Tag Archives: workout

Ringing In The New Year With Workouts (or A Rare 5 Workout Week)

Posted on January 7, 2019 | Comments Off

I had a pretty amazing end to my 2018 workouts and start to my 2019 workouts. Because of the days that the holidays fell on, it also had me doing 5 workouts in a week which I rarely do. But I didn’t want to change up my regular schedule nor did I want to miss a New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day workout.

Monday’s workout was my last workout of 2018 and I think I ended the year with a pretty good class! It was a mix of endurance, strength, and power and it was a 3 group class so we switched sections of the room every 15 minutes. And it had a theme of counting down with squats so it was a very fitting class for New Year’s Eve!

On cardio we had hill work. I was on the bike so it was resistance level work. Each block we had decreasing inclines/resistances levels using base pace and all out pace. There were 3 blocks in the cardio work and after each block we had to do squats. We started at 12 and went down 1 squat each block.

Next I was on the rower which had sprint rows with medicine ball squat rotations and continuing the countdown of squats. We started with 1 minute rows and went down 10 seconds each round. I wasn’t pushing myself the way I know I can on the rower, but I was more focused on my form because I could feel it getting sloppy after doing all the squats.

And finally I was on the floor where we had sumo squats, frogger squats, bicep curls, pull ups on the straps, and double crunches. And of course we continued the countdown of squats that we had done for cardio and the rower. I don’t know if I was just going really slow or if it was just really tough to make it down to 1 squat because I only got down to the round of 4.

This workout was my 206th and final workout of the year and I had to do a little bit of reflection when I was done with class. It might not have been the year where I had the biggest accomplishments, but it was the year that I was most consistent with going 4 days a week. That counts for a lot and I love that I got to end on such a high note after having so many classes where I was feeling down on myself.

I usually don’t workout on Tuesdays, but I felt like I had to this time since it was New Year’s Day and I always work out then. It was a power workout and also a 3 group class so all of the blocks were only 4 minutes long. It was a class that before I would have wished I could be on the treadmill, but I consciously made the choice to think about it as an amazing class to work on my bike speed.

All of the blocks for cardio were the same pattern: push pace, base pace, push pace, base pace, and all out pace. The difference was we increased the time on the first push pace and decreased the time on the all out pace each block.

I was using my new base, push, and all out resistance levels on the bike and I really focused on trying to go as fast as I could for the push and all out paces. It was a bit tough with the resistance levels being the new levels, but I’m working on getting used to them and this class really helped. And my work paid off because the distance I got on the bike was very close to what I can usually do in a 2 group class (when we have more time on cardio).

On the rower, each block was the same format with rounds of a timed row and squats between each round. We started with 30 second rows, the second block was 45 second rows, and the last block was 1 minute rows. I tried to push myself harder than I have in a long time for the first 30 second row and was shocked at how well I did! I haven’t tracked 30 second rows before, but it was over half the distance of my 1 minute row PR so I knew it had to be good! I went easy on the rest of the rows that block and during the next block because I really wanted to go all out on my first 1 minute row. This row has been one that I’ve struggled with because I know that I can get 300 meters for a 1 minute row when I really push myself. But it’s been a long time since I could do that and I wanted to see if I could. I really thought it was possible and I was flying with all my power on the rower, but unfortunately I was 8 meters short when the clock stopped. It’s not easy to get over that disappointment, but I also know I will have many more opportunities to try for it. And this was one of the closest rows I’ve gotten to doing 300 meters in a minute so that is something to be proud of.

On the floor, we had one long block but it was split into 3 mini-blocks. The first mini-block was single arm squat swings and upright rows. The second was speed skater lunges and arm raises. And the last was plank pull throughs and sit-ups. Each mini-block was supposed to be done 3 times before moving on to the next one, and if we finished it we were supposed to do all the exercises as one long block. I made it through to the end and was just starting on doing them as one long block when the class was over.

Wednesday was a strength day and I was so glad to be on the bike. First, I’ve learned that I do my best cardio for strength days on the bike since I can do much more with resistance levels than I can with incline. But also it was my third workout in a row and I rarely have 3 days in a row. I knew I’d be tired and want to go easy on myself, but I had no idea how badly I’d need that until I started class.

There were 3 blocks for cardio and to be honest I didn’t exactly do what we were supposed to do. During the warmup I was starting to feel nauseous and light-headed and couldn’t figure out why. I knew I wasn’t supposed to be nauseous yet and was worried I was getting sick or something. But after the warmup, I realized that I had forgotten to eat dinner the night before. I don’t eat before a workout, but I also don’t usually skip dinner the night before the workout. So I had to take it easy and I did close to what we were supposed to do which was alternate between base and push paces. It was not a good day on the bike for me, but I did what I could and that was better than doing nothing.

