Tag Archives: Orangetheory

A Badass Workout Week (or Better Than Expected)

Posted on April 23, 2018 | Comments Off on A Badass Workout Week (or Better Than Expected)

This past week of workouts had the potential to not be as great as I would like. Because I know when I typically will be nauseous, I was worried that 2 of my workouts would be affected by that since going by a typical schedule I should have started to feel nauseous mid-week. But my body decided to go easy on me (maybe my body was also celebrating my Medical Miracle Anniversary too!) and I had a much better workout week that I was expecting!

Monday’s workout was a 3 group switch workout. It’s funny how normally I love these types of workouts but when I’m trying to get a lot of treadmill mileage for my challenge they are my least favorites. But I was just happy to have a workout that I was excited about even if it meant I wouldn’t be spending a lot of time on the treadmill. Essentially, we had 3 rounds around the room and each block was 4 minutes each, but we also had 1 round that was a little bit different.

For the treadmill, the first and last round was a 4 minute distance challenge. I knew I couldn’t run this even though I really wanted to, so the first time I did it I just did my normal speed with my push pace incline. But when I got back to the treadmill for the last time, I really wanted to do a little bit better so I increased my speed by .1 for the first 3 minutes and then bumped it up again for the last minute. Power walking that fast was a bit tough and I don’t think I could do it for a longer block, but it did make me think that maybe I could work on testing my walking speeds a bit more. And on the rower, the first and last round were 4 minute distance rows. I got over 800 meters both times and did better when I did it the second time which is always something that makes me happy.

But for the second round around the room, the treadmill and row was almost more of like a run/row format. The block was split into 2 and we had 90 seconds on each side. I did it twice since we had one run/row when I started on the treadmill and another run/row when I started on the rower. This was when I really started to test my speed on the treadmill for power walking. I kept my incline at my base pace incline but worked on increasing the speed. I got it up to .3 faster than I normally walk but that was almost too fast for me. I managed to keep it up for the 90 seconds I had to do it, but I’m pretty sure that I couldn’t do much longer than that.

And on the floor, each of the 3 blocks started with lunges and then we had 2 different exercises to finish out the 4 minutes. The first block was full thrusters with weights and high rows with the straps. The second block was squat low rows with weights and bicep curls on the straps. And the last block was pull ups with the straps and seated torso rotations. I was using lighter weights than I have in the past because I was getting really tired on the floor. I worked really hard on the treadmill and rower and I know my floor work suffered a bit because of that. I also was using the floor time as almost a bit of a rest time since we were going so much with very little rest time between rotations. I know the idea is to keep working because when you work through you build up endurance. But I’ve also learned from all my coaches that it’s so important to listen to your body and my body was saying I needed to take things a bit easy on the floor.

Wednesday’s workout was a strength day which meant inclines on the treadmill. I was a bit worried about the workout because I really didn’t sleep the night before. I tried to sleep, but even though I was in bed for 7 hours I only got about 90 minutes of sleep. That’s not the best way to sleep before a morning workout but I was determined to see what I could do. We had 3 blocks on the treadmill and they all followed the same pattern: 90 second push pace at an incline, 45 second base pace at no incline, repeat, and then end with 90 second push pace at incline followed by 30 second all out pace.

The first block I did the inclines at 8%, the second block I did at 7%, and the last block I did at 6%. Those inclines were a bit lower than power walkers were supposed to do, but they were pretty good for me. And with the final push to all out pace, I just kept my incline the same so I basically ended each block with a 2 minute push pace. The first block at 8% was really tough for me because that is usually the incline I use for all out paces and those aren’t more than a minute. So to do it for 90 seconds and 2 minutes was not easy. I did have to take some breaks during the inclines, but I did much better than I expected. I kept my normal speed for all 3 blocks and got a decent amount of distance on the treadmill by the time we switched to the floor.

The floor also had 3 blocks. Each of the blocks had a 300 meter row if you got done with the floor work, but I never made it to the rower. The first block used the mini-bands for 2 exercises. I’m used to using the bands on my legs, but this time we used them on our arms. We had walkouts with the bands which made the walkouts so tough! My shoulders and arms were really feeling it but it was good because walk outs are typically pretty easy for me. We also had lunges with arm rotations with the bands on our arms. Again, that made me feel it in my shoulders so much. The second block was bench burpees and lateral lunges. And the last block was lunges and crunches. For the weighted work I used my normal weights, but I also added a dumbbell to my crunches which isn’t something I always do. It definitely made them harder to do, but I think I needed to push myself a bit when I know that crunches can be pretty easy for me.

Friday’s workout was on my Medical Miracle anniversary, so I was excited to work out. Marking 1 year since not needing surgery was a big deal and I was happy to celebrate it by sweating hard! This workout was endurance, strength, and power based and I started on the treadmill.

We had 5 blocks and they all were themed to one type of workout. When we had power blocks, they were short and either short push to all out paces or just an all out pace. For the endurance block, we had a longer push pace, a base pace, a shorter push pace, a base pace, and an all out pace. And with the strength block, we had incline work with the inclines going up every minute. For most of the blocks, I did my usual inclines and speed. For the strength block, I wasn’t able to get the inclines up as high as I should have but I still tried to increase my incline each minute. I was having some minor nausea issues that morning so I did need to take some breaks to let that pass, but it wasn’t that bad compared to what I usually experience.

The floor was also 5 blocks and it was very focused on core work and lunges. We had a block with ab dolly knee tucks and ab dolly roll outs. A block with clean to presses with weights, lunges with shoulder presses, and then rowing for distance until time was called on the block. Another block with ab dolly knee tucks and ab dolly roll outs. A block with lunges to shoulder presses, bicycle curls, and rowing for distance until time was called. And we ended with a block of ab dolly knee tucks. I usually love ab dolly work, but it was a bit tough with the nausea. I just worked on taking breaks and getting upright when I needed to and was able to get through it pretty easily.

Saturday’s workout was a signature workout for Orangetheory. This was the Orange Inferno and it was a workout I had done before so I wasn’t too stressed about it. My main fear was that I was going to be super nauseous during the workout, but before going in I was still feeling pretty decent so I was optimistic that I’d do ok in the workout.

The Inferno was during the cardio which was a run/row. We had rounds of .25 mile runs (.13 miles for me since I was walking) and 200 meter rows. The goal was to do 5-8 rounds in 23 minutes. Run/row days are some of my favorites, but I also knew that I’d have to work extra hard because a run/row meant I wouldn’t get as much time on the treadmill. I think I might have to keep doing mileage challenges because they really are motivating me on the treadmill! After my warmup, I had a goal in my head that I wanted to at least complete the 6th round on the treadmill. Because of the distance in my warmup, that would get me to 1 mile for the class which is a good goal to have.

The first time I was on the treadmill, I did my usual speed and at 6% incline which is what we were supposed to be at. But after that, I realized that I would have to kick things up a bit to get all the rounds I wanted to get in. The next 2 rounds I increased it by .1mph and it didn’t feel too bad. At the end I had to get to the max I can do as a walk in order to make sure I finished and that was pretty tough. I probably could increase my walking speed a bit, but I totally went too hard at the end. And with all the 200 meter rows, I had to look at those as almost my recovery time since I didn’t want to waste time doing nothing. But even considering those as recovery I always got them done in under a minute. Once we were done with the 23 minutes, I hit my goal and actually went a little bit further. I didn’t switch over to the rower at the end, but I did .15 miles in that last round which brought me to be just above a mile for the entire block.

Once I was on the floor, I was exhausted. My legs were so tired, but fortunately the floor work focused on upper body and arms. The first block had push ups, chest flys with weights, tricep work with weights, and crunches. The second block was plank low rows with weights, low rows on the straps, hammer curls, and sit ups. And the last block was a core blast with leg raises and sit ups. I didn’t go too heavy with the weights I was using because I was feeling tired and I knew my form was a bit sloppier than I would have liked. Heavy weights would have just made my form worse. But even with the lighter weights I still felt it and was ready to take a nap when class was done!

