second row and squats until the block was done. And on the floor the first block was lunges, upright rows, and running men and the second block was single arm shoulder presses and plank work. For the weighted work I wasn’t using my heavy weights because I was starting to feel a bit light headed. I’m not sure what caused it (it might have been that I had an early dinner on Thursday so it had been longer between my last meal and my workout than normal), but I just took breaks when I was feeling weird and didn’t push myself too much with the weights.

Saturday’s workout was a signature OTF workout called Orange Trinity. All classes were 3 group classes even if they normally are 2 group classes and we were at each section of the room for 14 minutes.

First I was on the treadmill where we had a run/weighted exercise block. Each time on the treadmill we ran .15 miles and after that we had squat presses using a medicine ball with decreasing reps each round. With the run, I knew I’d be doing them as run/walk intervals, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted them to be when I started. I figured I’d run for 45 seconds and then plan from there. I thought maybe I’d be doing a 45 second run, a 1 minute walk, and finish with another 45 second run and that would get me to the right distance, but I discovered that with the distance it was perfect to do it as just 45 second intervals. So I ran twice each time for 45 seconds with a 45 second walk in the middle. As much as I would have liked to see if I could run the entire distance, I knew that there was so much more coming up and I didn’t want to exhaust myself.

Next was the rower which is what I had heard was the toughest part of the workout. Essentially, it was a 14 minute row. But there were push and base rows to do within those 14 minutes so it wasn’t just a row for distance. We started with a 1 minute push row followed by 90 seconds and 2 minutes and then went back down before we ended with an all out row. Ideally, I wanted to get at least 2800 meters since that averages 200 meters a minute (which is pretty much the standard we are supposed to do). But this was a big endurance row and I had to take super quick breaks during the 14 minutes to wipe away sweat or tighten the foot straps. I would have loved to have done the entire thing without stopping, but I was pretty close. All of my breaks together were probably under 30 seconds so that’s not bad. I was just over 2700 meters when time was up but now I have a goal to work on the next time we have this workout.

The final block for me was on the floor and it was the same work we had during the Orange X workout. Even though I was so tired from the running and rowing, I was determined to use the same weights I used during the Orange X workout. So I did my squats with a 45lb weight, my row with a 35lb weight, and my chest press with a set of 30lb weights. I had to go a bit slower than I would have liked, but I was much more focused on using those weights and keeping my form than I was on doing as many rounds as I could have done.

Overall, I really am proud of myself with these workouts. I had a lot of opportunities where I could have pushed myself too much and done more than my body was ready for, and I didn’t do that. But at the same time, I found little ways to push myself and keep making progress so that was awesome too. I’m still just so happy that I’m getting back into running and I’m really hoping that I’ll have some more chances to make progress again this week.

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Continuing My Running Progress (or Only Having Minor Setbacks)

Posted on July 23, 2018 | 1 comment

I was pretty proud of myself when I started running again, but I also knew that I had to keep being easy on myself. I can see how easily I could push myself to try to be back to where I was before, but I know that in the long run it is better for me to take my time and work my way back there. This past week of workouts really gave me the chance to work on my progress as well as test my patience to prove to myself that I know how to take it slow.

Monday’s workout was a themed workout. Even though it was a 2 group class, it was a 3 partner workout as soon as we were done with the warm-up. But instead of having someone controlling the switch between the partners, all of the blocks were timed. We had 9 blocks (3 at each section) and they were all 3.5 minutes long.

When I was on the rower, we had distance rows. Each distance went up by 50 meters and we had squats with medicine balls between each row. And the partner on the rower ahead told me what distance they did so I picked up where they left off. I started on the rower and did the 100 and 150 meter rows. The next time I was on the rower I did the 400 meter and started the 450 meter row. And the last time on the rower I did the 650 meter row.

The floor was the same block every time and the timing worked out where I was able to get through each exercise once before time was called. We had swinging leg lunges, squats, pull-ups on the straps, seated twists with weights, and double crunches. The lunges were a bit tough for me but I was able to do the swinging lunges by holding on to the wall for balance. I noticed that I’m a lot stronger with my lunges going back than I was going forward so I tried to even them out when I was doing them.

The treadmill was supposed to be a mix of endurance, strength, and power but I kind of did the same thing every time. The first block was supposed to be a 3 minute push pace and a 30 second all out pace. I did the 3 minute push pace as my 30 second running/1 minute walking intervals and then did the 30 second all out as a run. The second block was supposed to be the same thing but with incline work and I just did the same as the first block. And the last block was a 30 second all out, 30 second walking recovery, 45 second all out, 45 second walking recovery, and 1 minute all out. I was going to do all of the all outs as a run, but I was a bit hesitant about the 1 minute all out. But I figured I’d try it and see what happens and managed to do the entire thing as a run.

