Tag Archives: Orangetheory

Working Out While Sore (or Still Recovering From My Weekend)

Posted on April 18, 2016 | Comments Off on Working Out While Sore (or Still Recovering From My Weekend)

Between my 5K from Saturday, dancing my butt off at the wedding on Sunday, and doing a lot of walking with the dog all weekend; my legs were feeling a bit tired this week for my workouts. I was feeling it every morning when I woke up (and I was basically limping in for the first hour or so each day) so I was grateful that all my workouts this past week were in the afternoon so I wasn’t feeling too horrible. But even though I was not as sore during my workouts, I still was trying to be careful because I knew if I worked too hard that I would be sore from longer than I wanted to be.

My first workout of the week was on Tuesday afternoon (I wasn’t sure what time I’d be getting home on Monday so I didn’t want to have to stress about getting back in time for a workout). I was still hurting quite a bit on Tuesday so I was so happy to see that it was going to be a run/row day. Not only was it a run/row day, it was called the easiest run/row day ever! My sore legs were so grateful to hear that!

The run/row format was pretty easy. The first round was a 30 second push pace, 30 second all out pace, and then over to the rower for a 100 meter row. The next round was a 1 minute push pace, 30 second all out pace, and then over to the rower for a 100 meter row. Each round just increased the push pace by 30 seconds and the rest stayed the same. The longest one was a 3 minute push pace and if we got past that we were supposed to work our way back up. I did the first few rounds at 3.7 miles an hour because they were short and I was still feeling a bit slow from my race so I wanted to prove to myself that I can be faster. The next few rounds were at 3.6 miles an hour and the 2 1/2 and 3 minute rounds were at 3.5 miles an hour. I made it through all the rounds, but I didn’t make it back up. But I’m ok with that. I was going really fast for me and even though I was progressively getting slower I was still staying on the faster side for me. And since the treadmill time was so limited, my legs didn’t hurt too much by the time we switched to the floor.

We had a lot of squats on the floor which were fine for me. But then when we did lunges I struggled a lot because my calves were feeling so tight. I knew they were tight a bit because that was the soreness I felt, but I guess I didn’t realize how much the treadmill would affect me. So the lunges were done with less movement than I would normally do, but I felt pretty great about everything that I did.

Wednesday was a day that had all 3 types of workouts (endurance, strength, and power). It was a 30 minutes on the treadmill straight type of day and my legs weren’t having it. I tried really hard to not have to take breaks in the middle of the blocks, but I was really hurting. I realized after class that maybe I should have taken one of my stronger painkillers instead of the ones that I normally take, but since it’s been a while since I’ve needed one of the strong ones I didn’t even think about taking one. During the strength block, I was supposed to go really high on the inclines on the treadmill, but I just kept it at 8% for the entire time even though the runners had to do an incline higher than that. I just focused on finishing the cardio and not working out super hard.

For the floor time, I tried to do all my lower body work with 20 pound weights and all of my arm work with 15 pound weights. We also had a lot of ab work on the floor with medicine balls. Typically I use 8 pounds for a medicine ball, but there were none of those left so I used 10 pounds. I felt the difference (and I felt it in my abs when I woke up the next morning) and while it wasn’t easy I was able to do it.

Friday was another run/row day! Someone commented about how there have been so many run/row days lately and I don’t think they were happy about it. But those really are my favorite days (or a second favorite to partner day workouts). This time the run/row was a bit tougher than the one on Tuesday. For power walkers, the longest walk was .13 miles and the shortest was .05 miles. And for all of us the rows were between 250 and 100 meters. The plan was designed to do at least one entire round of all the segments, and I was able to get through the entire plan and was starting on the first one again when time was called. By Friday, my legs were feeling a bit more normal (having Thursday off helped a lot) so all my treadmill segments regardless of length were 3.5 miles an hour. It helped that all treadmill segments were less than 2 1/2 minutes, but all these little sprints are helping me get ready to bringing my base pace up from 3.4 to 3.5 miles an hour again (where I was before my torn calf).

On the floor, there were a lot of squats and lunges again. For both things, I was using 20 pound weights (one weight in each hand). With my squats those aren’t too bad, but it’s always tough for me to do lunges with weights in my hands because I don’t balance that well with lunges. But I took my time, put the weights down if I needed to steady myself, and was able to make it through. We finished up the floor block with 4 minutes of abs using a BOSU ball and when we were done I was so glad I made it through.

I debated about doing a 4th workout, but I didn’t want to push it too much. Friday was the first day my legs were feeling almost normal again and I didn’t want to overdo it and prevent myself from feeling normal again this week. I’m not exactly sure when my next 4 workout week will be, but it will need to be soon. I’m signed up for the Triple Buddy Challenge at Orangetheory. From April 18th until May 18th I’m partnered up with 2 friends to try to get in 45 workouts between us. So each of us will need to do 15 workouts. I’ve done this before (and we were successful) so I’m not too worried about it. I just need to plan out the next month of workouts to make sure that I do my part or more to make sure my team wins!

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Another Peak Performance Week (or Working Extra Hard)

Posted on April 11, 2016 | 4 comments

This past week was Peak Performance Week at Orangetheory. I actually have come to love Peak Performance Week. It’s a great way for me to check my how I’m doing compared to how I’ve done in the past. It’s the same way with Hell Week. It’s nice to have workout benchmarks to compare to because I know I make improvements in my workouts even if the scale isn’t going down.

I would have loved to have done 4 workouts during Peak Performance Week this time, but with my 5K race on Saturday I knew I wasn’t going to work out on Friday. I added a Thursday workout in, but since I didn’t want to do 4 days in a row I had to keep it at 3 days.

Since I was pretty stuck with what days I could go, I’m glad that the workouts on the days I went were pretty much the ones I would have wanted to go to anyway.

Peak Performance Week

Monday was the 1 mile challenge. This one is the one I have the most feelings about. I feel like my mile time means so much to me and I know what times I want to get to. So since this is the most important one in my mind, I’m glad it was first so I could get it over with.

