Tag Archives: workout

I’m only going to write about my first 3 workouts this past week since the 4th workout was the Dri-Tri! I’ve done a bunch of Dri-Tris before and I’ve done them in situations that weren’t always ideal, but I still am always nervous before going into one. And this time, I knew there was a good chance I was going to be dealing with a lot of pain and nausea when doing it. So I wanted to make sure my workouts leading up to it were the best they could be even if I wasn’t feeling great.

Monday’s workout was a power day. I was dealing with nausea that day, and it annoyed me because I thought I had at least another day or two before it became an issue for me. But as I have done every month when I’m dealing with pain or nausea, I just had to push through and do my best.

Each section of the room had 3 blocks and the cardio and rower sides worked a bit with the same format. For cardio, we started with a 45-second push pace, 45-second base pace, and 45-second all-out. Then we had some walking recovery and another all-out. The walking recovery got longer each block and the all-out got shorter each block. On the rower, when cardio had the first 3 45-second intervals, we had 200-meter rows and squats with medicine ball front presses. When cardio had their recovery, so did the rowers and we did the same all-out as the cardio side. My rowing was very slow and I only got 1 round of the 200-meter row each block.

And on the floor, each of the 3 blocks had different exercises. The first block had squats to shoulder presses and bicep curls on the straps. The second block had leg raises, bicycle crunches, and supermen. And the last block had single-arm snatches and tricep extensions on the straps. I went pretty light for my weights because of how I was feeling, but I felt like the floor was probably the best section of the room for me that day.

Wednesday was an endurance day, and I was unfortunately feeling worse. Because I knew I would likely feel bad that day, I was a bit more prepared for it. And I was hoping that feeling sick that day meant I would feel ok for the Dri-Tri. And this workout did end up being a decent day to prep for the Dri-Tri.

For cardio and the rower, we had a very similar workout. For both sides, we had 2 rounds of a 4-minute progressive push with 90-seconds after each one and then ended with a 3-minute distance challenge. For cardio, I did increase the resistance on the bike each minute like we were supposed to. And on the rower, I just tried my best to row for as long as I could. I also tried to keep my speed the same the entire time. I know the goal was to get faster every minute, but I just wasn’t in the right situation to work on that. And on the rower, the 90-seconds after each row had squats and a bit of a break instead of a base pace.

And on the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first block had sumo squats, spiderman planks (which was supposed to be on the Bosu but I did just on the floor), lunges, and running men (again, was supposed to be on the Bosu but I did them on the floor). And in the second block, we had goblet squats and plank jacks. Considering how many exercises we had face down and how that usually makes me feel much more nauseous, I was proud of how I did.

Friday’s workout was a power day and it was going to be my last class before the Dri-Tri. I wasn’t feeling as horrible as I was on Wednesday, so that helped make the workout a bit better.

For cardio, we had 4 blocks. Each block had a push pace, base pace, and an all-out. The total time was the same for each block, but we started with a short push pace and long all-out and the push pace got longer each block while the all-out got faster. Since they were all very quick intervals and then we got to recover between each block, that helped to make it better.

On the rower, we also had 4 blocks. Each block had a row and then squats. The row started at 100-meter and the squats started at 25 reps. And each block the row got 50-meters longer and we had 5 fewer squats. Since all the rows were short, I managed to do them all ok without needing any breaks or having issues.

And on the floor, we had one long block with 3 mini-blocks in it. For each mini-block, we had 4 rounds before moving on to the next one. We had shoulder presses and sumo squats with froggers, front squats and burpees, and pullovers and push-ups. I did the burpees with my hands on the bench and instead of push-ups, I did chest presses. But those weren’t that bad for modifications.

I finished this past week of workouts feeling somewhat ready for the Dri-Tri. I knew I wasn’t as prepared as I have been in the past and there were some things out of my control that I was trying to prepare for. But I did my best to get ready and I was hopeful that I would do ok. And I’ll be writing about how I did tomorrow!

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After getting back to my workouts the week before, I was so happy to have a normal workout week this past week. I still am recovering and my foot is still healing, but the healing process is coming along. It’s just tough for me sometimes to be patient when it seems like I’m doing better and then realize after the fact that I might have pushed too much. So finding that balance was my big focus this past week.

Monday’s workout was a power day, but because it was a 2 group class it also felt like a bit of an endurance day for me. My foot was doing better, but there were still lots of moments I was dealing with pain. But the pain has been changing each day. This past week, it was mainly a dull pain (something I’m pretty used to with my hip) with occasional weird pulling sensations in my heel. I think that pulling feeling is just the skin being a bit tight still, so when I feel that I try to stop so I don’t pull at a scab or something like that.