Wednesday’s workout was a strength based class but I wanted to keep working on my running so I didn’t do any of the incline work. We had 3 blocks that all had a similar plan. The first block was 3 rounds of 1 minute base paces at an incline followed by 1 minutes of base pace at a flat road with a 30 second all out at the end. I ran when we were supposed to be doing the incline work and then had my base pace as my regular power walking to recover. And I ran the all out at the end just like I had been doing. The next block was 75 second hills with 45 second flat road recoveries. I ran for 45 seconds and then did the last 30 second and the 45 seconds of the recovery as my power walk. And the last block was 90 second hills with 60 second flat road recoveries and I did 30 second run/30 second walk intervals instead of the hill time.

I was battling some nausea during the end of the treadmill time, but I really tried to fight through it. I think it might be too early to tell, but I felt like the nausea wasn’t as bad when I was running as it was when I was walking. It might be like my hip pain which hurts less with running for some weird reason. I did have to take some breaks during the treadmill to let the nausea go by, but it wasn’t as bad as it can get so I felt pretty lucky that I was able to do the running work that I did.

The floor was split into a longer floor block and a short rowing block. On the floor block we had bent low rows, pullovers, bicep curls, and reverse flies with weights and then the block ended with crunches. For my low rows, bicep curls, and reverse flies I was using a 20lb weight and I used a 30lb weight for my pullovers. Those were all the new heavier weights with the exception of the low rows (I couldn’t find a 25lb weight and 30lb was too heavy). And the rowing was a similar pattern with the treadmill with 2 rounds of 90 second rows for distance and ending with a 30 second all out row. All of my rowing was higher than the minimum we were supposed to get, but it wasn’t as good as I know it could be.

Friday was a day that was a horrible nausea day for me. I honestly was ok with that because I should have been nauseous all week and it was only minor. But Friday was one of the epic bad nausea days so I knew I had to use the bike to make sure that I was being kind to myself and that I wouldn’t make the situation worse.

This workout was a power day and it would have been an amazing day to work on my running. We had short push paces followed by base paces and that’s exactly the thing I need to practice my running form and endurance. But on the bike I just focused on trying to keep moving. I wasn’t always increasing my resistance the way that I normally would, but I tried to do it when I could. It was not my best bike day for sure, but I also have learned that doing whatever I can on my bad nausea days is all I can ask for sometimes.

On the floor the first block was timed exercises with lunges and rolling burpees. I did modified burpees using the bench for my hands instead of the ground which helps. We also had a rowing block where we had to count how many pulls it took us to get to 100 meters. I’m getting pretty good and going slow with my rowing to get the count down and even with feeling pretty sick I was still able to do a good job with it. And then we had skater lunges as well as lunges to overhead presses with weights. Those were a bit tough with the nausea, but I just took it slowly and took breaks when I needed to.

Fortunately by Saturday I was feeling a bit better. Still nauseous, but not anything close to what I was feeling on Friday. But when I learned it was a partner workout, I was a bit nervous. I didn’t want to have a partner relying on me when I didn’t feel my best. So I told the coach that if we had an odd number in class that I really wanted to be working alone. And we did have an odd number so I was solo for the partner workout.

The partner workout was for the entire class. The idea was one person was either on the treadmill or rower and the other was on the floor. And the person on the cardio side was the person who controlled the switch. We had assignments for the treadmill or rower and then the floor was one long block. On the floor we had bench sit ups to squats, high rows on the straps, burpees, plank jacks, toe reaches, bicycle crunches, hop overs, crunches with heel touches, over/under static crunches, and running men. The first exercise started at 10 reps and they went up by 10 ending with 100 running men.

Since I didn’t have a partner to switch with, my coach told me to do 3 floor exercises each time except to do the 100 running men on their own. Because I was doing that, I was on the floor a little longer than the people in the partner groups, but that was fine with me. I really just wanted to focus on doing the work and doing the best I could. With the burpees, plank jacks, and running men I used the bench for my hands instead of the floor. But that also meant I was able to do the burpees with jumping my feet back and forth instead of walking them back.

With the cardio side, I focused on just doing the rowing without a break. It was tough since the first time on the rower was a 1,000 meter row, but I did it. I did feel a bit nauseous at the end of the rowing, but I think that was more to do with being tired and less to do with the nausea I normally have. And on the treadmill, I focused on my run/walk intervals. I had been doing 30 seconds running/1 minute running but I decided to test things and bump it up a little. So I did 45 seconds running/1 minute walking and it was going pretty well. I did the full treadmill assignments instead of cutting them in half for power walkers, but again since I didn’t have a partner I wasn’t too worried about taking too much time.

Considering that this was supposed to be a bad nausea week, I really lucked out. I only had 1 day where it truly affected my workout and I continued to make progress in my running. As much as I want to test myself this week and see what I can do, I also know that this slow progress is exactly what my body needs and will allow me to get back to where I was eventually.