Our last Peak Performance Week was about 4 months ago and I was able to do a 16:58 mile then. My PR is 16:30 and as much as I want to get back down to that, I knew my body wasn’t there yet. I really had hope that I could at least do better than what I did 4 months ago. When we started the treadmill, I was at 3.5 miles an hour and 6% incline. I pretty much stayed there until I was 3/4 of the way done. By then, everyone around me was already done with the mile challenge and on to the next cardio block (thankfully my coach let me finish it even though power walkers only have to do a half mile).

I was really hurting toward the end of my mile and I kept bumping up the speed because I could see that I was going to be really close to my last mile time. And when I was done, I was a little bit slower than last time.

1 Mile Challenge

It makes me so mad how close I was because all it would have taken was a little more speed for a such a short amount of time to get to where I was last time. There’s nothing I can do about it now, but it was making me feel a bit off about how my 5K would go on Saturday.

After the mile challenge, we had a run/row to finish out the cardio block. Since I had taken so long, I really only had time for a little bit before we moved onto the floor (where we were doing a ton of lunges and my legs felt like jello).

Wednesday’s challenge was a 1000 meter row. I had looked at my past records and couldn’t find what my PR was when I went to class (I now know that it is 4:58.9). So I just sent my goal time at 4:50 thinking it sounded good to me. I had warmed up on the treadmill first before getting on the rower and then when it was my group’s turn to row I got strapped in. I really didn’t focus on the computer on my rower at all. Since I had set it for distance I knew that the timer would stop when I reached 1000 meters and chances were that I would know when I was close. So I just tried to look straight ahead at the treadmills and not think about the rowing at all.

By the time I was halfway, I was exhausted. I really thought about taking a few second break to stretch and catch my breath, but I decided against it and kept going. Somehow, I did my 1000 meters without taking a break once. Honestly, no matter what my time was, I would have been happy just knowing that. But my time was pretty awesome too.

1000 Meter Row

I made it 1/10 of a second under my goal time! I just barely made it under my goal time, but it still counts! After I got of the rower, I was a bit wobbly. I know I really pushed myself hard on that and my body was feeling it. It ended up being  run/row day on the treadmill so I still had more rowing to do, but they were all pretty short compared to the challenge. On the floor we did a bunch of upper body work, especially on the TRX straps. I know my arms were done because by the end of class my form had gotten really sloppy and I was needing a bunch of corrections.

Thursday was my last day of Peak Performance Week. I knew it was going to be another treadmill challenge involving hills, but before I got to class I didn’t know much more than that. What it ended up being was a 13 minute run for distance. Runners and joggers had to be at 2% incline (normally they are at 1%) and power walkers had to be at 6% incline. So basically for me, this was going to be a 13 minute push pace (normally the longest push pace is 3 minutes).

There was a white board on the side of the room that showed how far you should be able to go in 13 minutes. For power walkers, it was at least .8 miles so I assumed that was based on being at 3.5 miles an hour (the slowest power walkers are supposed to be) for the entire time. So my goal was to beat .8 miles. I did 3.5 miles an hour for the first 10 minutes (that was a challenge in itself!). Then the next minute was at 3.6 and the following minute at 3.7. For the last minute I bumped up the speed every 20 seconds (so 3.8, 3.9, and 4.0 miles an hour). Clearly the chart showing how far we should be able to go wasn’t correct for power walkers because for all the extra speed I did at the end I wasn’t able to get to my goal distance.

13 Minute Hill Challenge

I actually don’t know how fast I would have had to go to get to .8 miles, but I only set that as my goal because I assumed that it was based on 3.5 miles an hour. I still did 13 minutes at 6% incline and did the entire thing at 3.5 miles an hour or faster! I think I might need to start playing around with my base pace again because I think I might be ready to be back at 3.5 miles an hour very soon.

For Thursday’s floor work there was some rowing (500 meters) and a lot of heavy weights for me. I was using a lot of 20 pound weights for squats, lunges, and deadlifts. After working so hard on the treadmill the 20 pound weights felt like 50 pound weights, but I stuck with it (and just took breaks to help me catch my breath).

Even though I didn’t always beat my past Peak Performance Week records, I think that this week went really well. I struggled from time to time, but I kept going and I know that whenever the next Peak Performance Week comes up, I’ll be ready to see if I can beat these records or my other ones.

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Finding New Limitations (or Trying My Best)

Posted on April 4, 2016 | Comments Off on Finding New Limitations (or Trying My Best)

This past week my workouts seemed to focus on things that were issues for me. This was not the fault of any of my coaches, it’s just what it was and for some reason it got to me (and inspired my post on limitations last week). I tried to do my best each day, but there always seemed to be a reason why my body wasn’t going to be able to do that.

Monday started off pretty great. We had a workout that was endurance, strength, and power so it was a nice combination of things. It was a switch day so I was able to push myself a bit more on both the treadmill and the floor. I loved being able to push myself because we had a long push pace on the treadmill (3 minutes) and a longer than a sprint row (600 meters) that I really wanted to work on. I’m better with sprints than anything else, so when things aren’t exactly a sprint it’s a great time to push myself without doing too much. Besides the rowing, we had some lunges with the TRX straps which is also great because I can do better lunges on the straps than I can without support.

But then we reached the end of the workout where everyone went to the floor. I thought it would be a core blast like we do sometimes where we do a bunch of crunches and planks. Those are tough, but doable. But instead of a core blast, we had a glute blast. At first I thought I should be able to do it, but then I realized that every single move in the plan were things that my body can’t do. Either my body doesn’t move that way right now because of how my hip sits or I know it would cause me some serious pain because that’s how I feel the most pain right now. My coach was able to give me my own plan (I ended up doing all ab work then instead), so I wasn’t just sitting and waiting on everyone. But it just made me so mad that I wasn’t able to do something. Even with all my limitations there is something I can do to modify it to make it ok for me. This was the first time where there was no way I could try or modify it to work for me to be the same thing as everyone else. It just hit me that I really hate my restrictions and that I want to figure out what steps to do next to get myself fixed.