For cardio, we had 3 blocks. The first and second blocks were rounds of push pace to a base pace with an all-out at the end. And the last block was all rounds of 30-second all-outs with recoveries after. The recovery started at 30-seconds and increased every round so in the last round we had 2-minutes of recovery before the last 30-second all-out. My heel was doing ok for most of the cardio work, but there were times I needed to just stretch my foot out a bit so I could feel more comfortable.

On the floor, we also had 3 blocks. The first 2 blocks were both on the floor and had 2 exercises each. The first block had squats to an upright row and tricep extensions on the straps. And the second block had single-arm clean to press and bicep curls on the straps. I didn’t have to make a ton of modifications to the exercises, I just had to try to not put as much weight as normal on my heel. And the last block was timed with cardio. When cardio had an all-out, we had an all-out on the rower. And when cardio had their recovery, we had jump squats and then any leftover time could be recovery. I did regular squats instead of jump squats and my rowing was pretty slow, but I think I did ok with this block.

Wednesday’s workout was an endurance day, and again my heel was doing a bit better but still feeling some pain and odd sensations. But I tried to push myself a bit more in this class.

For cardio, we had one long block. It started with a 3-minute push pace and then a 1-minute base pace. Each push pace went down by 30-seconds and the base pace stayed the same. And we ended with a 1-minute all-out. I tried to limit my breaks to just when we were in base pace, but for the longer push paces I ended up having to take a little break in the middle. But that was still better than what I had been able to do the past few classes.

On the rower, it was also one long block. We started with a 400-meter row and then we had bicep curls with a medicine ball. We repeated that with decreasing the row by 100-meters each time and keeping the same exercise in-between. After doing 100-meters and the bicep curls, we went back to 400-meters and were supposed to do good mornings with the medicine ball between each row. But because of how slow my rowing is and because I needed to take breaks during the longer rows, I only made it through the 4 rounds of rowing with the bicep curls and was starting the next 400-meter row when the block ended.

On the floor, we had 2 blocks. The longer block was all with the Bosu. We had pullovers, hip bridges, reverse extensions, and mountain climbers. I went lighter than normal for the weights for the pullovers and hip bridges and I had to rest during each set because I could feel that pulling sensation in my heel. And I tried to do the mountain climbers, but it was causing some real pain in my heel so I just had to skip those. And in the second block, we were supposed to do lateral lunges, regular lunges, and hammer curls. I tried the lunges, but again it was causing a lot of pain. I think I probably overdid it for the workout and that’s why things were hurting so much at the end. So instead of the lunges, I did squats. And when the workout was done, I was limping a bit but I knew I could rest the rest of the day.

Friday’s workout was a power day and it was also a 2 group workout. And because it was a 2 group workout, we had a run/row type workout. Those are pretty rare for me since most of my workouts are 3 group classes, so this was different. But rowing was still tough for me with trying to have some power in my rows while being careful with my heel.

For cardio, we had 3 blocks. The first and last blocks were on the rower and the middle block was on the treadmill (or bike for me). In blocks 1 and 3, we had the same workout. We had 5 rounds of a 30-second push row with 15 seconds of recovery rowing after. 30 seconds of rowing isn’t a long time, so that was helpful for me to not go too hard with pushing down on my heel, but I still had to take breaks in some of the last rounds because I was starting to hurt. And when we were on the treadmills and bike, we had 3 rounds of a 3-minute distance challenge with 2 minutes to walk and recovery in-between. Those were a bit harder than the rowing for me because I could feel weird pain again in my heel. But I think this is just the tight skin feeling when things are healing and it might feel strange because of how my foot flexes during the workout.

And on the floor, we also had 3 blocks. Blocks 1 and 3 were timed exercises and block 2 was on our own timing. For blocks 1 and 3, we were timed with the rowers and we had an exercise for 30 seconds and then rest for 15 seconds. In the first block, the exercises were squats to shoulder presses and skater lunges. I did curtsy lunges instead of skater lunges because I couldn’t do the jumping with the skater ones. And in the third block, the exercises were neutral full thrusters and high knees. I did slow high knees without the jumping, but I was happy to see I could still do them. And in the second block, we had pull-ups on the straps (I did high rows), rollouts on the straps, push-ups, bench tap squats, sit-ups, and bear planks.