I’m so happy with how this past week of workouts went for me. I really was expecting it to be so much worse than what it ended up like. I am still worried about when my nausea may hit me, but I’m trying to stay optimistic that maybe this month I won’t have to deal with it or I’ll only have it for a week instead of 2 weeks. I’ve only got about 5 more workouts in my mileage challenge and I’ve already hit the first goal I had in mind. But I’m only halfway to the next goal I had and I don’t think that I’ll be able to make it to that one. But I’m definitely debating doing these mileage challenges on my own each month so I’m just looking at this as my starting point. I know that I can do better in the future!

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A Fun And Unique Workout Week (or Not Letting Setbacks Set Me Back)

Posted on April 16, 2018 | Comments Off on A Fun And Unique Workout Week (or Not Letting Setbacks Set Me Back)

This past week of workouts could have been pretty bad for me, but I was able to stay positive and it ended up not being so bad. I really have learned how to manage my setbacks recently and not let them control my workouts. I do have to be careful with myself and not push myself too hard, but I also know that being super easy on myself isn’t always the best thing either.

Monday’s workout was a bit of a weird day. On Sunday evening, while I was getting out of the shower, I felt a very sharp tinge in my calf muscle. I pretty quickly recognized it as the start of a tear in the muscle (something that I’m sadly familiar with). I took it easy on Sunday night, but on Monday my calf was still feeling a bit tender so I knew I would need to be taking it easy in the workout. Fortunately, it was a 3 group workout so I knew that I wouldn’t be at any part of the room for too long.

I started on the rower where we had one long block. We started with a 600 meter row followed by squat front raises. Then the row went down 200 meters and we continued that pattern going down and back up until time was done. Because of how I bandaged my calf, I wasn’t able to row that hard. I knew my rowing times would be on the slower side and I didn’t concern myself too much about how long each row too. I was on the floor next where we had one long block that was split into 3 segments. The first segment was doing pull overs on the BOSU followed by hammer curls. The second segment was hop overs on the BOSU and then knee tucks on the BOSU. And the last segment was running man and then BOSU burpees. Because of my calf I had to do some modifications such as lunges instead of hop overs, skipping the knee tucks, and limiting how much I did with the burpees.

I ended the workout with cardio. Between the calf issue, knowing I’d be at Disneyland later, and doing cardio at the end; I knew I’d have to use the bike. There really wasn’t an option for me if I wanted to be able to do stuff after my workout. There were 2 blocks and they had decreasing push paces. I worked on getting the watts and cadence on the bike up during all the push paces even if I was using the same resistance. I think I did a pretty good job at doing that and I was feeling like I was working hard. I wished I could have used the treadmill since I have been tracking my miles in my workouts, but I am glad I went with the bike because it was a good break for my body while still allowing myself to feel a bit challenged.

Fortunately my calf was doing much better by Wednesday. Even though I did a lot of walking on Monday, I think the compression bandage along with resting on Tuesday helped so that I was feeling almost completely better by my Wednesday workout. And that workout ended up being a strength day with another benchmark challenge. This time, the benchmark was the 500 meter row.

I looked at my past 500 meter row challenges and knew that there was no way I would do a new PR. My best one was about 15 seconds faster than I thought I could do it this time. It was nice to have that pressure off of me since I knew my calf was almost better but not totally better. Instead, I just decided to set a new idea of what time I would like to be under. The goal for everyone in class was to be under 2:30 (my PR is about 1:45), so I decided that I wanted to be under 2:15. And I accomplished that with some time to spare so I was very happy with my 500 meter row attempt. Eventually I’ll get back to where I can PR again and it will be awesome when I can beat my best time. But I’m glad I just beat the mini-goal that I had set for myself.

The treadmill work was 2 blocks and I did go with the treadmill. The workout was a strength workout which means inclines, but I just kept my inclines to my normal ones I use for push and all out paces. The first block was decreasing push paces and the second block was increasing push paces. Considering how I was feeling on Monday, I was just glad that I wasn’t feeling really any pain in my calf. I occasionally had a little soreness, but I also wondered if that pain could be do to me always putting a little bit more on my left side since it is my right hip that hurts. I took breaks when I needed to, but it wasn’t anything worse than what I normally do.

The floor was one long block with 5 different exercises and a row. We had deadlifts, low rows on the straps, goblet lateral lunges, plank crunches, and bicycle crunches. For the deadlifts and lunges I went with heavier weights than I normally do. I figured it was a strength day and I should be working on going heavier. It was a bit tough for the lunges, but for the deadlifts it didn’t feel that different from what I usually feel with the weights I usually use. I do need to work on using the heavier weights more often and I’m glad that I did it this time. After the exercises we had a 250 meter row. I was a bit lazy with the row each time I did it and I was a bit slower than we were supposed to be doing the row in. But I figured that was my rest time during the floor block and once I was done with the row I tried to jump right back into the exercises instead of taking a quick break then.

Friday’s workout was an endurance, strength, and power day and it was also a Capture The Flag workout. The first half of class was a regular class with the treadmill work and floor work. On the treadmill it was push paces followed by base paces and in the end there was a push to all out pace. I was at my normal treadmill speed and inclines because my calf was feeling pretty much completely healed that morning! I was struggling a bit with hip issues and I didn’t sleep enough the night before, but I would rather have those problems since I’m used to them than the calf issue.

For the Capture The Flag workout, we were all in teams of 2. I started on the floor/treadmill work which included squat twists with a medicine ball, double crunches, and push ups. And then there was a sprint on the treadmill. Then I tagged my partner and she did the floor/treadmill work while I just focused on rowing for distance. The goal was to get the rower distance as high as possible and I really wanted to make sure I was being an equal teammate and doing at least my share of the rowing work. Fortunately, we were pretty equal as far as rowing ability and the time it took us to complete the floor/treadmill work. And when we were done with Capture The Flag, I think we had a pretty good distance on the rower! I would have loved to be at 5,000 meters, but in my head my goal was to just be at least at 4,500 meters which we did!

Saturday was a Tornado workout. I’m used to these for my 3 group workouts, but to have one for a 2 group workout was fun. It was the first Tornado at the Culver City location so they were trying to keep things a bit simple. We had 5 rounds around the room. The first round was 1 minute, the second round 2 minutes, the third round 4 minutes, the fourth round 2 minutes, and the last round was 1 minute. On the treadmill, things were pretty much the same for every round with a push to all out pace. I stuck with walking and had my normal speed and inclines.

On the rowers, we just did timed rows for each block. The 4 minute timed row was really tough and that surprised me since I know I’ve done longer rows than 4 minutes. But it might have been the combination of the longish row plus all the other work I had done before that. And on the floor, we had all Bosu work. Most of the rounds were timed Bosu work like doing burpees, plank jacks to pop jacks, and plank work. It wasn’t that easy to do a lot of the exercises on the Bosu and I ended up doing many of them on the floor instead. But to me it’s more important to just keep working than to give up because I found things too hard.

Overall, I’m pretty proud of myself for this past week of workouts. I had a lot of times where I could have just not tried as hard because I felt not 100%. But I was so motivated to keep going and I’m glad that I did. The only thing that wasn’t super great this past week was the mileage I got in each class. When we had Capture the Flag and the Tornado workout, I wasn’t on the treadmill for as long as I usually am in class. It’s not horrible that I didn’t get as much mileage in each workout because that just meant I was on the rower more, but considering this is a monthly challenge for me I really was hoping to have a ton of treadmill miles. But hopefully this week will make up for it!

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Getting Back Into The Groove (or Rediscovering My Strength)

Posted on April 9, 2018 | Comments Off on Getting Back Into The Groove (or Rediscovering My Strength)

I feel like for so long I’ve been saying I’ve been in a bit of a slump with my workouts. I had a couple of different setbacks that I just couldn’t seem to get over (both physically and mentally). But more recently it seems like things have been getting better and better. I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting better or my workout schedule is better for me, but whatever is causing it I’m just glad that I now feel so much more like myself.