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Surprising Myself (or Maybe Progress Is Faster The Second Time)

Posted on July 16, 2018 | 1 comment

Last week I blogged about how I finally got back on the treadmill after 7 weeks of only using the bike during my workouts. That was a huge accomplishment for me not only because I knew my endurance would be lower than before but because I was terrified that walking would be so difficult for me. I didn’t want to feel disappointed or frustrated with myself and I knew that was going to happen. I would have to take time making progress and I’m not the most patient person. But this past week of workouts, I made progress that I wasn’t expecting to happen for a while.

Monday’s workout was a power switch day, so I was excited to try to see what I could do on the treadmill. We were never on the treadmill for more than 5 minutes so it was a good day to work on my speed and not feel too overwhelmed. But we switched so much that I was exhausted because the workout was crazy!

When I was on the treadmill, I used my slower speed for my base pace and my normal speed for my push and all out paces with the inclines all being my normal inclines. It was a bit tough at times to keep the speed up, but it was feeling easier than it had before so I know there was progress. It was very limited treadmill time compared to other switch days because even though this was a 2 group class we were using the treadmill, rowers, and floor sections.

When I was on the rower, it was always the same thing with rounds of 30 second all out rows with 15 seconds of recovery. I know my rowing wasn’t my best, but it was nice knowing that all the rowing was going to be 30 seconds because that goes by so quickly.

But the craziest section to me was when we were on the floor. We had a mix of timed exercises and counting the reps but they were equally hard. In the timed sections we always had just one thing to do. One block was squats with front presses using the medicine ball. Another block was skater lunges. And the last timed block was frogger squats. The timed work was always 30 seconds of work with 15 seconds of recovery but the recovery felt like nothing! In the other blocks we had things like chest presses, push-ups, and sit-ups.

About halfway through this workout, I felt like I was done. I thought it was just me from being so tired from the heat. But I asked a friend who was working out at the station next to me and he agreed that this workout was one of the tougher ones we had done. I think the combination of the quick switches, power moves, and lack of rest really made this hard. But I was glad I did it and as always felt so accomplished when class was done.

Wednesday’s workout was an endurance day and was supposed to be a workout to prepare us for when we have a 12 minute distance run again. I’m nowhere near ready to do a distance run, so I knew this workout was going to be more of a focus of just trying to get my endurance back.

The first block on the treadmill was a 5 1/2 minute distance run, a 90 second recovery, and another 5 1/2 minute distance run. We were supposed to be in a push pace during the distance run sections, and I did have my incline at the push incline I normally use. But I just knew that I couldn’t do my normal speed for that amount of time yet so I just did the entire thing at my slower speed. I was a bit disappointed in myself because I probably should have at least tried, but I could just feel it in my body that I was not going to be able to do it. The second treadmill block was 3 rounds of 1 minute push paces and 90 second base paces with an all out pace at the end. Again, I did my inclines like normal but used the slower speed.

On the floor, the first block was split up with a row in the middle. We had rounds of bridge rows and tricep extensions on the straps first and then a 300 meter row. Then we had ab dolly knee tuck and rollouts after. And the second block started with a 600 meter row and then we had more ab dolly work and swimmers. My floor work wasn’t my strongest, but I think that was because none of it involved weights and that’s when I’ve been doing my best. But I need to learn how to push myself more with body weight work too.

Friday was where I made my huge progress. I saw that the workout was going to have lots of 30 second all out paces. This format was similar to what the workout was like the first time I tried running. It was a little different with some of the all out paces being after a push pace, but there were plenty of all out paces that were right before and after a walking recovery. Even though I just got back to the treadmill, I thought this would be the perfect chance to test out running. I was a bit terrified that I was pushing myself too much, but I told myself that I could always stop running if it didn’t feel right.

There were 3 blocks and they all started with a 2 minute push pace followed by a 30 second all out which I walked at my slower speed. Then we had 3 different 30 second all outs sandwiched between the walking. And I decided to go for it and run. I ran at my old running speed and was surprised how it didn’t feel as difficult to get back to running as it did to get back to walking. The third 30 second all out each block was tough because I was getting tired, but not anything like I thought it would be.

I couldn’t believe that I was running again. I hadn’t really run at all since the end of last year and I was only back on the treadmill for a week and a half before trying running. And I really wasn’t expecting to be able to do this for at least a month or so. But I guess when I’m coming back to something I had done before, it was easier than when I started the first time.

After the running on the treadmill, I was ready to move to the floor. The workout was a Friday the 13th theme so all the floor moves were either 13 or 26 reps. It was one long block with adding on exercises to start and then taking away exercises after that. And each round had a 30 second all out row as well. The exercises were hop overs, triceps with weights, bench sit-ups to squats, and burpees. The hop overs were tough and my legs were feeling like bricks. And I knew there was no way I could do 13 burpees. So I decided to do modified burpees with putting my hands on the end of the bench instead of the ground. And with having that extra leverage with not being totally parallel to the ground, I was able to hop my feet out and back instead of stepping back! That was another thing I wasn’t expecting to be able to do.