That frustration actually worked to my benefit on Wednesday. I was chatting with my Wednesday coach (who has a similar hip issue but hers is super minor so it was able to be treated with stem cells) and she realized that the Kaiser orthopedic surgeon she wanted to introduce me to was actually in class that day! So she introduced me to the doctor and he and I got chatting. He actually doesn’t take patients on like me, but he said that if I got him my Kaiser information he would refer me to one of the other doctors at his hospital that could help me. This isn’t really a workout situation, but I have to say that the doctor was awesome because the next morning I got a call from Kaiser Panorama City (which is about an hour away from me) and I have an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon in 2 weeks! Hopefully I can get another opinion on my situation and get a treatment plan in place!

Ok, back to my workout.

Wednesday was a strength day, which means hills on the treadmill. But it was also a run/row day! I think most people think I’m crazy for loving run/row days as much as I do, but they make me so happy! The run part was all at 7 or 9% inclines and each segment was pretty short. I think the longest I was on the treadmill was about 3 minutes. And the rows were all sprints that day. They were either 300, 200, or 100 meter rows. 300 still is a long sprint, but it’s so much easier for me to push myself for 300 meters than it is on the longer rows. So I was able to get my wattage up even though my hips were struggling on the rower. When we got to the floor, I had realized I overdid it a bit on the run/row so I had to take things a little bit easier than usually. All my arm work was with 15 pound weights (I knew I could probably do 20 pounds but I was tired) and I took moments to breathe when I was down on the floor doing crunches. By the end of the class, I was pretty glad I got through it but I was so exhausted!

Friday was another endurance, strength, and power day. Unfortunately, the treadmill blocks were all back to back so I spend 30 minutes on the treadmill. And for some reason on Friday, my body was just giving up on the treadmill. I was doing ok at first, but then I just needed to keep taking breaks. By the end of the treadmill time, I was almost needing to do a quick break every minute to stretch out my hips. I know that part of the pain was weather related, but this was more than I am used to. It makes me nervous that I had that much pain because I’m doing my 5K this week, but hopefully by the time it’s race day I’ll be doing better (and all this training I know is helping).

After I was finally done with the treadmill, I was pretty happy to get over to the floor. It wasn’t easy on the floor, but all of our rows were timed sprints so I was only on there for 1 minute or 30 seconds each time. I definitely pushed myself on the rower and got some of the highest wattages I’ve ever gotten on the rower before. We also had something new on the floor with our burpees. Usually we do burpees either just with body weight or holding a Bosu. But this time we did our burpees with a medicine ball. While the weight wasn’t as great as when we use a Bosu, the increased instability with the planks made it new and more difficult than usual. It took me a moment to get steady before I could move my legs back and forth, but it wasn’t that tough and I felt pretty happy that I could do it without any extra modifications.

This week at Orangetheory is Peak Performance Week. I’m going to be there for 3 days and I don’t know yet what challenges will be on the 3 days that I’m there. So I guess I’ll have to be surprised on what I’ll be doing and hopefully whatever I do gets me in the best place I can be for my race on Saturday morning!

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Switching Things Up (or Challenging Workouts)

Posted on March 28, 2016 | 1 comment

I had another 4 workout week this past week. It wasn’t easy doing 2 weeks in a row of 4 workouts (especially since I feel like I’m doing fewer 4 workout weeks lately), but I’m glad I did it. I’m hoping that eventually 4 workout weeks will be the norm and the 3 workout weeks will be less frequent. But I’ve got a lot of progress to go before I get to that point. For now I’m just happy with my occasional 4 workout weeks.

Monday was a tough start to the week for me. Usually, if you warm up on the treadmill you will start with cardio and if you warm up on the rower you will start on the floor. But on Monday, our coach Brendon switched things up so those of us warming up on the treadmill started on the floor. I wasn’t too happy about that, but fortunately it wasn’t as bad as it’s been in the past. Before, my hips would lock up on the treadmill if I started there second. But on Monday I was in a bit of pain (which is expected) but no hip lock.

On the floor, I was able to do my arm work, but I had to use the 15 pound weights instead of the 20 pound ones. And we had a bunch of TRX strap work which is one of my favorite things to do. I feel really powerful on the straps and it’s much easier to make micro adjustments versus using weights. On the treadmill, we had a bunch of longer pushes (2 1/2 minutes) followed by all-outs. We really didn’t have any base pace work, but the pushes did get shorter so that was nice. I definitely felt exhausted after the Monday workout.

Wednesday was a day that was filled with lots of tough treadmill blocks. We started with a 3 minute push followed by a 30 second all-out. There were 5 blocks and each block was 30 seconds less on the push pace. Even thought the blocks were getting shorter, it felt just as tough as the long one. But I was still able to maintain my 3.5 miles an hour at 6% incline for my pushes. I tried seeing if I could do 3.6 miles an hour (like I do for my all-outs) for the pushes but I tried that toward the end of the treadmill time so I was a bit too tired. Even though I was tired after all that treadmill work, I was still able to do my arm work on the floor with 20 pound weights (which made me really happy). And we had some rowing to do as well on the floor but I was struggling a bit with those because of my hips.

Friday was probably the most challenging day of the week for me. First of all, I wasn’t able to get the treadmill that I use pretty much every day. That probably doesn’t sound like a big deal, but when you use the same treadmill all the time you get used to the quirks of that machine. And the treadmill I ended up using had just been worked on and was still a bit slick, so I felt like I wasn’t walking as steady as I’m used to. And that ended being something that really got to me because the treadmill block on Friday was a solid 22.5 minutes straight.

It was a distance challenge, and we could either follow along with the push and base pace plan that we were going to be told or do our own thing. In the past, I pretty much did my own thing for those distance challenges. But on Friday I followed along with when we were supposed to be in a push pace versus a base pace. I kept my pushes at my usual 3.5 miles an hour and 6% incline for almost all of it. I had to bring it down to 4% incline toward the end, and I bumped up my speed for the last minute. I had a goal in my head that I wanted to get to 1.3 miles in 22.5 minutes (I’m not sure why, but that number was the first thing I thought of when I heard it was a distance challenge). I knew I was going to be close, but I’m so glad that I bumped up the speed for that last minute because I know that is what got me to be just a bit better than my goal distance.