Monday’s workout was at the Brentwood studio. I’m finding it so weird that it’s starting to feel less familiar to me even though I’ve been going there for almost 4 years! But no matter what, I’m comfortable there and I was happy to be back there for a workout. But the funny thing was that one of my Culver City studio coaches was subbing there so it was a mix of being at Brentwood and being at Culver City.

It was a 3 group class and it was power and strength based so we had shorter work but inclines on the treadmills. And I did go on the treadmill again. I did notice that the treadmill felt different from the treadmill at the other studio, but that’s just a quirk I’ll need to get use to. We had 2 blocks on the treadmill and the first block was all 75 second intervals and the second block was all 45 second intervals. We had push paces at inclines followed by base paces. I kept my inclines at 6% for all the push paces even though we were supposed to be increasing them because I was dealing with a little bit of hip pain, but just being on the treadmill to me felt like a win. Both blocks ended with a 30 second push pace to a 30 second all out pace and I did 8% as my all out incline.

Next I was on the rower where we had one block that started with a 600 meter row. Then we had squats and arm raises with a medicine ball before going back to the rower. We decreased the row and increased the medicine ball work each round. I was rowing pretty decently but I think I picked too heavy of a medicine ball because I was struggling with that work. But I got through 3 rounds before that block was over and I was over to the floor. The first block on the floor was lateral lunges with weights, pull overs, and weighted toe reaches. And the second block was lunges with weights, single arm clean to press with weights, and bench plank single arm low row with weights. For all my floor work I was using pretty heavy weights. I debated about going down to a slightly lower weight, but I decided it would be better for me if I took breaks and finished using the heavier weights than to have no breaks and use lighter weights. I definitely felt it after class in my arms (it was tough to blow dry my hair when I was home!).

Wednesday was a power workout and it was also a benchmark workout. We had the 200 meter row benchmark and it was the first benchmark workout at the Culver City studio. I’ve done the 200 meter row benchmark a few times but I was excited to get it done again to see if I could beat my previous record. The row was at the beginning of the workout so we would all be fresh and not tired while doing it and I felt like I was rowing harder than I ever had before! I was working so hard that my water bottle fell off the rower and I could feel the rower jumping as I was pushing off with my feet. Unfortunately, I missed my record by about 2 seconds, but I still felt pretty great about my 200 meter row.

After the benchmark workout, it was back to the treadmill where we had 3 blocks that were all pretty similar. We had a 2 minute push pace, a base pace, a push to all out pace, and then after a quick walking recovery one more all out pace. I started to have a little headache while on the treadmill and took some breaks because it was getting to me. I have no clue what brought on the headache and it ended up lasting the entire workout and the rest of that day. But I still worked hard on the treadmill and was doing my normal speed and inclines the entire time.

After the treadmill it was over to the floor where we had 3 blocks. We had upright rows using weights, front raises using weights, roll outs on the straps, lunges with the straps, running man, and hop overs. We also had a 45 second sprint row during the first block but I wasn’t going that hard on the rower because of my headache. But for the weight work I was using my heavy weights even as the reps increased during the block. And with my hop overs I was getting a bit more height while hopping which is tough for me to do with my hip issues.

Friday’s workout was an endurance day and I was a bit nervous about it. I feel like I’ve been starting over with the treadmill lately and I know endurance days are the toughest ones for me. But I was going to stick it out with the treadmill and just do my best. We had 3 blocks on the treadmill and they all had a pretty similar format with a 1 minute push pace, a 2 minute push pace, and a 1 minute all out. I kept my speed my regular speed and my inclines the regular inclines I use. And from time to time I did have to take breaks, but I worked through it. Toward the end of the longer push paces I sometimes had to go down to a slow walk (or jump onto the rails to drink some water), but to me that was still pretty good considering how nervous I was about having an endurance day. Toward the end of the treadmill time, I thought about trying to run again during the last all out pace. I knew it would be a minute long and would be my last thing on the treadmill for that workout, but right before that I was getting really tired and decided against it. My form would have been sloppy and I know that running when sloppy wouldn’t be the best way to get back into running.

On the floor we had 1 long floor block. We had hop overs, bench tap squats, plank punches, sit ups, and knee tucks. After going all of the floor exercises we had rowing. I was struggling a bit with the hop overs but I just broke it down and took breaks during that. And for the knee tucks we were supposed to be using the straps but I know I can’t really do those so I was using the ab dolly. After the first round it was a 600 meter row and my time was a bit slower than it should have been. But after the second round we had a 500 meter row and it was under the time we were supposed to be under which made me happy. I was getting through the exercises for the third round on the floor when class was done. I really thought I’d only make it through 2 rounds so to be onto the third boosted my confidence a bit.

Saturday’s workout was an endurance/strength day and it was the OTF Everest workout. While I had been doing great all week with my treadmill work, this workout scared me because I had not been bringing my inclines up that high. But I was determined to do my best and see what would happen.

I started the workout at my normal speed at 2% incline (which is what we all were supposed to start at). That felt pretty great since it’s lower than the inclines I’m used to using. I had it set in my mind that I didn’t want to lower my speed until I was at least at 10% since that is what I used to use as my all out incline. Every minute we went up 1% on the treadmill and until we were at 9% I was feeling pretty good. 10% was tough because it was an incline I don’t use that often, but I made it through that at my normal speed.

I did drop my speed down at 11% and again at 14%, but I was only .2mph slower than my normal speed which was much faster than I thought I could do at that high of an incline. It made me realize that maybe I needed to push myself a bit more on my inclines again. When we were starting to bring the inclines back down I bumped the speed up again at 13% and 10% and went back down at my normal speed from 10% on. And when we had our last 2 minutes, we were supposed to have a push pace and an all out pace. I didn’t think I could get my inclines up that high (my legs were feeling dead!), so I did 6% and 8% but got my speed up .2mph higher than I normally do for my power walking.

I didn’t quite hit my goal distance for the Everest challenge (I wanted to be at 1.4 miles), but considering that I did all the inclines and didn’t reduce my speed as much as I expected I was so happy! I also was thrilled I was able to bump up my speed at the end and it gave me some hope that maybe running can happen again soon.

When I was on the floor, I was so glad it was mainly upper body work since my legs were done after the Everest workout! We had 2 blocks on the floor and the first block was chest presses, hammer curls, and squats to shoulder presses. All of those were exercises with weights and I was using the heavier weights that I go with in my workouts. I had a bit of a tough time with the squats because of how my legs were feeling, but I took my time with those to make sure I didn’t have bad form. After those exercises we had a 250 meter row. My first attempt at the row wasn’t that great. But when I got back to the rower I tried to be steady with my speed and was able to do the row in 1:00.2. I have a goal of being under 1 minute but at least I was close. The second block on the floor was plank low rows with weights, triceps with weights, and leg lifts (the leg lifts were a killer after all the inclines on the treadmill!).

Obviously there are things I could have improved on with this past week of workouts, but I really am just so happy with how it went. I felt so strong after each of these workouts and I was sweatier than ever (and I see being sweaty as a good thing). I don’t know why I was finally able to push through but it was nice to not have so many doubts and excuses in my mind. I don’t know if this momentum will continue, but I really hope it will because these workouts gave me such a high!

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It’s Not Really A Transformation Challenge Fail (or Trying To Be Less Competitive With Myself)

Posted on April 6, 2018 | Comments Off on It’s Not Really A Transformation Challenge Fail (or Trying To Be Less Competitive With Myself)

I wrote previously about how I had signed up for the Transformation Challenge at Orangetheory but how I was debating about continuing it. I was at a pretty low point with my weight loss journey where I had been taking on lots of water weight and my body was puffing up. I was thinking about going to get some blood work done to see if it was my thyroid, but many of the symptoms I experienced (feeling cold, more hair loss than normal, the water weight gain) finally started to go away so I’ve postponed going to the doctor.