After my huge progress on Friday, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect on Saturday. And when I saw it was a strength based run/row day I was still a bit unsure. But I decided that working on my running progress was going to be a priority to I didn’t do any of the incline work. We had 4 blocks that all started on the rower and then had a run for distance until time was called. The first row was 400 meters and each block went down 100 meters so we had more time on the treadmill each block. I went with my old interval training with 30 seconds of running and 1 minute of walking for my running plan. But because of the timing of everything, I usually ended up running for a bit longer at the end of each block. I even had a block where I ran for almost a minute! That was pushing it a bit much for me, but it just proved to me that my progress was going to be easier than I thought.

On the floor we had 2 blocks. The first block was lunges with weights, chest fly with weights, and ab work. I did both the lunges and chest fly work with 25lb weights which is higher than I was doing before. I figured I needed to make up for the strength work on the floor since I didn’t do it on the treadmill. And the second block had deadlifts, bicep curls, hip bridges, and side plank dips. For my deadlifts I used 30lb weights (instead of my usual 20lb), for my biceps I used 20lb weights (instead of my usual 15lb), and for my hip bridges I used one of the 30lb weights (I don’t really have a usual for this since I am newer to using weights for this move). I love how much stronger I am than I thought and it still makes me so happy when I get to walk over to the heavy weight rack to pick up heavy weights.

I honestly wasn’t expecting to have this much progress this past week. I thought the week before was the huge thing with getting back on the treadmill. But I guess I underestimated myself and I’m proving that I really can do it. I don’t know how long it will take me to get back to running like I was doing before. I’ve learned now not to set plans for myself. I am a bit worried about how I will feel running when I will be nauseous (which will probably be happening this week or next), but again I’m just going to listen to my body and do what feels right. My body was telling me I could run again when my brain was telling me not to. I’m glad I listened to my body.

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Finally A Power Walker Again (or The First Steps Toward Running Again)

Posted on July 9, 2018 | 1 comment

Sometimes when I set a goal by writing it on here, it really gives me the extra push to try to do it. I hate when I set out to do something and say it publicly and it doesn’t happen. And last week I said on here that I wanted to at least try to get back onto the treadmill. It had been 7 weeks since I was on the treadmill and I was a bit scared to take the step to get back on again. But I said I was going to do it and I’m so glad that I can say that I did it!

Monday’s workout was a strength based class. When I saw that I figured that since it would be incline work on the treadmill that I would just use the bike. But I realized that I needed to just jump in and try. Worst case, I could go to the bike partway through the workout, but I should at least start on the treadmill.

We were on the treadmill for the first half of class and there were 4 blocks during that time. All of the blocks were about progressive push paces, but 2 of them were about increasing speed and 2 of them were about increasing inclines. I decided to just do the same thing for all 4 blocks to keep it simple for myself. I started at 4% incline (my usual base incline) and every minute I went up 1% so I ended at 8% for the 30 second all out (which is the incline I’m usually at for all outs). I started slow on the treadmill and went up to my normal speed, but during that first block it was feeling a bit too fast so I went down .1mph. I was able to maintain that for those first 3 blocks and for the last one I went back to my normal speed to push myself. It wasn’t easy and I had to take breaks to catch my breath, but I did it! My distance wasn’t anything amazing, but considering it had been 7 weeks since I was on the treadmill I didn’t care what I did as long as I did it!

When I got to the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first block was lateral lunges with weights, overhead triceps with weights, weighted crunches, and a 200 meter row. I was using 30lb weights for my lunges and triceps (heavier than I normally would do!) and a 12lb weight for my crunches. And the second block was deadlifts and chest presses with weights with another 200 meter row. And I stuck with the 30lb weights for the work which made me so happy! The chest presses were a bit tough, but I knew I could do it since I did during the Orange X workout. My 200 meter row did get a bit faster from the first block to the second block. I was still off of what I know I could do, but since I had used the treadmill plus used heavier weights I wasn’t expecting my row to be anything spectacular.

I didn’t have to work on Wednesday because of the holiday, but when I was scheduling my workouts for the month I wasn’t thinking about that so I was in my usual early morning class. I would have loved to have slept in a bit that morning, but it was probably for the best for me to keep my usual schedule. And this class was a special 4th of July themed workout where we had the freedom to choose what we wanted to do on the rower and on the treadmill and it was a 3 group workout.

On the treadmill, we had the option to either do intervals with increasing incline or with increasing distances. Since I was still getting back into being on the treadmill I went with increasing distances. I was doing all of my intervals at my base pace incline and at .1mph slower than my normal speed. It started at .05 miles for the power walkers, then .08, and then .1 miles. We were supposed to keep increasing the distances but I was struggling a bit with my endurance so I just kept doing intervals at .1 miles each time with the walking recovery between. I could feel myself getting more comfortable on the treadmill as the time went on, but I know I still have a way to go.

On the rower, we started with a 100 meter row and then 7 frogger squats. Then we could choose if we wanted to increase the rowing distance by 50 meters each time or if we wanted to add 2 frogger squats each time. I went with the longer rowing just because I wanted the cardio time. My rowing at the beginning was pretty standard for me with how high the wattage was and the time it took me to get to the distance. As it went on, I was getting a bit slower but I was never that much slower than normal. I ended up rowing about 1800 meters by the end of the block before I moved to the floor.