22.5 Minute Challenge

After that was done, I felt like I had just completed an entire class! But I still had my floor work to do. We had some rowing (mainly sprints so I was able to do some quick rows) and also some hip bridges (which I can do really well now) but I had to take things a bit easy because I was so tired after the treadmill. I know when I’m tired my form can get sloppy and that can make my hips hurt more (or cause an injury) so I have to be extra careful. I know I could have done better, but I’m glad I went easy because it was worth it to not hurt.

Saturday ended up being a nice bookend to my week when compared to the rest of the workouts. I was planning on using the bike for my cardio (as I’ve planned), but I forgot to put a cone on a treadmill so there would be enough spaces for me to be with the treadmill group. Since every treadmill was taken when I was on my bike, I had to start on the floor again (just like Monday). The workout was broken up so we had 2 blocks on the floor and 2 blocks on the treadmill (although technically each of those blocks was 2 blocks each). So we did get to switch back and forth.

The floor seemed to be a lot of ab work using the Bosu. I had to modify a couple of them since the instability can be tough on my hips, but I was happy that most of them I could do just fine. We also used the Bosu for some triceps pullovers and I was able to do those with a 25 pound weight. For the rest of my arm work, I switched between 12 and 15 pound weights depending if they were lateral work (12 pound weights) or anything else (15 pound weights). We also had sprint rows but I think I sprinted a bit too hard because I had to take time catching my breath between the rower and the rest of the floor.

The bike was fine, but I always feel like I don’t get in as good of a workout as I do on the treadmill. I was getting my heart rate up into the proper zones and I was sweating like crazy, but it still feels easier than the treadmill. I’m starting to think that maybe I think less pain means easier and that’s why. I don’t see any other proof that the bike isn’t as good as the treadmill but it’s just something that I keep thinking.

I know that this week I’ll be doing 3 workouts and the week after will be Peak Performance week (which may need to be 3 workouts due to my 5K race). I think that I’ve been pushing myself nicely lately and I’m hoping that those results will show at my next race. But I also know that race days can be weird and I’m not expecting a PR. All I want is a good race.

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Lots Of Different Workouts (or Struggles and Successes)

Posted on March 21, 2016 | 1 comment

I did a 4 workout week for the first time in a while, and it was a pretty awesome week. I did have some not-so-fun moments, but overall the workouts were pretty great. I think what helped the most is that each day was significantly different from the others. The workouts at Orangetheory are never the same, but I think this week had more variety than ever.

Monday was a bit of a tough day for me. It was a strength day, so that meant extra hills on the treadmill. I’m not sure why my body was struggling so much, but it became extremely difficult for me to do the hills. I really wanted to push myself more, but my body was just not having it. So I kept my inclines low (lower than I normally would) and just focused on getting through the treadmill time without too much pain. It’s so frustrating to have a morning like that, but I don’t really know what caused it so I really couldn’t do anything to prevent it. Since the treadmill time was a bit of a disappointment, I worked extra hard on the floor. I was using 20 pound weights for my arms (it’s starting to feel more normal to do that) and even though my arms felt like jello after each set, it was exactly what I should have done. We also had to do some hip bridges during the floor work. I usually avoid hip bridges because they cause me so much pain. These were supposed to be done on the TRX straps, but I know that there was no way I could do those. So I tried doing them on the floor and to my surprise not only could I do them, they weren’t painful for me at all! I think some of the stretching work I’ve been trying to do at home is finally helping my hips loosen up and maybe breaking up some of the scar tissue I’ve got.

Wednesday was actually pretty awesome. We had a partner workout that day and it feels like we haven’t had one of those in a long time! Fortunately, my friend Dani was in Wednesday’s class so she was able to be my partner for the workout.

Wednesday Workout

Normally during the partner workouts, the person on the floor controls the pace. The person on the treadmill will do the treadmill portion and then normally row until the floor person is done with their round. Then the floor person taps out the cardio person and they switch. But this time, the treadmill person controlled the pace. It was a run/row (most partner workouts are that way) and some of the cardio segments were really long! I felt guilty that Dani was stuck on the floor while I was finishing them (Dani felt the same way so it ended up being ok). The row parts were all 100 meters, so I was able to sprint through those. The treadmill parts got a bit long, but I did every part at 3.5 miles an hour and at 6% incline. With the partner workouts, we had the entire class without any breaks so it was non-stop work and I was exhausted by the time it was done.

With Wednesday being so much fun, I had high hopes for Friday. But Thursday night/Friday morning, I got really sick. I’m guessing it was food poisoning and by Friday mid-day I was feeling almost normal again. So I figured I could go to my workout (if nothing else, maybe sweating would help me get better). It was a switch day so that helped to make the treadmill time a bit easier for me. And even though there were only 2 groups in the class, we had a mini-tornado format (where you rotate between treadmill, floor, and rower). I tried my best with the treadmill, but I was feeling pretty nauseous during class (my friend David who works at Orangetheory commented that I looked like I had no color left in my face after class). Even with feeling sick, the floor work wasn’t too tough on me. The only thing that was making me feel sick was going from laying down on the weight bench to sitting up or standing. So I took my time but while I was working tried to use really heavy weights.

Since I made the deal with myself that 4th workouts of the week wouldn’t be on the treadmill, I did my Saturday workout on the bike. It was not a switch day, so I’m glad I stuck with the bike. It was an interesting format to the workout. There were 6 blocks, but really only 2 types of blocks. We would do a long push pace to an all out pace and then we would do an all out pace, walking recovery, and an all out pace to follow. The first round of the push to all out was a little more than 4 minutes and got shorter for the other 2. And the all out, walking, all out were 1 minute each, then 45 seconds each, and finishing with 30 seconds each. On the floor, we followed a similar pattern. We had something specific to do for the longer blocks and then the shorter ones we did rounds of squats. My legs were shaking by the time we were done, but it felt great to get through the workout and feel so much better than I did the day before.