But because I was dealing with those medical issues, I pretty much gave up on the transformation challenge. I was feeling a bit depressed about how high the number on the scale was even though I knew that it wasn’t all “real” weight. But when you are a part of a transformation challenge that is based on weight loss, there’s no way to determine what weight I might have lost when the scale is actually higher than where I started.

I’m so competitive with myself and I thought it would be difficult to give up on this challenge. But the timing worked out well for me because the last part of the challenge was when I already started working out at the Culver City studio. And that studio wasn’t doing the challenge (new studios don’t do challenges right away) so I wasn’t facing it all the time and that helped keep it out of my mind. In fact, when the final weigh-ins happened for this challenge, I wasn’t at the Brentwood studio any of those days. I could have gone in just to weigh in, but I didn’t worry about it. And the staff there understood my reason and nobody there made me feel bad about it.

Of course, even though others didn’t make me feel bad about it, I still did. I know that I didn’t do anything wrong necessarily, but I still blame myself a little bit. And I would have loved to have won or placed in the challenge because I could always use that boost of confidence. But this time just wasn’t my time and I am working on understanding that. My stubbornness and competitiveness can be good things, but they can also cause me to be upset when there is no reason for me to feel that way.

So while I am feeling a bit down about not completing (or kicking butt in) a challenge, I am trying to think about what various therapists have said to me and focus on the positives. I knew that I wasn’t in the best place mentally or physically and made the smart decision to not continue the challenge. I think that if I did continue the stress may have made a lot of the symptoms I was experiencing worse. I also didn’t use the setback as an excuse to not work as hard. In fact, I think I was working harder to prove to myself that I wasn’t giving up in general but just giving up on this temporary challenge.

Being kind and gentle to myself isn’t something that comes naturally to me. It’s a skill that I’ve been working on for so long and it may be a struggle the rest of my life. Whenever something doesn’t go my way or the way I hoped, I automatically assume it is my fault or I was not worthy of something. It’s rarely the case that it is and I want to try to work on not having the negative reaction as my default. I’ve had enough good stuff happen to me that I should believe that I deserve good and I don’t deserve the bad, but as I’ve said before I think some of the things I heard as a child are just stuck in my mind and will always be demons I need to fight.

But for now, I’m not mad at myself for not completing the challenge. And for me, not being mad is a pretty big victory. And I am choosing to focus on that victory as the big win I had for this transformation challenge.

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An Up And Down Workout Week (or I Love Having Workout Buddies)

Posted on April 2, 2018 | Comments Off on An Up And Down Workout Week (or I Love Having Workout Buddies)

This workout week didn’t start as the most ideal for me, but this is sadly becoming the norm for me. While I’ve been dealing with the nausea issue for a while now, it’s not necessarily getting easier to manage and I’m really trying to figure out what to do to make things the best possible for me. But fortunately, this past week of workouts ended on a high note and that’s what I’m trying to focus on going into this week.

Monday’s workout was a bit rough for me. I had spent all day Sunday being very nauseous and in a lot of pain. I was hoping that I could sleep that feeling off, but Monday morning when I woke up it wasn’t that much better. But I also know that I need to go do what I can in a workout and that’s what I went into class thinking. It was a 3 group power class, so that did work a bit to my advantage because everything was in short bursts.

I started on cardio and was on the bike. For the entire block, we had the same plan. The runners had a .25 mile run (on the bike it was 1 mile) and then we had 15 power jacks with a medicine ball. I wasn’t able to do the power jacks so I did squats to a shoulder press. I took it easy on the bike and the mile took me a bit longer than it normally does, but that might have been due to me keeping the resistance low. When a wave of nausea hit me, I stopped the bike and let it pass. But I just tried to keep going when I could and while it wasn’t my best cardio workout, it was better than staying in bed and doing nothing.

Next I was on the rower where we had a partner type row. Everything was split into 4 minutes and in the first round one person did a 400 meter push row while the other person did a base row. When the 400 meter partner was done, they told the other person and they did the 400 meter push row. We went back and forth until 4 minutes were up (it was about 2 rounds). Then, after a 1 minute rest we went again for 4 minute but it was a 300 meter push row. My push and base rows were pretty similar because of how I was feeling, but I only had to take 2 breaks to let nausea pass for the entire rowing time so I was very happy with that.

The floor was where I really struggles. The main part of the floor work was doing pull ups on the straps, sit-ups, and burpees with step ups. But between each exercise we had a variety of things we had to do like pop jacks or pop squats. All the in-between exercise moves were ones where we had to be parallel to the floor and I knew I couldn’t do that. I was terrified of getting sick in class and putting my body into that position made me feel awful. So between each exercise I did squats instead. I also wasn’t able to do burpees for the same reason but I didn’t want to do more squats than I was already doing. Since I do lunges instead of step ups, I just did lunges in that section. I felt like I wasn’t able to do anything in the floor block and I felt horrible about it. I also had more waves of nausea while on the floor than I did in any other section. I did my best, but I know that it was far from what I normally could do.

Wednesday was another morning workout at the Culver City location. My nausea hadn’t gotten much better since Monday so I knew it would be another day trying to take it easy. It was an endurance, strength, and power workout and we didn’t switch between blocks. So that means I was on the bike for about 30 minutes at the beginning of the workout.

I kept my bike resistance at a similar level to what power walkers had for their inclines on the treadmill. So for the base pace, I was at 4 resistance since I’m normally at 4% incline. I kept that going for pretty much all the blocks including the strength one where it was supposed to be like hills. There were plenty of times that I had to stop biking to drink some water and wait for the wave of nausea to pass, but it didn’t feel as disappointing to me as it did on Monday. Maybe I’m just getting used to having to deal with this?

Once I was on the floor, I tried my best to do everything I could. The first block on the floor had shoulder presses, tricep presses, plank work, and crunches. I couldn’t do the plank work because of how I was feeling, but I did everything else. And with the weighted work I tried to use the heavier weights that I’m used to using. The crunches were a bit tough because I would feel nauseous when I was laying on the floor, but it seemed to pass quickly and I just took it slow with the crunches. The second block was squat thrusters and pull ups on the straps followed by 200 meter rows. My rower was being a bit weird so I have no idea what time I really finished my 200 meter row, but I think it was under a minute.

And the last block on the floor was one I was a bit worried about. It was going to be a 5 minute row for distance. I know I can row for 5 minutes and I have been getting better on my endurance rows. But considering how I was feeling, I had no clue how I would do. The 200 meter row was tough enough and this was going to be about 5 times as long. So I set a goal of just rowing without stopping and hopefully getting more than 1,000 meters which was the minimum we were supposed to get to. I focused on keeping my stroke rate steady and not letting it get too high. I did have some minor waves of nausea but I didn’t stop rowing. I just closed my eyes and focused on my breathing and fortunately they weren’t as bad as some of them that I had earlier in the workout. And when 5 minutes was up, not only did I row for the entire time without stopping but I also hit my distance goal!

Friday’s workout was a strength day and I spent my cardio time on the bike again. I wasn’t necessarily feeling nauseous when I got to the workout, but I’m glad I was cautious because it ended up being another workout where I had waves of nausea. While on the bike, I did my resistance at the same number that the incline would have been as a power walker on the treadmill. Most of the time I was between 4-8% and that worked for me. But I was much slower than I normally am on the bike because of how I was feeling and I needed to take several breaks to get myself back together. It was a bit frustrating because I’m trying to not go easy on myself on the bike and that’s really what it felt like I was doing. But I also have to just remember that I was dealing with situations that were a bit out of my control and I really did try my best.