The floor didn’t have choices, but we did have one block of timed exercises and one block where we had an assigned number of reps. For the timed exercises, we had lunges using the bench, jump lunges, and heel touch crunches. I wasn’t feeling too stable so I wasn’t using the bench for my lunges and I can’t do jump lunges. So I did them as weighted lunges and regular lunges. My legs were feeling dead after all the lunges! The second block was pull ups on the straps, rollouts on the straps, and then sit-ups until the class ended. It was a hard class, but a good type of hard. Plus, I wanted to work hard before I was lazy at a BBQ that afternoon.

Friday’s class was a strength based workout and I was a bit worried about using the treadmill since we were going to be doing cardio for the first half of class without switching. But I realized that I just needed to do it and use modifications because I am done with making excuses for myself.

We had 3 blocks that had the same format. We had a long base at an incline, a 1 minute base at a flat incline, a 1 minute base at an incline, a 1 minute base on flat incline, and then a 1 minute push to 30 second all out pace at a flat incline. Each block had a different time for the first push and the inclines were supposed to increase as the time went down. But I really kept things basic for me and used my regular push incline of 6% for all the incline work except for the 30 second all outs that I did at 8%. And my speed was still .1mph slower than I normally do. I will start testing the speed thing a bit, but this workout didn’t really seem like the right time to do that. Just like before, I had some struggles with my endurance, but I noticed a slight improvement over the other days.

But I really loved the floor work! After the Orange X workout, I really have a better idea of how strong I am and what I can do. The first block had single arm low rows and bench pullovers. I used 35lbs (just like I did for the Orange X workout) for the rows and 30lb for the pullovers. I thought about trying the heavier weight for the pullovers, but I wasn’t able to get a strong enough grip on the weight to feel ok with having it over my face. The second block was hip hinge reverse low rows and bicep curls and I did 20lbs for both of those. And the last block was Turkish half getups and bicycles. I started using a 15lb weight for the half getups, but it was a bit too heavy so I used 12lbs after that. But for that, we were told we didn’t have to use a weight so to use anything is awesome! For all the floor blocks, we also rowed at the end if we completed all the exercises and I did make it to the rower for the first and second block.

Saturday was a rough day for me. First, I was dealing with some issues because of the insane heat we had here (more on that tomorrow). I was exhausted, feeling a bit heat sick, and just not myself. But I knew that the a/c at Orangetheory would be way better than my window unit so I looked at my workout as my a/c break.

It was an endurance day and we had 3 blocks on the treadmill with similar formats. Each block had a 90 second push pace, a base pace, a 90 second push pace, a base pace, a 1 minute push pace, and a 30 second all out pace. The difference in the blocks was how long each base pace was. At Thursday’s workout, there was a goal to increase our base paces, but for me I really am just trying to get back to my old base pace. So what I ended up doing was my old base pace for all the push and all out paces (at 6% and 8% incline) and my slower base pace as the base pace speed. It was not easy doing the 90 seconds at the normal speed, but I did make it through and it’s giving me hope that I’ll be back to my old base pace soon. I think I’ll just have to keep doing this type of plan to ease myself back into that speed.

On the floor, we also had 3 blocks. The first block was with the mini bands. We had walk outs using the bands and then squats with single leg lifts. I’m getting much better at using the mini bands and I was even able to balance better doing the single leg lifts. But my heat exhaustion was starting to catch up with me on the floor and I had to sit down and get myself together. It was a bit frustrating because I knew this had nothing to do with my endurance but an outside issue. But I just took my time because I didn’t want to feel worse.

The second block started with a 500 meter row. I would have loved to have finished in under 2 minutes, but I was at 2:08. Considering the heat issues, I was pretty happy with myself. That block also had squat bench taps where I used 2 20lb weights and sit-ups. And the last block was lunges and single leg v-ups. I was pretty happy with doing the ab work because it gave me time to lay down and try to cool down a bit.

After 7 weeks of not using the treadmill, I’m still a bit surprised that I was able to do 4 workouts with it! And it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I knew a lot of the worry was in my head, but I needed to prove it to myself. It’s still going to be a while before I’m back to where I was before. I’m hoping in the next month or two to try testing running again by doing the 30 second all out paces as a run (just like how I started). But for now, I’m just happy that I’m almost back to my old power walking self and I’m on the path to make more progress again!

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Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged fitness, Orangetheory, progress, treadmill, walking, workout

Some New Workout Milestones (or I’m Doing Better Than I Thought)

Posted on July 2, 2018 | 2 comments

My workouts have been pretty brutal for me lately. I hated that it was so bad and that I wasn’t able to do a lot of what I wanted or felt like I could. And I was thinking that this past week of workouts was finally going to be the time that things turned around for me. They didn’t totally turn around for me and I was still dealing with some issues (which hopefully won’t be the case much longer), but I did have some awesome workout milestones to make up for the challenges I had.