And on Saturday, the workout was a mix of endurance, strength, and power and it was another 2 group class. I was also trying a new way to bandage my heel since I need it less as a bandage and more as padding as my heel continues to heal and I’m having some odd soreness. Hopefully, it’s fully healed soon so I can stop worrying about this.

For cardio, we had 1 long block. We had a push pace to an all-out and then had a walking recovery. The all-outs were always 1-minute and the recovery was always 2-minutes. And the push pace started at 3-minutes and went down by 30-seconds each time. But the first push pace was at no incline and each one after went up by 1% as they went down in time. Because I didn’t want too much resistance on the bike as it’s still tough to put that much weight on my heel, I didn’t always increase the resistance by 1% each time. I did end up going up to 1% higher than my normal all-out, but nothing above that.

For the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first block started with a 2-minute row and I surprised myself by being able to row for the first minute without needing to take a break. I think it was because I was definitely not going that hard on the rower, so I wasn’t feeling the same soreness in my heel. After the row, we had lateral hops (which I did as lateral lunges), sumo deadlifts, sumo squats, and toe reaches. In the second block, we had pop squats (which I did as regular squats), weighted squats, skier swings, and crunches with over unders. And at the end of that block, we had another 2-minute row. This row was a bit harder for me, my heel was starting to really hurt after all the lower body work. But I still tried to go as long as I could before taking a break.

Considering I’m still healing, I think I did a pretty great job this past week. I know I might still have to take it easy for another week or two, but I’m almost done recovering and then I can focus more on finding ways to improve in my workouts. But for now, I’m just glad to be back again because taking that one week off really didn’t make me happy. t

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2 weeks ago, I had a tough workout week for a majority of my week because my heel was in a lot of pain after another freezing treatment. By the time this past week of workouts started, I was in less pain than the week before, but I was still hurting. But at least the pain wasn’t affecting my workouts as much. But then for the second half of my workout week, I had pain due to cramps. So I ended up trading one pain for another and it made a really tough week for me.

Monday’s workout was a 2 group class and it was a signature workout called The Chipper. The idea is that you chip away at the workout as the block goes on. For both cardio and the floor we had 1 long block.

For cardio, we started with a 3-minute push pace followed by a 1-minute base pace. Then we kept the pattern up and the push pace decreased by 30 seconds each time. At the end of the block, we had a 30-second push pace with a 30-second all-out after. I did have to take some breaks to take some pressure off of my heel, but it wasn’t as bad as the week before and the pain I was feeling was much less. I hate that I’m so used to pain that reduced pain is a nice change, but that’s how things go for me.

On the floor, we had 1 exercise and then a row and then another exercise and a row, and the pattern continued. The rowing started at 400-meters and went down by 50-meters each time. For the exercises, the first exercise was 40 reps, the second exercise was 35 reps, and so on. So the reps we did were 10% of the row we had to do. For the exercises we had bench hop overs, toe reaches, bicycle crunches, plank jacks, lunges with bicep curls, Y raises on the straps, and burpees. I got through the Y raises and was going to the rower for the 150-meter row when the block ended.

By Wednesday, my heel was almost normal (I still have some pain and it can be a quick sharp pain if I step in a specific way) but that’s when my cramps started. So it was a different type of pain challenge for me to work through. It was a power day and a 3 group class, so at least things seemed to move quickly for me.

We had 4 blocks for cardio. Each block had a push pace, base pace, and an all-out. The push pace and all-out were always the same length with a shorter push pace. We started with 75-seconds for the push and all-out and 90-seconds for the base and those decreased each block. Fortunately, the shorter intervals made things a little easier for me to deal with.

On the rower, we also had 4 blocks. Each block involved a 150-meter row and squats. The first block was 4 rounds of the row and we had 4 sets of squats between each row (5, 10, 15, and 20 reps). Each block, we had 1 fewer round of rowing and we didn’t have the highest rep count for the squats. And if we finished all the rounds, we had rowing until the block was done. Even though my heel was doing better, my rowing was still not as powerful as it normally is, so I never made it through every round. But I usually got to the last round and then the block ended before I could finish.

And on the floor, we had 1 long block with 2 mini-blocks in it. For each mini-block, we were supposed to do 3 rounds before moving on to the next one. The first mini-block had goblet squats, jump squats (which I did as regular squats), and plank reaches. And the second mini-block had lunges, lateral hops (which I did as skater lunges), and leg raises. I’m glad my heel wasn’t hurting as much for all the squats so I didn’t have to worry too much about those.

Friday was an endurance day, and it was a pretty tough pain day for me. I was glad it was mainly cramps and not nausea because pain tends to be shorter duration for me. But it’s still something I have to push through.