On the floor, I did try to focus on using heavier weights. In the first block we had chest presses, reverse flys, and toe reaches and I used heavier weights for all of those exercises. We also had 250 meter rows and while my time was under what we were supposed to be under it wasn’t that great of a time for what I can normally do. The second block was squat twists using the straps, tricep kickbacks using the weights, and straight leg raises. Leg raises are one of the things that I have always struggled with because of my hip, but I was able to take breaks while doing them and managed to get them done with pretty decent form! And the final block was a row block where we had 3 rounds of 1 minute all out rows with recovery in-between. I probably should have reset my rower for each of the 1 minute all out rows, but I just let it keep going so I didn’t really know what I did in a minute. But I tried to keep my wattage up and my stroke rate down the entire time so I think I did pretty well.

Saturday’s workout was one that I was excited for. Since the Culver City studio opened, I knew that some of my friends who live near me would be doing some workouts. But until this past Saturday, we hadn’t had a chance to be at the same workout. I was so excited to have friends with me in class because that’s something that I know makes my workouts better. I was debating about using the bike again, but I took a treadmill and a bike card so I could decide which way I wanted to go.

It was a power day and on the treadmill we had 5 blocks that were all under 5 minutes. I figured I would try to see how the first block went on the treadmill and go over to the bike if I felt like I was feeling sick. But I also had my friends next to me and that was extra motivation. All of the treadmill blocks had a similar pattern of being a push pace, a base pace, and a push to all out pace. I was using my normal speed and inclines and even though I had to take breaks in every single block, I managed to use the treadmill for the entire first half of class! I was pretty proud of myself and it was a nice mental boost for me.

The floor block was one long block that was an add-on type of workout. We were supposed to start every round with burpees, but because I was still feeling a bit off I did squats and push-ups instead of burpees. Then we had a 200 meter row. Each round, between the burpees (or squats and push-ups for me) and the rower we added on another exercise. We had plank low rows, bicep curls, high rows on the straps, and plank jacks. I managed to get through everything and was doing the last 200 meter row when the block was done and I felt amazing! It was a really hard workout, but I think that it was the hardest I had worked in a while. And I do think that it had something to do with my friends being there supporting me and pushing me to keep going.

While this past week of workouts was a bit of a struggle in the beginning, I felt so incredible at the end of the week and I hope that the feeling continues into my workouts this week!

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A Routine Workout Week (or The Multiple Studio Life)

Posted on March 26, 2018 | Comments Off on A Routine Workout Week (or The Multiple Studio Life)

This past week of workouts was a pretty standard week for me. I am getting into my new routine and am still loving having a studio so close to my house! I can’t believe how I’ve been able to get into morning workouts when I thought I’d only be ok with the afternoon ones, but I’ve found the transition much easier than I thought it could be. But I did have some struggles this past week mainly due to nausea. Fortunately, I’ve been dealing with that long enough that I know how to modify things for myself.

Monday’s workout was at the Brentwood studio and it was a 3 group workout. I was able to start on the treadmill this time and each section of the room had an element of choosing your own workout plan. On the treadmill we could pick from 3 different distances to start with. After we did that then we had a walking recovery and we could pick from one of the other distances we didn’t do. I started with the longest distance and worked my way down to the shortest since I figured that would be the easiest for me. I did struggle a bit on the treadmill, but it wasn’t as bad as it’s been in the past. I was keeping my inclines to my usual incline plan and that helped when I had the longer treadmill distances.

Next I was on the rower where again we had 3 distances to choose from. After we completed a row we had 3 rounds of squats and sprint rows before going back to pick another row distance to do. Again, I started with the longest distance thinking that would make it easiest for me. What I wasn’t expecting was about halfway through the row my legs were starting to be really sore! I think I didn’t allow my body to recover enough from the Dri-Tri and that’s what I was feeling. So on the long distance, I had to take several breaks to stretch out my legs before continuing. I didn’t make it through all the rowing distances before moving to the floor, but that was ok.

And on the floor we had 2 blocks. The first block was bicycle presses, sit-ups, and lunges. We had 100 of each to try to do and we could break up the reps however we wanted to. But whenever we switched from one move to another we had frogger squats to do. I broke them up by doing 25 at a time and I made it through 2 rounds before that block was done. The second block was the same idea with 60 reps of front raises, mountain climbers, and Y raises on the straps. This time, I did them 20 at a time and again I made it through 2 rounds before time was done. Our coach knew we wouldn’t get all 100 reps or 60 reps done, but he wanted us to do our best and I think doing at least 50% each time was pretty good.

Wednesday was another morning workout at the Culver City studio. Unfortunately, I had a horrible night sleep and I was exhausted. I probably only slept about 2 hours and while it was tempting to sleep in and miss my workout, I knew I had to hold myself accountable. Along with being tired, I was having a bad hip day, but I figured I would go in and do my best. It ended up being an endurance workout and I was starting on the treadmill.

We had 2 blocks and the first block was decreasing push paces starting at 3 minutes and ending at 1 minute. I started at my normal speed but realized that my body was just not handling it well. I thought about going on the bike but decided to stick it out on the treadmill but reduced my speed to be between my normal power walking speed and my walking recovery speed. It helped having the speed reduced and I was still doing my normal inclines. The second block was similar to the first with the decreasing push paces. But in the middle of the second block, I was hit with a bad wave of nausea. I knew that there was a chance to feel nauseous that morning (I’ve been getting good at figuring out my body’s patterns) but I was hoping it wouldn’t happen. But it did so I stopped my treadmill to run back to the lockers to take an anti-nausea pill. My coach was worried about me and I wasn’t thinking about how she doesn’t know my issues with nausea yet and how I need to remember what to warn the coaches about. I’m going to try to be better with that for the first few months at the Culver City studio.

On the floor we also had 2 blocks. Each block started with a 500 meter row. Because I was feeling nauseous, I was a bit slow on the rower. I was a bit slower than the goal time but I did the row both times without stopping with is always good. The first block was lunges, seated rows with weights, and chest flys. And the second block was power jacks with a medicine ball, lateral lunges with the medicine ball, and bicep curls on the straps. I took my time with each move (the power jacks didn’t help my nausea) but I was able to get through 2 rounds each time and that was pretty good. I was also using slightly heavier weights and a heavier medicine ball than I usually would so I was very happy with that.

Friday’s workout was a power switch day, and it came right after I had been hoping there would be a switch day at the Culver City studio. I knew that with them doing the transitional workouts that they might not be bringing in switching for a while, so it was a nice surprise when I arrived and found out it was a switch day! I was still dealing with nausea so I went with the bike for the cardio portion. It was my first time using the bike at the Culver City studio and it was a bit weird being behind the treadmills (instead of next to them), but it wasn’t bad and I did feel a bit less cramped in that location. The format for the workout was 2 blocks, switch, do the 2 blocks on the other side, switch, and then it was one long block left on each side.

For the cardio, it was decreasing push paces starting at 2 minutes and then being 90 seconds or 1 minute. Sometimes we also had an all out pace right after the push but mainly it was going back to base pace. I tried my best to go hard on the bike and I was able to get to my highest resistance on one of the all out paces, but I pretty much stuck with the resistance levels that I’ve been doing for a while. I did have to take a few breaks on the bike when a wave of nausea hit, but overall it went pretty well considering how I was feeling.

On the floor, the first block was squat thrusters with weights and burpees. I wanted to do the burpees but my body wasn’t having them so I did squats followed by push ups after to replicate the moves the best that I could. The second block was chest presses on the straps, roll outs on the straps, and sit ups. And the last block which was the longest had medicine ball squat presses, torso rotations with the medicine ball, plank jacks, and 200 meter rows. Since I was feeling off I focused on doing longer pulls on the rower with breaks to keep my stroke rate down. It’s easy for me to try to row super fast, especially for sprint rows, but I also know that taking my time allows me to focus on the movement and can sometimes get my wattage up. I did ok with my row times but they weren’t my best. But I figured that was because I really wasn’t focused on how long each row was taking me but instead on my stroke rate.