I’ve got another 4 workout week planned for this week. Rumor has it that the first week of April we will have another Peak Performance week, and right after that will be my next 5K. That means that I might not be able to do as much during Peak Performance week as I would like do (depending if the week is the same week as my race), but hopefully that will put me in a good spot with how I’ll do with my 5K. As much as I would like to PR at my race, I don’t know how realistic that will be for me. But for these next few weeks of workouts, my goal is to push myself as much as I can to give myself the best chance to have an awesome race!

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Default ThumbnailA 4 Workout Week (or Only A Few More Weeks Of 2015 Workouts) Default ThumbnailLots Of Running and Rowing (or Proof Of My Progress) Default Thumbnail12 Days Of Christmas Workouts (or This Feels A Lot Like Hell Week) Default ThumbnailNew Challenges In My Workouts (or Breaking Some Of My Own Rules) Default ThumbnailLots Of New Records (or Killing It In My Workouts) Default ThumbnailLots Of Morning Workouts (or Maybe I Can Be A Morning Person)

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Remembering My Time At Slimmons (or I’m Glad Richard Simmons Is Ok)

Posted on March 15, 2016 | 2 comments

I haven’t really talked too much about what workouts I did before I started this blog. So I pretty much only have talked about my races, SoulCycle, and Orangetheory. But I had done workouts before those. I used to belong to a couple of different gyms around LA. At one of them, I had a personal trainer so that was what got me to the gym (it’s also why I think I connected with Orangetheory so much). At the other gym, I just had a membership and I would go and do some cardio, but nothing special. But there was one other workout place that was special to me in my past.

Back in 2008 when I met my friend Alex, she was telling me about her favorite workout in LA. And that place happened to be Slimmons Studio, the fitness Studio that Richard Simmons started. It sounded cool to me on its own, but then I found out that you get to work out with Richard himself! So soon after Alex and I met, I joined her for a workout at Slimmons with Richard.

It wasn’t an easy class, but I didn’t feel awkward or weird at all. Richard was so great about offering modifications for all fitness levels and abilities. I had so much fun in the class listening to Richard be ridiculous and yelling at us. The music was great and everyone in class had fun.

The class was $12, but I got a membership for $50 that let me go to classes for only $10. I wasn’t going super regularly, but I tried to go once a week to class. Richard was teaching on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday (with Saturday being the most crowded), so I usually could find a night that fit into my schedule. And when Richard wasn’t there teaching, one of his other teachers would teach and they were just as amazing as he was.

Besides having my friend Alex in class with me, I started making friends because I would see the same people each week. One of my current bosses (who was also my boss at another job) is someone I met at Slimmons. In fact, I started working for her because after class I had mentioned I was looking for work. The company she was with then had an opening, I got an interview, and then I got a job! I even met a blogger who had lost 150 pounds when he recorded a video in class for the Ellen DeGeneres show (yes, you can see me in the background in the video).

And once I started sharing online that I was working out with Richard Simmons each week, my friends wanted to come with me.

Richard Simmons Justin's Birthday Richard Simmons

I even convinced my parents to come to a class. My dad came with me alone first. I don’t think he believed me when I said it could be a tough class, but he’s not really a dance person. So he had to focus a ton on the choreography and I think he believed me afterward that it’s not a joke class. After my dad came with me, the next time my parents were in town we convinced my mom to come too. My parents were talking with Richard after class when my mom mentioned that our dog, Dante, was waiting in the car for us. As soon as Richard heard we had a dog, he made my mom go out to get him so he could meet Dante.

Richard Simmons With Mom and Dante

I did stop working out with Richard Simmons shortly after that photo with Dante was taken. It had nothing to do with the workout, but someone happened that upset me. The basic details was I was told that I won a scholarship to work out at Slimmons and when I tried to claim my prize, I was told I didn’t win it. That was before my parents were in class with me. Then when my parents were in class, Richard said something about how I wasn’t taking advantage of the scholarship he had given me. I told him that there must have been a misunderstanding because I was told I didn’t get it. Then I called the next day to find out about the scholarship and was told that I didn’t win it and would have to keep paying for class. It’s not a big deal, but I was upset and didn’t really feel like going back.

While I wasn’t in class regularly, I always saw updates from my friends about Richard and the antics from his class. And then I started seeing posts about how he hadn’t been teaching lately. Then I saw posts about how nobody had really heard from him in a while. People assumed that he was dealing with health issues and would eventually appear again, but eventually over 2 years had passed and nobody had really seen him.

Even though I had been hurt by what happened, I was hoping that Richard would make an epic return to Slimmons and he would be ok. Then this past weekend an article came out claiming that Richard was being held hostage by his housekeeper. People who knew Richard well were saying how this was very unlikely and the person claiming this story was also trying to promote an e-book, so it seemed like maybe he just wanted publicity.

Fortunately, Richard did do a phone interview yesterday saying that he’s fine and not being held hostage. He didn’t really sound like the same Richard to me. He seemed very subdued and not as vibrant as he was in class. But he didn’t sound in distress or in harm. So I’m thinking that maybe he took a break from teaching 3 days a week (and usually traveling and teaching the other 4 days a week) and needed some time to himself. He might be enjoying the calm or using it to recover from something, but there’s nothing wrong with that.

I know that so many people had their lives changed by Richards Simmons. Lots of friends lost weight, regained confidence, and improved their lives by meeting with him and going to his class. Even though I had my negative experience the last time I was there, I benefitted a lot from him too. From making friends to finding a day job, from feeling like I can work out at any size to trying to do a regular fitness routine; all of these things were made possible because of my time at Richard’s class.

I do hope that he will return to teaching in the future. I have a bunch of friends who want to check out the class and I want to go back too because I want to see how I do with all the training I’ve been doing at Orangetheory. I bet I’ll be stronger than I was last time (but I might not do as well with the choreography). Hopefully I’ll have the chance to take his class again one day, but for now I’m just glad that he did that interview to prove that he’s ok.