Monday was an endurance, strength, and power workout. And again this class which is usually 3 groups was a 2 group workout. It ended up feeling similar to 3 groups and that ended up being a good thing for me. While my nausea was finally ending, I was dealing with some horrendous cramps. I literally could feel my uterus contracting and that pain was some of the worst pain I’ve experienced. I took a painkiller before my workout, but I knew that it wasn’t going to be the best workout for me.

For cardio, we had 2 blocks and one was on the treadmill (bike for me) and the other was on the rower. Both blocks had a similar format. We started with a 30 second all out and then we had an exercise. Then we did that again before moving on to 2 rounds of 45 second all outs with exercises between. And I made it to the first 1 minute all out each time before the block ended. On the bike, the exercise was a squat to a low row using weights and on the rower it was lunges. On both block I had to take significant breaks to let the pain go away and I was just grateful that I didn’t hurt myself by falling off the bike or the rower.

On the floor we also had 2 blocks. The first block was frogger squats, sit-ups, leg lifts, and squat reach arounds on the straps. The second block was chest flys, bicep curls, plank reaches, and high rows on the straps. Just like with cardio, I had to take a lot of breaks on the floor. I needed to breathe through the cramps (I figured since they are a similar type of pain that you have when you give birth that breathing through them was a good idea) and they really didn’t seem to be getting better or worse through the workout. So I figured I would just do what I could and not worry too much about it.

Wednesday’s workout was another signature workout. This one is called Orange X and the goal is to do certain weightlifting exercises using the highest weight you can. I was looking forward to doing this workout for a few reasons. One is I knew that I had been doing better with weights so I was excited to see what I could do. Another reason was this was my 100th workout of 2018 which actually puts me a little bit ahead of my goal for the year!

The workout had a switch format and I stuck with the bike since I was still feeling a little off. The first block was 2.5 minutes which was a push pace, base pace, and all out pace and then we switched and did the same thing on the rower. Then the next block was a longer one that had a run/row in it. On the treadmill it was .2 miles (the bike is 4 times that) and then a 200 meter row. And each round the treadmills were supposed to increase the incline by 1%. So each round I increased the gears by 1. The final cardio block was more of a standard format with push pace to base pace with an all out at the end.

On the floor, the first block was split in half with half of us starting with the Orange X workout and the other half doing some body weight work. This was to allow people to test as many different weights as they could. I was on the side that started with body weight work and we had sit-ups, lunges, and mountain climbers. Halfway through the block we switched and it was my turn to try the heavy weights. We had a single arm low row, a goblet squat, and a chest press. With low rows, I’m usually using 15lb weights (sometimes 20lb), with goblet squats it’s usually 25lb, and with chest press I’m usually around 20lb or 25lb. But of course I had to push myself. So I started with the low row and used 35lb and while it was tough and probably didn’t look pretty I did it! I would have loved to try the same weight for the chest press, but I knew that laying on my back I was in a riskier position if the weights were too heavy so I tried 30lb. That ended up being the perfect tough weight for me. And because of my coach I tried using a 45lb weight for the first time for my squats! I actually might have been able to go a bit heavier, but my grip wasn’t strong enough.

I was so surprised by what I was able to do and I’m so glad that I tried to do weights that seemed impossible to me! I will still have to ease into using these weights for regular workouts since we usually have more reps to do, but it was a nice confidence boost to realize how strong I am! We had one more floor block in the end where we got to do the Orange X work again and I stuck with my new heavier weights then too.

Friday’s workout was the first one where I seriously thought I’d finally be back on the treadmill. But I need my first treadmill workout back to be one where we have a bit more recovery time or we switch between blocks. And Friday’s workout was an endurance workout with a 23 minute block on the treadmill so I was back on the bike.

We had longer push paces with base paces after. Each round for 3 rounds the push pace got shorter and the base pace got longer and we repeated that for a total of 6 rounds. I was only taking breaks when I needed water which ended up being about every other base pace. But I was also pedaling faster than normal so I think I was sweating more and feeling thirsty more often. I never felt like I was taking a break to catch my breath which was a nice feeling. I know that if this workout was one with shorter blocks I probably could have been fine on the treadmill. But I knew that I’d be back on the treadmill back soon enough.

On the floor, it was one longer block that was bookended by rowing. At the beginning and end of the block was had a 2 minute row for distance. I did beat my first row by about 20 meters when I did the second row, so I was pretty excited about that. And on the floor, we had a lot of mini-band work. We had half of it as lower body work and half of it as upper body work. For lower body work we had bench tap squats using weights, squat front walks, and knee tucks. For all of those the bands were around my calf. And the upper body work were plank side reaches and front raises. Both of those had the bands around my wrist. I was definitely feeling it in my shoulders and quads by the time I was back on the rower to end the workout, but it wasn’t too bad. I was worried I might have overdone it during Wednesday’s workout and I was pleasantly surprised I wasn’t super sore during Friday’s workout.