Saturday I was back at the Brentwood studio. It may have been my last Saturday workout there because I will probably start going to the Culver City studio on Saturdays because my friends will be hopefully working out with me (and the class times are changing soon and they will be better for me after work). But it was a great workout if this did end up being my last Saturday at the studio. It was a 3 group workout and for the first half of class it was a pretty standard class (I was on the bike instead of the treadmill, but everything was pretty normal).

Then for the second half of class, we were in 3 people teams and we had a capture the flag challenge on the rower. One person was at each station and the person from the floor controlled the switches. The floor person did squat twists with the medicine ball, push-ups with the medicine ball, and crunches. Once they were done they tagged the treadmill person (who was running for distance) and the treadmill person tagged the rower (who was rowing for distance). You didn’t reset the rower between each person and the goal was to row as far as you could get in 23 minutes. I think the goal was at least 3,000 meters but I wanted my group to get at least 4,000 meters. I was the last person on the treadmill and when we were done I was pretty happy with how far we got as a team!

Overall, this was a great week of workouts. It was weird going to different studios during the week and I do miss my coaches I have had during the week in Brentwood. But to do an afternoon workout there (and deal with the rush hour commute home) isn’t worth it when I can go to a studio just minutes from my house. I’m sure I’ll get used to this new routine soon. It’s only been 2 weeks so far and I’ve had almost 4 years of workouts at Brentwood. So I just need to give myself time before this totally feels like my new normal.

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My First Dri-Tri Relay (or Trying To Not Be Disappointed In Myself)

Posted on March 20, 2018 | Comments Off on My First Dri-Tri Relay (or Trying To Not Be Disappointed In Myself)

I’ve done a couple of Dri–Tris at Orangetheory in the past. And as I mentioned in yesterday’s post, my 4th workout last week was another Dri-Tri. But this time, the Dri-Tri was going to be a relay event and it would be my first time doing that.

With the Dri-Tri relay, you have a team of 3 and each person does one section (rower, floor, or treadmill). I immediately knew I wanted to do the rower. First, it would give me a great opportunity to try to PR on my 2,000 meter row. Also, I knew how tough the floor work was for me each time and I didn’t think I was ready to do a 5K (or 1/2 5K as a power walker). So the rower was what made sense to me. I tried to get a team together, but many of my Orangetheory friends weren’t able to do the Dri-Tri. Fortunately, the studio would help find a team for me so I signed up to do the row and figured I’d find out the day of the Dri-Tri who my team would be (I wouldn’t be at the studio doing the Dri-Tri until the day of since I went to the new Culver City location).

The day of, a bunch of people who signed up ended up dropping out so there was a bit of work done by the staff to put together new teams. Also some people decided to do the Dri-Tri solo instead of being on a team. I thought about if I should do the full event, but I hadn’t really prepared properly for it so I didn’t push myself. But they figured out a team for me and since the rowing was first I got ready to start.

I knew that I didn’t want to overdo it with the row in the beginning. I’ve made the mistake in the past of starting too big and then not being able to sustain that. So I tried to start slower than I thought I should because it was at a speed that I knew I could maintain for a while. I had the PR time in my head and as I was getting further into the row I kept doing the math to see if I would beat my PR time. It seemed like I was on pace to do that once I got to the halfway point and I just tried to stay focused on staying steady and not focused on the time or distance as much.

I have to say that my teammates were so amazing while I was rowing. They were cheering me on and super supportive. I wasn’t expecting that and I never had that experience when I did the Dri-Tri solo so it was a nice surprise for me. It helped me get any negative thoughts out of my head when I was starting to struggle and they were able to tighten the foot straps for me (they sometimes get loose when I row) so I didn’t have to stop and do it myself.

Once I got to the last 200 meters, I realized that it was going to be much closer to my previous PR than I thought. There was a chance I wasn’t going to beat it and I wasn’t mentally prepared for it. Even though I had already been rowing for 8 minutes and was exhausted, I kicked my butt into gear and was rowing so hard that I probably was doing too much (I was starting to struggle to catch my breath but refused to slow down). And when I was done, I was pretty mad.

My previous PR was 8:45.2. I missed it by 2.4 seconds. That is pretty much like missing it because of 1 or 2 pulls on the rower that could have been a bit stronger. Honestly, I would have rather missed it by 20 seconds than missing it by 2 seconds. It was about 40 seconds faster than my last Dri-Tri attempt, but that wasn’t cheering me up. I had my heart set on beating my PR and I failed at it. I’m so competitive with myself and it was tough to know that I failed at something that I felt was so certain to happen.

But I couldn’t stay upset for long because I needed to go support my teammate on the floor. We were cheering her on and when she was on the second round of the floor work I was cheering that she was done with push ups/burpees/whatever the move was each time she was done. And then we went to support our teammate on the treadmill and we kept cheering whenever he hit a milestone. I don’t remember exactly what time our team was done with the entire event, but it was pretty much in the middle of the pack which was awesome considering I was the last person to finish the row.

After we were done, we were cheering on the rest of the people on the treadmill. The great thing about the Dri-Tri is that everyone seems to stay in the room and as each person is close to finishing their treadmill work they gather around to cheer. And it was the same this time and I loved getting to cheer for people. Some people hit PRs, some hit goals they thought would take months, and some completed their first Dri-Tri. Every person in the room accomplished something awesome (and yes, even though I was mad I had to be a bit proud that I rowed 2,000 meters without stopping and almost matched my PR).

And this year, they were giving out medals for the Dri-Tri! So of course we all needed a photo with the medals.

Even though it was good to do the Dri-Tri relay, I don’t know if I would do the relay again. While it was nice to not have to worry about doing anything after the row, I also felt a bit like something was missing. I think if I had worked harder leading up to it, I probably could have done the full one. But who knows how I will feel the next time we have one. Also, I might be doing the next Dri-Tri at the Culver City studio. I’ll just have to wait and see.

But for now, I’m just enjoying knowing I did another Dri-Tri and loving how my medal looks on my medal hanger.

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Checking Out A New Orangetheory (or So Many Morning Workouts!)

Posted on March 19, 2018 | Comments Off on Checking Out A New Orangetheory (or So Many Morning Workouts!)

I had a pretty amazing past week of workouts this past week. I accomplished things that I didn’t think I would be able to do, and I got to go to a new Orangetheory location! But the best part was that with the new location I think things are going to be so much better for me now!

Monday’s workout was at the location I’ve been going to since I started going to Orangetheory and wasn’t what I was hoping for. We were dealing with rain in LA, and when it rains I sometimes have hip issues. I hadn’t had any during this rainstorm, but on Monday morning my hip was not doing so great. I was hopeful that once I got to the workout things would be better (sometimes I am just a bit more sore because I slept funny), but I knew it wasn’t going to be feeling the way I want my body to feel. I was optimistic and tried starting on the treadmill, but I ended up heading over to the bike during the warm-up because I knew that I didn’t want to feel worse.

It was an endurance day and the cardio was all shorter push paces with a 1 minute base pace after each one. I was working on getting my resistance up on the bike for each of the push paces and when we had the shorter pushes I was able to get the resistance up much higher. And with the base paces, I focused on have a steady cadence while pedaling. Having a steady pedal speed did help me get my breath down after each push pace so that worked to my advantage. Since my heart rate and breath were almost back to normal before each push pace, I could go harder during the pushes than I thought I could.

On the rower, we had one long block. We started with 3 rounds of 1 minute all out rows. After the first row we had squats with the medicine ball, after the second row we had overhead presses with the medicine ball, and after the third row we had squats to overhead presses with the medicine ball. After those 3 rows, we did another round but instead of rowing for 1 minute it was rowing for 45 seconds (with the same exercises in-between each row). I did pretty decent with the rowing considering how I felt. I know I could have gotten further with each time, but I did my best. And when I was on the floor, both blocks were focused on using the Bosu. The first block was kneeling scaptions on the Bosu, Bosu push-ups with one hand on the Bosu and one hand on the floor, and squats with one foot on the Bosu and one foot on the floor. And the second block had kneeling shoulder presses on the Bosu, scissor kick crunches, Bosu burpees, and Bosu running man. It was a hard floor block and I had to do some of the work not using the Bosu, but I was feeling a bit better by the floor block so I was doing more than I expected.