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Default ThumbnailSlimmons Is Closing (or Maybe I Should Do One More Workout) Default ThumbnailSharing Some Soul (or Another Day Another Friend At Spin Class) Default ThumbnailPushing A Bit Too Much (or Glad I Took The Weekend Off) Default ThumbnailChecking In With My Progress (or Past The Half Way Mark) Default ThumbnailKicking Butt (or Feeling Extra Tough In Spin Class) Default ThumbnailTesting My Running (or Holidays and Friends)

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Reaching New Goals (or Time To Go All Out)

Posted on March 14, 2016 | 1 comment

I had a pretty intense week of workouts. I had thought I might try to do 4 workouts this week (it’s been a while since I’ve done that), but now I’m so glad that I kept it at 3. But I know that I need to do another 4 workout week soon in order to reach my goals. But these 3 workouts totally felt like I did at least 4.

Monday was a tough day for me starting out. I was exhausted and in a lot of pain from when I woke up that morning. I tried to stretch as much as I could before class, but when you are going to an 8:30am class, there isn’t a ton of time to get ready before the workout. So I went into class hoping it wouldn’t be too tough and planned to do my best.

This class was insane! We had 9 all out segments between the 2 treadmill blocks. In a typical treadmill block, I’d say we would usually have maybe 2-3 all outs. But to have 4 all outs in one block and 5 in the other was a lot! And for all of these all outs, I did do my typically all out speed/incline (3.6 mph at 8% incline). The good thing was all the all outs were short enough that it wasn’t too horrible, but I could really feel the work I did later that day. Despite being tired and in pain, I didn’t let that stop me from working really hard on the floor work too. I was using my heavy weights and not doing too badly at it.

Wednesday was a crazy class, but I only have myself to blame. I found out before class started that it was going to be a 7 minute challenge day. Basically you have 7 minutes to go as far as you can on the treadmill. You do your own speed and incline settings and it’s just a personal distance challenge. I keep photos of my records on my phone (it’s the easiest way to remember them), and I thought that my previous 7 minute challenge distance was .424 miles. So I was determined to beat that. And when I looked at the treadmill after my first attempt, I was pretty frustrated.

Attempt 1

We had a short block between the 2 7 minute challenges so I tried to not let my first attempt get me down. I went even faster on my next attempt, spending 5 of those 7 minutes at 3.6 miles an hour and was so happy when the 7 minutes were done.

Attempt 2

I was so happy that I got a new PR! And when I looked at my phone to delete my old PR photo, I realized that I had remembered my old PR wrong. My old PR was .421 miles, not .424. So I beat my PR both times. Not only that, my old PR was a .007 increase over my old one and this time I had a .008 increase. I know it’s not a lot, but that’s improvement to me!

After the 2 7 minute challenges, I was so tired. Thankfully, most of the floor work was abs so I was able to relax a bit while doing it. I wasn’t trying for any other records after my new PR, so I didn’t push myself too much on the floor work.

On Friday, I was still on a high from my new 7 minute challenge PR. That helped because we had to do 30 minutes straight on the treadmill and we had a lot of all outs. All the blocks seemed to be 3.5 or 4 minutes and thankfully we had walking recovery time between each block. With all the short blocks, the treadmill block actually felt shorter than the 30 minutes usually feels. But even with it feeling shorter, I was still so tired by the time the treadmill was done.

On the floor on Friday, we had a lot of rowing, TRX strap work, and planks. I’m definitely getting some balance improvement with my TRX strap work (I can occasional do work where we have to balance on 1 leg). My planks are a struggle because it’s still a bit painful in my calf to do the work on my toes. So I’m usually doing plank work on my knees, but I guess it’s better than nothing.

Just typing out all of the things I did in my workouts this week is making me tired! I was telling a friend that I swear the classes feel harder now than they did when I was starting (with the exception of my first class that made my quads hurt so badly). I’m sure that this isn’t true. But I’m also not used to trying harder and to improve in my workouts the way I am now. In other classes, it’s so easy to just keep doing things at the same effort that you always have. Nobody really notices and you don’t worry about it.

But now, I have my heart rate monitor keeping me on track, my coaches knowing what I’ve done in the past and pushing me to do more, and finally being motivated myself to want to see how much better/faster/stronger I can get. It’s no longer a big deal that I’m maintaining a regular workout routine, it’s that I’m really improving and not just using it to try to lose weight.

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Default ThumbnailA Shorter Workout Week (or Trying To Go All Out) Default ThumbnailAn Easier Workout Week (or Ignoring My Head And Listening To My Body) Default ThumbnailTaking Things A Bit Easier (or No More Injuries) Default ThumbnailSwitching Things Up (or Challenging Workouts) Default ThumbnailBusy Workout Week (or Maybe Overdoing It A Bit) Default ThumbnailWorkout Celebrations (or A Week Of Awesomeness)

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Pushing A Bit Too Much (or Glad I Took The Weekend Off)

Posted on March 7, 2016 | Comments Off on Pushing A Bit Too Much (or Glad I Took The Weekend Off)

This week I had 3 workouts. I had originally planned for 4, but I was so exhausted after Friday that I knew that a Saturday workout wasn’t in the cards for me. I really did push myself hard this week and I think that my body was done after those 3 workouts.

Monday was an afternoon workout for me (instead of a morning one) because of an appointment I had that morning. I’m pretty used to my Monday morning workouts, but I still prefer afternoon ones so I was fine moving my workout. It was a run/row day, so that made me pretty happy too. Any time I don’t have to spend a full 30 minutes on the treadmill is a good day for me. All the segments in the run/row were pretty doable for me so I used the time to try to push myself in my speeds. I was actually able to do 1/4 mile (a little more than 4 minutes) at 6% incline and 3.5 miles an hour. That’s the longest I’ve done 3.5 miles an hour since my calf injury and it’s another sign that I’m almost back to where I was before my injury. It wasn’t easy to do that fast for that long, but it was a big step for me and I’m glad that I pushed myself to do it.

The floor work on Monday was an interested adventure. It was a single block (about 23 minutes) that had 6 exercises in it. We had to go through the 6 exercises continuously (each round had a different number of reps), but every 3 minutes we had to pause. Every 3 minutes we would get a 1 minute exercise to do (like burpees). After that minute we went back to the regular 6 exercise plan and pick up where we stopped. It was very different from what I’m used to, but I actually really liked the plan. It helped to break up a long block of floor work and since the 1 minute exercises were different and didn’t repeat, it almost felt like a break when we had them.