On Saturday, I was thinking I’d be using the treadmill but I still didn’t. There were 2 reasons why I stuck with the bike. First, this was going to be my last workout of the month and I figured it would be kind of interesting to have a full month of just the bike in my calendar. But the bigger reason was that I was a bit scared. It’s been a very long time since I was on the treadmill and it’s worrying me how I will do. I need to get over this fear and I’m setting a goal to use the treadmill at least once this week, but it wasn’t the case last week.

The workout had a mix of everything. We had a block on cardio that was a normal endurance block with longer push paces with base paces after. We had a block that was run/floor work with 45 second all out paces with frogger squats. And we had a block that was a run/row with 45 second all out paces with 200 meter rows. And the 45 second all out paces were at inclines (or higher resistances for me on the bike). It was a bit tough jumping on and off the bike, but not too bad and I was able to get moving again pretty quickly after the frogger squats and rowing.

On the floor I wanted to try a bit with heavier weights. We had lunges which I used 25lb weights for and upright rows which I used 20lb weights for (both of those are 1 set heavier than I would usually grab). Then we had a 500 meter row and then it was single arm low row and bicep curls with weights. I really wanted to use 15lb weights for my biceps because I knew my arms were getting tired, but they were all being used by other people so I had to use 20lb weights instead. It was good to be forced to use the heavier weights. Then we had a 250 meter row and then more weight work with pullovers and toe reaches. For the toe reaches I had to go low on the weight, but I moved up to a weight heavier with the 30lb weight for my pullovers!

While I didn’t get all the improvements and victories in my workouts that I wanted to have, I still had a lot to be proud of. I did heavier weights than I ever knew I could use and used the heavier weights as a guide for other workouts. And I hit the 100 workout milestone for the year! Those are both things to be very happy with and I just hope the positive momentum keeps going into this week!

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Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged fitness, improvement, Orangetheory, strength training, strong, workout

Just Surviving The Workouts (or Hoping Next Week Will Be Better)

Posted on June 25, 2018 | Comments Off

I knew going into this week of workouts that I was going to have days of nausea. I was very lucky it didn’t affect me too much the week prior, but since coming off the pill and having regular periods again I have not had a period without nausea. I always hope for the best, but the realistic side of me makes me worried and I try to not let that affect my workout too much.

Monday wasn’t that bad of a day for me. I knew I’d be going to Disneyland after the workout so I wasn’t pushing myself too hard and the nausea was pretty minor. It was a 3 group class and we spent 15 minutes at each section before moving on.

For cardio on the bike, we had 3 short blocks. The first block was a 3 minute push pace with a 1 minute all out pace. The second block was a 2 minute push pace, 1 minute base pace, and a 1 minute all out. And the last block was a 1 minute push pace, 1 minute base pace, 1 minute push pace, and 1 minute all out pace. I stuck with my usual resistance levels but I wasn’t pedaling as fast as I normally could. The nausea waves were coming during my time on the bike, but they were over quickly and not as severe as I know they could be so I felt good about that.

On the floor we had some work that was timed and some work that was by the number of reps. We had skater lunges, seated knee tucks, push ups, chest flies, and bear step plank work. I knew I couldn’t do things where I was horizontal with my face toward the ground because that makes me feel worse. So for the push ups and the bear steps I did modified push ups using the bench for both. It was still tough doing that, but I wasn’t feeling as sick as I would have if I was completely horizontal with my face toward the ground.

And on the rower we started with a 100 meter row with 10 squat presses using a medicine ball. Each round we went up 100 meters on the rower keeping the medicine ball work the same. The goal in 15 minutes was to get to 2,000 meters which didn’t seem that tough since usually I can do 2,000 meters in under 10 minutes. The first few rounds weren’t too bad and I was able to row without stopping and quickly get to the medicine ball work. But as each round went on the rowing was more and more difficult and I needed to take breaks. I got to about 1,900 meters when class was done which was a bit frustrating that I was so close to the goal (I would have rather been at 1,500 meters and been really far from hitting it).

Wednesday was a pretty brutal day for me. I’ve had bad nausea days before, but this was a totally new level of bad. I debated skipping the workout, but I knew that I would be mad at myself if I did that. So I showed up and figured that even if I could barely do anything it would be better than doing nothing.

The cardio portion was similar with rounds of push to all out paces ranging from 1 minute to 30 seconds. I tried to stick with my usual resistance levels on the bike, but my legs were moving very slowly. It reminded me of the week before doing Everest on the bike where it felt like my legs were in jello or syrup on the high resistance levels. But I just kept trying to keep moving and not caring how little I was able to do. I had to take so many breaks to let the nausea pass and I just let my body control what I could do. I had taken 2 medications which are supposed to help with the worst nausea but they didn’t seem to touch how I was feeling this day. Fortunately I have an appointment with my doctor soon so I’m going to ask if there are other options so I don’t have too many days like this.