For cardio, we had 1 block and it focused on 2-minute push paces. We had pretty much only 2-minute push paces with base paces in-between. The first base pace was also 2-minutes and it decreased by 30-seconds each time. And at the end, after a 30-second base pace, we had a 1-minute all-out.

The rower was timed with cardio. We had rounds of 2-minute push rows and then when the cardio was doing their base pace we had squat to front presses and overhead tricep extensions with a medicine ball. We were given a warning before we were about to row again, but I was always still working on my medicine ball exercises when we were supposed to sit back on the rower so I didn’t get much of a break for that entire block.

And on the floor, it was also a single block. We started with half kneeling to stands (which I did as lunges), bird dog low rows, alternating tricep extensions, and mountain climbers. I was starting to feel a little nauseous during the mountain climbers, but as soon as I was upright again I felt fine so it might have been random nausea and not hormonal.

And on Saturday, I think we had one of the toughest workouts I’ve done in a while. And I would have felt that way even if I was feeling totally normal. Every block was 4-minutes and we had 3 blocks on each side of the room. And also, every block within a section of the room was the same, so we repeated the same thing 3 times. I think that’s what made it extra tough.

For cardio, we had a 3-minute progressive push pace (so increasing the resistance on the bike by 1 every minute) and ending with a 1-minute all-out. On the rower, it was the same idea with a 3-minute progressive push row and a 1-minute all-out row. But for me on the rower, I just tried to row for as long as I could without a break and didn’t worry too much about increasing my speed each minute. And on the floor, we had 4 exercises we did for 1-minute each. We had alternating shoulder presses, lunges, plank low rows, and skater lunges (which I did as lateral lunges). I was exhausted at the end of this class!

So for 2 weeks I’ve mainly had to focus on one type of pain. And this week, I might have multiple types of pain. I’m expecting my pain and nausea to be pretty bad this week (although I always hope I will be lucky and it won’t be bad). But I’m also seeing a specialist for my foot on Tuesday and I have no clue if I’ll have another type of treatment done that could make my heel hurt really bad again. I’m hoping it’s mainly just an exam to make sure things are ok and not a treatment appointment, but I guess I’ll find out on Tuesday and then see how my workout week goes this week!

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This past week of workouts was another week where I didn’t do my workout on Saturday but added a Thursday class instead. I did this because of something that was supposed to be a scheduling conflict for Saturday that ended up being canceled. But by the time my Saturday opened up again, I had already completed all my workouts for the week. So even though I didn’t have to get all my workouts in before work, I’m still glad I did them all. But I had an added challenge for most of my workouts this week with some extra pain.

Monday’s workout was a strength day. It was also a bit of prep work for a benchmark row that I knew I wouldn’t be doing, but it was still a lot of incline work for cardio.

For cardio, we had 2 blocks that were similar. We started with a base pace hill climb (or decreasing incline for the second block) before having a base pace without incline. Then we had 3 rounds of all-outs at inclines with walking recoveries between each all-out. The inclines weren’t the highest we do, but because we had a lot of time at incline and not much time without, I think they felt higher than they actually were.

For the rower, we also had 2 blocks that were similar. The first block had rounds of a 200-meter row. Between each row, we had overhead presses with the medicine ball. For the second block, instead of a distance to do on the rower, we had stroke drills with 15 strokes each round. And the medicine ball exercise was bicep curls to overhead presses to tricep extensions. Doing a distance goal and doing a stroke drill on the rower are very different types of rowing, and we were supposed to make sure they each were focused on that particular type of rowing. Even though the rower is still a challenge for me, I think focusing on the different types of rowing is something I’m good at.

On the floor, we also had 2 blocks but we had not as much weight work as we normally do for a strength day. For the first block, we had deadlifts, pop jacks, and bird dogs. For the deadlifts, we had 2 sets of them each round. We had heavy deadlifts for 4 reps and regular deadlifts for 12 reps. I did increase the weight I used for the 4 rep set since I knew we were supposed to challenge ourselves. And the second block had pike sit-ups (which I did as regular sit-ups) and mountain climbers.

For the rest of the week, my workouts had the extra challenge with my foot hurting after my dermatologist appointment. I’ve done this several times since my appointments are always on Tuesdays, but I know the pain was worse this time compared to before. I really struggled every day for the rest of my workouts in each section of the room, but my rowing was the hardest.

Wednesday’s workout was a mix of endurance, strength, and power. And for cardio and rowing we had one long block for each.