On the floor we had 3 blocks and they all had a type of lunge, a type of ab exercise, and single leg sit to stands using the bench. For the lunges, I had to modify things because they all included a type of step up which I can’t do. So I did regular lunges and lateral lunges. The ab work was straight leg raises, leg raises to crunches, and plank work. And the single leg sit to stand started at 1 rep and we kept going up every round. I wasn’t sure I could do these because I can’t really do single leg stuff, but I was able to do it with keeping my opposite heel on the ground. I was so happy that I could do them and felt proud of myself, which made up for feeling so gross during cardio.

Friday was a mix of endurance, strength, and power and a 3 group workout. And it was also when my hormonal nausea started so I was grateful that all of our blocks during the workout were under 4 minutes and we switched areas of the room after each block.

On cardio, every time we were supposed to have a .25 mile push pace (1 mile on the bike) and then a walking recovery for 45 seconds before doing a push pace until the block ended. I did the first block that way, but then I realized that I was taking enough random breaks to wait for my nausea to pass so I really didn’t need the 45 second recovery. So I did the remaining blocks as a push pace the entire time and stopped whenever I needed to wait out the wave of nausea.

On the rower we had the same thing every time as well. We started with a 400 meter row and then had squats. Then the row went down to 250 meters and more squats. We were supposed to end with a 100 meter row and squats, but I never made it to even the second round of squats. I always finished out the block in the middle of my 250 meter row. I was slow, I wasn’t able to work that hard, and I had to take a lot of breaks. But I did it.

The floor is where we had a bit more variety, but we had double sets so we worked the same muscles twice in a row. The first block was focused on doing chest presses so we had them first with dumbbells and then on the straps. The second block was tricep focused so we did overhead triceps with weights and then triceps on the straps. The last block we had chest flys and tricep extensions using weights on the bench so it wasn’t exactly a double set. But my arms were feeling it after this class!

Saturday I was still nauseous but feeling a bit better than I had on Friday. So with the power workout we had I really tried to work hard on the bike. We had 6 little blocks for cardio and they were all a push, base, all out pattern. For 3 of the blocks the push was 90 seconds and for 3 of them the push was 60 seconds. And the base and all out varied each block too. They were really good power blocks and I was proud of myself for not even having a glimmer of a thought that I wish I had been able to do the workout on the treadmill. I was happy on the bike and proud of what I did.

On the floor we had 1 long block. There was a row and 6 exercises that added on each round. We started with a 100 meter row and 1 exercise. Then a 150 meter row and 2 exercises. It went up to a 350 meter row and all the exercises. The exercises were single arm hip hinge swings, high rows on the straps, squats using the straps, roll outs on the straps, squats, and plank work. I couldn’t do the plank work because of my nausea so I did side twists instead. We were supposed to get through all the exercises and then there was a plan to work back down, but I just finished the last of the 6 exercises when time was called. But I was glad I was able to get through everything at least once.

Even though I dealt with unexpected and expected nausea, I’m still happy with how I did this past week. Not only did I work hard, but I did a 5 workout week which is always a challenge for me. I know this week will likely be all bad nausea days, but I’m feeling more hopeful about what I can do during those days after this past week.

Comments Off on Ringing In The New Year With Workouts (or A Rare 5 Workout Week)

Posted in Fitness

Tagged 2018, 2019, fitness, Orangetheory, workout

Orangetheory Goals (or A Blog/Vlog Partnership!)

Posted on January 4, 2019 | Comments Off

I am so excited for this post! For the past few years, I’ve written about my personal goals at the beginning of the year. And ever since I started going to Orangetheory, one of my goals has been how many classes I wanted to make it to that year. And while I’ve had other personal goals I wanted to accomplish that related to my fitness, I’ve never really shared a list of Orangetheory specific goals. But that changes this year!

I’ve made a list of some goals I have for 2019 at Orangetheory, but I didn’t want to do this alone. So I reached out to Andrew Coleman Smith, who has a vlog channel with the amazing Fat Tuesday series where he talks about his fitness and health journey including Orangetheory, and he’s joining me with making 2019 our best OTF year yet! We are going to be holding each other accountable for our goals throughout the year and we will be checking in with each other at different times. When we have our check-ins he will be making an appearance (at least in writing) on here and I’ll be making an appearance on his YouTube channel! The vlog about us working together will be going up next week as his Fat Tuesday video, but this blog is a preview of our goals.