When we got to the floor, I realized this workout was not designed for the issues I was dealing with. We had 3 blocks and each block started with a rolling burpee. This means we start on our backs on the weight bench and do a sit-up. Then we are supposed to stand, put our feet on the weight bench (so our head is lower than our feet), do a push up, and then put our feet back on the ground to start over with the sit-up. I knew this was not possible for me to do. So I did the sit-up, stood up and turned around so I was facing the bench. I used it to help with my push up so I didn’t have to be horizontal and then turned around to do the sit-up again. It added time to my work, but I needed to do this. The other work we had included some plank work so again I used the bench to put my hands on so I didn’t have to be face down on the ground. When class was done, I was ready to be home and just try to get the feeling of nausea over with. While it did get better after class, it didn’t go away.

Friday was an interesting day. Since starting to go to the Culver City studio I haven’t done many afternoon workouts. My Saturday ones are at 11:20am which could still be considered the morning. But I hadn’t done a 4pm workout in a while. But some of my workout friends were going to take the 4pm class and I wanted to join them for a workout reunion! It was another bad nausea day and I honestly have no idea if working out in the morning would have been easier or harder, but it was going to be an afternoon workout no matter what.

It was an endurance based workout but we did switch between blocks so that helped. But I know that the nausea was awful because my friends kept checking in on me. I guess I looked really green sometimes and really pale other times. They don’t usually see me when I’m this sick so I think it freaked them out a bit. But I just kept reassuring them that I was fine and I pushed through the best I could.

For the cardio, there were 3 blocks that all had a similar pattern. It was 3 rounds of push paces to base paces and ending with a push pace to an all out pace. The first block had the push and base paces for 1 minute, the second block for 45 seconds, and the last block for 30 seconds. I tried my best to just keep pedaling on the bike and I surprised myself a bit by how well I did. I did take lots of breaks to let the nausea pass, but considering how horrible I was feeling earlier it was significantly better than what I was expecting.

On the floor, even though we had 3 blocks it was really 1 long block that we kept working on during each block. We started with a 600 meter row and then had add on exercises. We started with lateral lunges and regular lunges and then each round we added on another thing. We also had hip hinge reverse flys, weighted hip bridges, and sit-ups (which I did as crunches). Then we had a 300 meter row and started with all the exercises and each round we were supposed to take away something. I did the 300 meter row and started doing all the exercises again, but that’s as far as I got.

Even though this was another pretty brutal workout, it was made so much better by having my friends there. It was a rare treat and we talked about trying to make this happen once a month or every other month and I hope we are able to do it!

Saturday was a little better, but still a pretty nauseous day. It was a strength based workout and there were no switches so I was on the bike for about 25 minutes before moving to the floor. There were 3 blocks on cardio and each block started with a longer push, then had 2 rounds of base to push paces, and ended with a 30 second all out. Overall it was easier for me to bike than it was earlier in the week, but when a wave of nausea hit me it was much more severe and literally stopped me in my tracks. Usually I can slow down the bike before letting it pass, but this time I had to stop completely immediately because it just took over. I know this probably sounds so horrible and it’s probably bad that I’m getting used to this, but it’s the reality of my life now.

The floor had 2 blocks. The first block was supposed to be all ab dolly work, but I couldn’t do any of it on the ab dolly. First were roll outs which I couldn’t do because being horizontal with my face toward the ground makes things worse. So I did roll outs with the straps instead. Then we were supposed to do pikes (which I usually do as knee tucks) and that was the same issue with the roll outs. So I did leg lifts instead (which my coach said was basically pikes on my back). And the last thing were hamstring curls which I just can’t do on the ab dolly so I did hip bridges with a weight on my hips.

The second block went better. We had hip hinge reverse grip low rows, sumo squats, and shoulder work. Normally for the low rows and shoulder work I would use 15 lb weights and the squats would be either 20 lb or 25 lb. But I decided to challenge myself to make up for my issues with cardio and did 20 lb weights for the row and shoulders and a 30 lb weight for my squats. It was tough, but not as tough as I thought it would be. We also had 200 meter rows in this block and I did manage to do it in under 40 seconds which is pretty decent for me.

It was unfortunate that I was accurate in this past week of workouts being lots of nausea days. But I think I’m dealing with them better now than I have before and I’m more familiar with the modifications I’ll need to do and what I can do instead. There is a chance that some of this week will still be not so great, but I know that by the end of the week I should be better. And not only will the nausea go away, but I’m finally over this cold I had! So there is a chance I might be trying the treadmill for the first time in about 7 weeks!

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Posted in Fitness, Health, Tough Stuff

Tagged challenge, fitness, Orangetheory, struggle, workout

Tag Archives: Orangetheory

Another Normal Workout Week (or Getting Back To Everything Feeling Routine)

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Some New Workout Milestones (or I’m Doing Better Than I Thought)

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Just Surviving The Workouts (or Hoping Next Week Will Be Better)

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