Wednesday’s workout was my first one at the new location near my house. Ever since I started at Orangetheory, I have gone to the same location (except for my pre-Thanksgiving workouts). With no traffic, I can get there in about 10 minutes. In traffic (like when I drive home after my afternoon workouts) it can take an hour or hour and a half to get home. I’m fine with that since I work from home and don’t have a commute, but I’ve been wanting there to be an Orangetheory location near me. And finally this past week, Orangetheory Culver City opened!

It’s a 5 minute drive for me to get to and from my workouts which is incredible! I will still do some workouts at Brentwood, but I will be doing at least half if not more in Culver City now. And many of my friends from the Brentwood location are coming to Culver City too so I’ll still have many of my workout buddies.

I was so happy to get to go to the studio near my house, and that also means that I can change up my workout schedule a bit. On Wednesdays and Fridays, I have always worked out after work. That’s because I don’t want to do 6am workouts and that’s what I would have to do in order to work out before work and make in home in time. But now that I have a studio so close to my house, I did my first before work workout on Wednesday!

When I got to the Culver City studio, I had to sign their liability form and have them register my heart rate monitor in their system. I got there early to do that and had lots of extra time before class. The new studio is so nice and clean! There are more stations at the Culver City studio than at the Brentwood one which I’m sure will be needed when more people are attending classes.

They still have the same lockers and shower rooms as the Brentwood location does, but I doubt I’ll ever shower there because it’s so quick for me to get home. But I’m grateful that they have the same lockers as the Brentwood one does because some other studios only have cubbies and not lockers. While I don’t think someone would steal anything from me, I’d rather lock up my purse than leave it out in a cubby.

The workout was a strength workout. I started on the treadmill and was determined to stick with the treadmill for the class. There is still a bike, but since I knew my focus would be a bit scattered since it was a new studio for me, I wanted to be on the treadmill where I have much more of a routine. I didn’t really do the inclines the way that power walkers were supposed to. I pretty much stuck with my standard of 4% as my base pace, 6% as my push pace, and 8% as my all out pace. It was tough being on the treadmill and the treadmills are a little different at this studio, but I’m so glad that I stuck it out because I felt amazing when it was time to switch to the floor.

On the floor, the first block was lateral lunges with weights, triceps on the straps, seated rotations with a weight, and scissor kick crunches. The second block was hammer curls with weights, reverse flys with weights, and single leg sit-ups. And the last block was rounds of tricep kickbacks with weights and 250 meter rows. I was able to do my first row in 56 seconds which is pretty awesome for me especially considering it was at the end of the workout. It was a bit weird trying to figure out where everything is on the floor and having a different layout of the room, but the workout was familiar enough to me that I was easily able to adjust and I didn’t waste too much time figuring things out.

Friday was another morning at the Culver City studio. It really felt good to be able to get up and do my workout first and I’m wondering if this is going to be something I can keep up for the long run. Once the studio is open for a bit of time they are probably going to be adjusting the class times, so I’m hoping that when that happens I will still find a good time in the morning to go before work. But for now, I’m going to keep trying to go in the mornings when I can.

The workout on Friday was endurance, strength, and power based and it was a run/row. It was actually the first run/row for the studio so things were a bit less complicated than I’m used to. But that was good because it gave me time to focus on form and not what the plan is for the workout. The run/row had a pretty basic format with each run portion getting a bit shorter but higher on the incline each round and each row was 200 meters. I was on the treadmill again and did the inclines for power walkers on the plan so I was at 4, 6, 8, and 10%. I’m glad that I’m getting back on the treadmill more often and it was a good workout to be on it since I was never on the treadmill for more than about 5 minutes at a time. The first time I was on the rower I did go all out with my 200 meter row and got it done pretty quickly. But I was starting to feel exhausted (the combination of working hard and having such an early workout) so I took it a bit easier for the other rows I did. I still was always under the goal time, but I focused more on being steady with my pace on the rower.

The floor had 3 blocks and each block had 3 things in it. Those included sumo goblet squats, Spiderman planks, reverse crunches, lunges on the straps and without the straps, supermans, burpees, pop jacks, and upper cuts. It wasn’t the most complicated floor work, but I took the opportunity to work on my form and to use heavier weights. I was using 25lbs while doing my squats and now thinking back I could have probably gone heavier. But I would usually pick up 20lbs so at least it was a little improvement. And when we did the supermans, I really focused on making sure I felt my muscles working instead of making the movements more fluid. I could easily do those without working hard so I took my time and made sure that I was maximizing the movement.

Overall, it was another really great class. The coach is someone new to me but she was really amazing and encouraging! And I’m sure it’s weird having me do all my random modifications on my own without her having to check in on me so I was grateful that she let me do my own thing and wasn’t questioning why I wasn’t doing the exercise the way it was demonstrated. I’m trying to not be a know-it-all or anything in class, but it’s tough when with my other coaches they’ve known me long enough that I can do my own thing at times and it’s not a big deal. It’s a balance for me to figure out, but at the same time having new coaches gives me a chance to see what modifications they would recommend and maybe I’ll find a new way to try to do an exercise that my hip struggles with.

My 4th workout of the week was doing my first Dri-Tri relay, but that will have to wait until tomorrow’s post!

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An Up And Down Week (or Working Through The Same Frustrations)

Posted on March 12, 2018 | Comments Off on An Up And Down Week (or Working Through The Same Frustrations)

This past week of workouts was a bit of a mixed bag of good and bad. I’m really working on not judging my workouts as much, but it’s difficult when I have previous workouts to compare it to. I keep reminding myself to focus on the fact that I’m there and that’s better than I was doing before, but it’s still not the first thing in my head a lot of the time.

Monday’s workout was a strength day. I knew I’d be going to Disneyland after my workout, so I planned on using the bike instead of the treadmill. But by the time I got to class, I wasn’t able to start on cardio so I started on the rower instead. It was a 3 group class and we had 2 rounds around the room so every block was about 7 minutes long. The rowing was pretty much the same with both blocks. We had rounds of sprint rows of 100, 200, or 300 meters. In the first block, we went up in distance and in the second block we went down. I tried to keep my rowing under my time goals and was pretty much able to do that each time.

On the floor, the first block had deadlifts, bear steps (which is kind of like a crab walk but face down), and lunges with upper cuts using weights. And in the second block we had sumo squats, alligators on the straps, and seated torso rotations. And on the bike, everything was pretty much 90 second push paces. Since the treadmill would have been at an incline, I tried to increase the resistance on the bike each time. And while I was tired, when we did have the all out paces on each block, I pushed myself really hard to pedal even faster. And that work paid off because I was complimented by my coach for working so hard!

Wednesday’s workout was a really interesting one! We’ve got a Dri-Tri coming up soon and this class was kind of like a mini Dri-Tri! We were in 3 groups again and I was in the group that started on the treadmill. It was supposed to be a 12 minute run for distance, but I’m still not really running yet so I walked the entire thing. I was hoping to get at least .7 miles done and I just got beyond that so I was pretty happy.

Next I was on the rower where it was a bit different from what we would do during a Dri-Tri. We had 10 minutes of doing 100 meter sprint rows followed by 20 power jumping jacks using a medicine ball. The goal was to do as many rounds of that as you could in those 10 minutes. I was able to do about 938 meters which was below the goal but I really did try my best. And after that I was on the floor where we had the same bodyweight exercises that we have during the Dri-Tri. But I was a bit more tired doing the floor work since it was toward the end of my workout. After that, we had a 1 minute tornado around the room with a 1 minute plank hold, 1 minute all out on the treadmill, and 1 minute all out on the rower.