Wednesday was a switch day, so it was another day that I didn’t have to do the full 30 minutes on the treadmill straight. It was a strength day, which means lots of inclines on the treadmill. I always do inclines since I’m a power walker, but I tried to push my inclines a bit more that day since that was the goal of the day. I’m still struggling with going higher than 8% incline for a long time, but we had an interesting walking break in the workout that allowed me to work on that. Everyone had to do a power walk at 10% incline for 3.5 minutes. Since everyone was instructed to walk, we could slow down our speeds (even the power walkers). I did my 3.5 minutes at 3.1 miles an hour and was able to stay at the 10% incline for the entire thing. It wasn’t easy and my hips were feeling pretty sore after we were done, but it wasn’t as bad as the pain I’ve had in the past so I’m trying to think of it as improvement.

With strength days, we are also supposed to use heavier weights when we are on the floor. So I decided to go for it and did all of my bicep work with 20 pound weights. When the reps are lower that’s not that difficult for me, but the higher reps rounds were really tough and I could feel my arms getting so tired by the last few reps. But that’s exactly what we are supposed to feel. I know I was doing great with the weights I had chosen for my floor work because my Wednesday coach, JZ, came over and was very impressed that I wasn’t using 12 or 15 pound weights.

Friday was the day that kind of broke me. I have no clue why I was so tired (I didn’t get as much sleep as usual, but that wasn’t enough to make me as tired as I felt), but the entire workout felt like it was a struggle for me. For a lot of it, I felt like I was underwater and couldn’t move fast enough. It wasn’t supposed to be a switch day, but I’m so thankful that it ended up being one. I have no idea if I would have been able to do the treadmill blocks back to back.

On the treadmill, we had a couple of long push paces. I was doing them at my usual speed and incline, but I was barely able to make it a minute before I needed to step onto the rails and catch my breath. My heart rate was really high and I was sweating like crazy too and I don’t think I was pushing myself that much harder than I normally do. I just wasn’t able to keep up with what I do most days. On the floor, I worked on pushing myself (I was able to do squats with a 20 pound weight in each hand), but again I was exhausted and had to take several breaks during each block. It was really frustrating to feel so weak while working out, but I’m hoping it was a weird issue (maybe I was getting sick?) and it won’t return again.

With my days off over the weekend, I was dealing with a bit of soreness and feeling a bit off. But I’m hoping that after 2 rest days I’ll be back to normal this week and ready to get back to what I’m used to doing. I’m not used to having such an extreme off day, but maybe I needed it as a reminder of how far I’ve come lately.

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Workout Celebrations (or A Week Of Awesomeness)

Posted on February 29, 2016 | Comments Off on Workout Celebrations (or A Week Of Awesomeness)

I really had a great week of workouts this past week. I was very nervous that I’d have a bad week (more on that in a bit), but it ended up pretty good and I think that I could not have improved on it.

My first workout of the week was on Tuesday morning. I got home late on Monday night from Sacramento and had my WIF meeting on Tuesday afternoon. So my only workout time option was 7:30am on Tuesday. I’m not the biggest fan of those early mornings, but they’ve become much more tolerable as I’ve done more. Bruce (who is usually my coach on Fridays) was my coach that morning and he saw me in the lobby while he was wrapping up the 6:30am class. I think he was pretty shocked to see me since he usually only sees me in the afternoon.

Tuesday Morning With Bruce

I was super happy to see that Tuesday’s class was a run/row day! That means less time on the treadmill for me so I try to do speed training. Most of my treadmill segments were at 3.5 miles an hour, but I did do some bits at 3.6 miles an hour and it didn’t feel as difficult as it did the week before! So that’s some good improvement for me. And the rowing was 200 meter sprints, so I was able to really push myself on those without getting too tired.

Even though I was pushing myself a lot in class, my heart rate stayed pretty low. I’m thinking it was a false reading because I was really out of breath in class and felt like I was pushing myself as much as I normally do. Maybe it was low because I was tired or something, so I didn’t let the low heart rate affect me too much.

Wednesday was another fun class because it was my Wednesday coach JZ’s birthday class! Technically her birthday was later in the week, but it was the Wednesday class closest to her birthday so that counts too. The treadmill section of class was a solid block (so 30 minutes without the breaks on the floor) and it was full of push paces. It almost felt like almost every part of the treadmill time was a push or all out with very limited base paces between them. Most of the push paces were 1 or 2 minutes so they were a bit long but not too long. I was able to maintain my regular push pace of 3.5 miles an hour (which isn’t easy on the long treadmill days). But with all those push paces (and the incline associated with them), my hips were hurting me pretty badly by the time we got to the floor.

I’m not sure if the treadmill time was too tough on me or I was just having an off day, but I was having some serious issues with my balance on the floor. I was trying to do my best, but I was spending a significant time trying to balance myself and not doing the workout. I was able to do at least one round of everything on the floor, but I can usually do at least 2 rounds.

After the class, of course we had to take a birthday photo with JZ!

Happy Birthday JZ!

My last workout of the week was on Friday (I only did 3 workouts this week). It was a switch day, but the switching between blocks wasn’t the way we usually do them. For me starting on the treadmill my blocks went treadmill, row, treadmill, floor, treadmill, and finishing on the floor. The treadmill rows were pretty tough with long push paces including a 3 minute push pace (which is the longest we do). That 3 minutes seems to take forever, but I was able to get through it and didn’t hurt too much. And for the brief all outs we had to do, I was able to do 3.6 miles an hour even after the really long push pace.

My legs were feeling wobbly after the treadmill blocks, so I was a bit careful on the floor blocks. We were supposed to do running man and plank jacks on the Bosu for one of the blocks, but I knew that it would be too much for me. But I was able to do them without modifications on the floor. There was a time that I couldn’t do either move at full speed, so to know that I’ve improved enough to not need modifications for the basic move made me feel really proud of myself.