For cardio, we had 30-seconds of an all-out at an incline, 30-seconds of walking recovery, an all-out at that incline as long as we can go, another 30-seconds of recovery, and another all-out at the incline as long as we can go. Then after that, we had 1-minute of recovery before doing the entire thing again but with the incline one level lower. I’m glad this was the cardio workout because I needed a lot of breaks on the bike. Even though it was only my heel that was hurting, the way my foot moves while on the bike was putting pressure on my heel a bit and making it very painful. I didn’t get that far into this workout because of the breaks I took, but I was ok with that.

For the rower, we started with 3 rounds of a 10 stroke drill with 5 strokes of recovery rowing in-between. After 3 rounds, we had overhead presses with a medicine ball. Then we repeated the same 3 rounds of rowing with a front press with a medicine ball. Because of my foot, I’m glad we had stroke drills and not a distance to get done because it would have taken me so long to get any sort of distance on the rower. The medicine ball exercises were supposed to be single-leg ones, and I didn’t do that since I knew I couldn’t stand on just my left leg.

And on the floor, we had 2 blocks. Each block had 1 cluster set and then 1 regular exercise. A cluster set is similar to what we did with cardio. We had 3 rounds of the exercise. For the first round we had 5 reps and then for the next 2 rounds we did as many reps as we could do. The first floor block had a cluster set of seated low rows and also scaptions. And the second floor block had a cluster set of chest presses and also hip hinge reverse flys. Fortunately, these exercises weren’t too horrible with my foot being in pain.

Thursday was an endurance day, and while I was still in a lot of pain it was a little better than how I felt on Wednesday. I think Thursday felt more like how Wednesdays feel when I’ve had the freezing treatment done in the past. So while I could put my heel down a bit more, it was still difficult for me to do that and I had to make accommodations to not be in too much pain.

For cardio, we started with a 3-minute push pace and then a 1-minute base pace. We then decreased the push pace by 30-seconds each time and ended with a 1-minute all-out. Just like with Wednesday, I had to take a lot of breaks on the bike because of my heel. It wasn’t as frequent as Wednesday, but still a lot. And while I did want to keep them to when we had a base pace, that wasn’t possible with the longer push paces. But I tried my best and I was ok with that.

On the rower, we also had 1 long block. We started with an 800-meter row and then we had squats to bicep curls and tricep extensions with a medicine ball. Then the row decreased by 200-meters and we repeated the same medicine ball exercises. I was just starting on the 400-meter row when the block was done, which really showed me how slow I was on the rower.

And on the floor, another long block but it was split into 2 mini-blocks. The first mini-block had single-arm high rows, Y raises on the straps, and bicep curls on the straps. We had 2 rounds of that and then moved to the next mini-block with shoulder presses, chest flys, and good mornings to tricep kickbacks. A lot of these exercises needed me to stay balanced on both feet, which was tough. I tried to see if I could put more pressure on my toes than my heel, but I was losing my balance. So I just had to go slowly and take my time.

Friday was another strength day. I was still hurting, but I was glad that each day I was slowly feeling better. I knew this past week of workouts would be tough with the pain I’d be in, but I really wasn’t prepared for how bad it would be.

For cardio, we had 2 blocks. Each block had a push pace, base pace, base pace at incline, regular base pace, and an all-out. With only one incline section for each block, I put my focus more on just trying to keep pedaling as long as I could. I was able to decrease how many breaks I needed in the cardio blocks, but I knew I wouldn’t be back to normal just yet.

On the rower, we had 2 blocks. The first block had rounds of 300-meter rows with medicine ball overhead presses between each round. And the second block had stroke drills for 15 strokes with the overhead presses between each round. For the medicine ball work, it increased by 2 reps each round. Just like most days this past week, I struggled with rowing since I couldn’t press down with my heel. That’s especially tough for stroke drills when you are supposed to explode back on the rower each time. But I did better than I expected even if I wasn’t doing great.

The floor had 2 blocks. In the first block, we had goblet squats, lateral lunges, and crunches on the Bosu. And in the second block we had push-ups, deadlifts, and hip dips. The hip dips were supposed to be on the Bosu, but I knew I couldn’t do that. But for the other exercises, I was able to keep the modifications to a minimum which was an improvement!

I’m hoping that this week I will be in less pain, but I think my heel is going to be hurting through at least the beginning of the week. It’s not fun to hurt this much, but I also know that this is a treatment that could be more painful if I put it off so I just have to be ok with it. But just like always, even in pain I fully expect to get my 4 workouts in this week again!

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