Friday was a bit of an odd day. I wasn’t feeling totally myself and had some dizziness and vertigo issues in the morning while I was working. I thought I felt better when I got to the workout, but after my warmup on the treadmill I realized that I was still feeling off and I’d be better off being on the bike. It was also a strength day so I was a little bit happy to be avoiding hills on the treadmill and just working on resistance training on the bike instead.

Each block on cardio had a similar pattern with a base pace at an incline, a base pace at no incline, and a push to all out pace at an incline. For me on the bike, that meant working with increasing the resistance as a substitute for inclines. I didn’t get as high up in the resistance as I would have liked to, but I did match my highest resistance level from the recent past which was nice. And again, I tried to focus on my cadence and wattage to make sure I was replicating push and all out paces the best that I could.

When I was on the floor, we had 2 floor blocks and 1 rowing block. The first floor block was squat low rows with weights, triceps on the straps, and lateral raises with weights. The second block was a mini-band block. I’m still getting a hang of the mini-bands and this time I still ended up spending some time getting it straight on my legs and figuring out the best way to use them. This time, we had suitcase squats with weights, knee tucks, and side plank leg lifts using the mini-bands. I think I did better than I had in the past with the bands, but I also know there is a lot of room for improvement too. And the last block was on the rower where we had 3 rounds of 30 second all out rows followed by 30 seconds of recovery.

After an off day on Friday, I was a bit worried about Saturday. But I found out it was going to be a power day where we switched between blocks (plus it was a 3 group class) so I felt much better. Each block was only 4 minutes long so I wasn’t at any spot that long. So I felt much more comfortable using the treadmill this class. Each round on the treadmill was a similar pattern with a push pace, a base pace, a push to all out pace, a 30 second walking recovery, and a 30 second all out pace to end the block. I wasn’t doing my usual inclines and kept the push and all out inclines the same instead of bumping it up. But even with keeping the inclines a bit lower, I still felt the workout since there was minimal recovery time.

On the rower, each block was the same idea with counting pulls and seeing how far you could go. The first block was rounds of 10 pulls, the second block was rounds of 15 pulls, and the last block was rounds of 20 pulls. I was doing pretty great with 10 and 15 pulls, but when it got to 20 pulls I wasn’t able to do my super slow rowing that I can do with lower pull counts. And on the floor, each block had 2 moves. Those included uppercuts with weights, pop jacks, Y raises on the straps, sit-ups, squats, and hammer curls. The blocks were so fast that I really didn’t have time to think about getting tired so I was using some of the heavier weights for the weight work.

I sound like a broken record, but I’m really looking forward to when I will finally have progress in my workouts again. I miss feeling so accomplished every class. But then again, maybe this is what it’s like to work out on a regular basis for so long. I can’t always expect progress and I can’t use that as a motivation. But to have a little bit of that progress back again would be really nice.

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Struggling Sucks (or Thank Goodness It Was A Short Workout Week)

Posted on March 5, 2018 | Comments Off on Struggling Sucks (or Thank Goodness It Was A Short Workout Week)

This past week of workouts wasn’t that great for me. I wish I could put a more positive spin on things, but that really is the truth for me. And I’m not one to sugarcoat the truth. I’ve been struggling a lot lately, but this past week took things to a new level and I really wasn’t mentally prepared for it. I had one ok day, one horrible day, and one bad day. Not what I was hoping, but that’s the week that I had.

I didn’t have a workout on Monday because I was in Palm Springs, so I only had 3 workouts this past week. But that ended up being for the best for me. Wednesday was a power day and it wasn’t too bad. I think I lucked out because we were switching between blocks and it was more like a 3 group workout than a 2 group workout. So we never really spent that long in one section of the room. The first round was 3 minutes at each section, the second round was 5 minutes at each section, and the last round was 3 minutes at each section.

For the treadmill, it was pretty much push paces and push to all out paces. I walked everything and was able to do my normal speed and inclines which really surprised me. I thought since I missed my Monday workout it would have been much worse, but maybe doing my hiking helped me not feel too bad. On the rower we had 2 rounds of distance rows with lunges between and one round of counting pulls for the rowing. For counting pulls, we were counting for 200 and 100 meters. The goal for 200 is under 20 pulls, but because I’ve been working on taking my time with these challenges I managed to do it in 13 pulls! And on the floor we had burpees, crunches, hop overs, skier swings, and sit ups.

Friday’s workout was just bad for me. I was dealing with pain and nausea and even though I took my medications right before class they weren’t helping. I thought I could do the treadmill since it was a power day, but after the warmup I was feeling so nauseous that I got off and got on the bike. I’m glad I’ve figured out that being on the bike helps keep some of the nausea away (walking is just too bouncy for me when I feel bad), but it’s still a little bit of a disappointment when I can’t use the treadmill. I’m working on getting out of that mindset, but I think the way I was feeling physically was affecting my mental state.

We had 4 blocks for cardio but we didn’t switch between blocks so we were on it for the first half of class. The first 3 blocks were push paces and push to all out paces. I really worked on my cadence with the bike and trying to work on increasing my gears for the push and all out paces. I did have to take breaks from time to time because of the nausea, but I managed to get through most of the workout on the bike just fine.

On the floor, we had 1 long block that was all Bosu and rowing work. We had pop jacks, sit ups, hop overs, back extensions, lunges, and side crunches all using the Bosu. Those were split into 3 sections and between each section we had a 250 meter row. I really had to take my time with the Bosu work, especially when there were exercises that went from standing to sitting or laying down. My stomach wasn’t doing ok with moving like that so I had to take breaks and go easy. With the rowing, the first time I was on the rower it took 2:21 to row (it should be around 2:15). The second time I rowed it was 2:16. And the last time I rowed it was 2:11. To improve with each row is good and I’m glad I finally got it under the time we were supposed to be within. But again, my nausea was kicking up a lot and before and after each row I had to focus on breathing and trying to feel better.

Saturday’s workout was one that I was very nervous for. I was still feeling pretty horrible (I had some blackout cramps before my workout) and I knew it was going to be a partner workout. I usually love partner workouts because it helps keep me motivated and I want to make sure that my partner isn’t waiting on me to finish so we can switch. But since I was feeling so badly, I didn’t want to let my partners down. When I got to class, it was a 3 group partner workout and it turned out that technically no partner was going to be responsible for the switch on their own.

We had 3 blocks that were each 13 minutes long. And in each block we rotated between the treadmill, rower, and floor. And the switch was determined by whichever of the 3 of us was finished with the work first. So even if I never finished first, my team wasn’t going to be stuck waiting on me. That was a big relief.

I used the bike again instead of the treadmill but I was able to use the rower and could do the floor work. The cardio was all short intervals (some of it was on an incline on the treadmills) and I was usually able to get the bike work done in about 3 minutes. On the rower, we had rows that were between 200-600 meters. And on the floor, it was the same work each block but we changed the number of reps each time. We had lunges, squats, crunches, and plank punches.

Even though I didn’t have to worry about my partners waiting on me, I didn’t want to be too slow with my work. And a few times I was actually the person that initiated the switch. I tried to take my breaks on the floor since that section was repeating each block, but there were a few times I had to stop on the bike to let the wave of nausea pass. It’s sad that I’m getting used to dealing with this, but since it’s possibly going to be like this for a long time I guess it’s a good thing that I’m learning to manage.

Overall, while this wasn’t a great workout week for me it was better than not showing up. It sucks to struggle and to feel like you can’t do anything to fix it, but I’m proud of myself for at least going to class. Working out won’t make things worse (except maybe walking making my nausea worse) and there is always a chance that it could be better after a workout. So I have to take the chance to see if it will help and if not, at least I’m keeping my commitment to myself to do at least 3 workouts each week.

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