This coming week will either be a 3 workout or 4 workout week (I’m still trying to decide if I’ll go on Saturday). But I’m happy that I’ve been pushing myself more and more each week because I’m really starting to see some big improvements in my workouts, strength, and endurance. Even if I’m not losing weight right now, improvements are signs of progress and that’s really what I want!

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Default ThumbnailAn Easier Workout Week (or Ignoring My Head And Listening To My Body) Default ThumbnailRowing And Partners (or Enjoying A 4 Workout Week) Default ThumbnailLots Of Running And Hills (or Back To A 4 Workout Week) Default ThumbnailA Short Workout Week (or I Would Have Ended On A High Note) Default ThumbnailA Planned 3 Workout Week (or Medication and Workouts) Default ThumbnailA Week Of Workout Wins (Or 3 Days Of Awesomeness)

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New Challenges In My Workouts (or Breaking Some Of My Own Rules)

Posted on February 22, 2016 | Comments Off on New Challenges In My Workouts (or Breaking Some Of My Own Rules)

I had a full and challenging week of workouts last week. Not only was it a 4 workout week, I did 3 workouts in a row! That’s a double whammy in my mind! But even with the possibility of things being really tough for me, it wasn’t that bad of a week.

I did get off to a very odd start on Monday. I don’t know if I was too tired or just feeling out of it, but for the first time since I got them I forgot to wear my calf sleeves for my workout. I have no clue how I did this (my heart rate monitor lives under my calf sleeves so I had to move them out of the way to put on my heart rate monitor), but it happened.

The calf sleeves are good for helping my calf feel stronger, but they also help my shin splints so I was extremely nervous to work out without them. It was a 30 minute treadmill block and while I had a little pain, the treadmill wasn’t nearly as bad as I had expected it to be. I did try to keep things a bit easier for me since I was so scared to injure myself, so I didn’t push myself too much with the incline or the speed. But it was worth going easy on myself if that is what kept me from getting hurt.

After the treadmill block, I tried to be tough on the floor work. I ended up going lighter than usual on the arm work, but I still tried to be kicking butt on everything else. We had some rowing on the floor blocks including a 250 meter row. And I was able to do my 250 meter row in 56 seconds! That’s not a personal best, but it was better than my goal time of a minute! The only downside on the floor work was when we had to be in a plank position and I did it on my toes (which I’ve been testing out doing instead of being on my knees). I didn’t think about doing it without the calf sleeves and I felt my calf muscle pull a bit. It wasn’t a painful pull, more of pressure, but it still scared me and I dropped immediately to my knees so I didn’t risk hurting myself.

All things considered, my workout without the calf sleeves wasn’t bad, but I don’t plan on repeating that mistake again anytime soon.

Forgot Calf Sleeves

Tuesday I was thinking that maybe I would be on the bike (to help break up my 3 workouts in a row), but then I saw that my friend Amanda was in class so I took a treadmill next to her. Everything was in 5 minute blocks and we did do switching between blocks so I was pretty happy. When we switch, I don’t hurt as much on the treadmill so I felt like it was a bit of an easier treadmill day. The last block of that day was a partner block, so Amanda and I got to work together. One person had to row 200 meters and the other person had to do squats the entire time. It wasn’t an easy block and I’m sure that Amanda was wishing that I would row faster so she could stop with the squats, but we got through it without too much trouble.

Wednesday we were back to not switching between blocks, but since we had a switch day the day before I was ok with that. We had a 3 minute push pace, which is still one of those big challenges for me. I was able to do it at 6% incline at 3.5 miles an hour, so I was pretty happy with myself. I’m starting to think that I’m almost ready to have my base pace back at 3.5 miles an hour. I might test that out another day when we have switching between blocks because it won’t be a solid 30 minutes at 3.5 miles an hour or faster. But since I’m able to do the longer pushes without too much trouble, it’s a really good sign. I also decided to test out my speed on my all out pace. When we had one, I decided to go a bit crazy (for me) and set the treadmill at 3.8 miles an hour. It was super tough for me and I know that I’m not ready to have the treadmill at that speed on a regular basis, but I got through it and it was a nice little challenge for me. After all that speed on the treadmill, my legs were feeling a bit weak by the time I got to the floor work. There were a ton of pushups that day, so even though my arms were so tired my legs got a break.

Friday should have been my day to be on the bike since I’ve decided that my 4th workout of the week will be on the bike to make sure that I don’t push myself too hard. But when I found out it would be a run/row day, I knew I wanted to be on the treadmill (it’s easier to transition quickly to and from the rower from the treadmill for me instead of the bike). I figured since it was a run/row day that it would be ok to push myself a bit more because the treadmill time would be a bit limited.

The treadmill segments were .125 and .15 miles and I was doing all of them at 3.5 miles an hour and 8% incline. That’s a high incline for me considering that the treadmill segments took me over 2 minutes each time. I typically only do 8% incline for all outs which are always a minute or less. But I was able to do all my treadmill segments like that (I just had to take a little break after each segment to catch my breath before moving on to the rower) and my rows were ok. I wasn’t pushing myself as much as I did earlier that week, but I was still doing my rows within the recommended times.

The floor work was a pretty good variety of moves. We had some lunges, arm work, ab work, squats, pushups, and leg work. I was able to do my lunges with one foot on the workout bench, but I wasn’t able to hold weights in my hands because I needed to keep balancing myself on the wall. I’m very unstable balancing on one leg, but I really want to get back to where I used to be with my balance. And the only way to do that is to push myself even when it’s not the most comfortable thing. I also pushed myself on the TRX straps. We had to do lunges to single leg squats, and I used to always do double leg squats instead. But on Friday, I decided that I was going to go slow and see if I could do the single leg squats. They weren’t pretty or fast and I had to use my other leg for balance, but I was able to do them for the first time! Again, I was pretty unstable and unbalanced, but the more I’m able to do these the better I’m going to get.

I felt like almost every workout this week was a different challenge for me, and I think that I succeeded in all of them. This week will be a bit easier for me, but now that I know some new limits that I can push myself to, I’m going to test them out if I can!

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