First, here are mine.

My first one is one that I mentioned in my main goals post. I want to do 200 workouts this year. This goal is the one that I look at as my easy goal, but I still need to make sure that I don’t slack off in getting in all my workouts each week.

Next is another one I’ve mentioned before in my workout recaps. I want to use the bike more than the treadmill for my cardio. I need to do this so I stop looking at the bike as not as good as the treadmill. I know I can work just as hard if not harder on the bike than I can on the treadmill and I need to remember that. I’m not exactly sure how I will decide what will be bike days versus treadmill days other than biking when I’m nauseous. But I’m going to be tracking what I use to make sure I stay on the bike more.

I also want to get a new PR of some sort on the rower. It’s been a while since I’ve gotten a PR on the rower. When I started at Orangetheory, I was getting a PR almost every time I rowed because I started with so little rowing skills. It’s easy to make progress when you are starting at the bottom. When you get better, progress comes in smaller increments and that’s where I’ve been getting stuck. But I’m going to make more of an effort to be aware of where my current PRs are and use them to help me try to beat it in class.

Along with tracking my rowing better, I have another tracking goal. I want to track my work I do on the floor. I have been tracking things on the treadmill, bike, and rower for so long and it seems so easy for me to do that. But I don’t really track my weights on the floor so it is harder for me to know if I’m making progress. I know I have made some progress over 4 1/2 years because I never used anything higher than 15lbs in the past. But now, I can’t remember if 20lb or 25lb is my record for different types of lunges or things like that. And I want to know and be aware of what I am doing and when I move to using heavier weights instead of guessing when that happens.

And my final goal for 2019 at Orangetheory is one that I need help with. I want to bring more friends with me to a class. I love the friends that I’ve made at OTF, but it’s so special when I get to take a class with a friend. I want to do that more often so more people in my life can know why these workouts are so special to me.

And now it’s Andrew’s turn!

My name is Andrew! Every week I document my journey to become #NotFat on my weekly YouTube series, Fat Tuesdays! I’ve recently fallen in love with Orangetheory and it’s changed my entire life! Every Tuesday I share about that journey and more. I’d love to have you stop by and check it out!

My first goal this year is to go to a minimum of 3 times a week to Orangetheory. My attendance the last few months of the year were spotty and we all know consistency is key, so I feel like this goal will ensure a lot more progress in my journey. Plus Orangetheory says themselves that 3 to 4 times a week is what you should shoot for, so it’s right on track with “crushing it”.

Next, I want to level up on my push pace. It’s crazy to think that when I first started at Orangetheory, my push pace was a brisk walking speed and now it’s a 6.5! That being said, after crossing over the one year mark in my journey, I think it’s now time to up my push to a 7 (while still keeping my true base of 5.5) It’s a small change that I feel will really make a difference over the course of a year.

For my third goal, I want to FULLY prepare for my classes. My typical morning workout usually looks like this: I’m late to arrive, I can’t find any of my heart rate monitors (yes, I have multiple and yes I sometimes lose them all), I have to buy a water bottle, didn’t get proper sleep the night before… a MESS. (All things I feel a #FitnessPerson shouldn’t do)

And finally, be a better tracker. I’m all about documenting my progress with my health journey on my YouTube channel, but I don’t have the right stats. I don’t know really any of my markers for benchmarks in Orangetheory nor do I have proper measurements of my body. I want to measure every few months or so and keep a detailed journal of what’s changing (since the bathroom scale doesn’t really tell the full story) I also recently took some professional before pictures as a way to get an accurate look at where I’m at in my journey at the top of the year.

So those are our goals for this year at Orangetheory! If you have any fitness goals (Orangetheory or otherwise), I know we’d both love to know more about them! And please hold us both accountable as well. Andrew and I will be making sure that we hit our goals, but having more people checking in on us will be helpful too!

Here’s to us all having our best fitness year ever!

Comments Off on Orangetheory Goals (or A Blog/Vlog Partnership!)

Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged 2019, fitness, goals, Orangetheory, workout

Holiday Workouts (or Making Myself Enjoy The Bike)

Posted on December 31, 2018 | Comments Off

This past week was my last full week of workouts for 2018, and I have to say I think they went pretty well! I had some random issues, but I also had some victories over issues that I have been dealing with for a while. And as always, I enjoyed having a bit of holiday fun during my workouts too.

Monday’s workout was the traditional Christmas Eve workout with the Present and Coal cards. We drew cards out of a Santa hat that had different workout assignments. Some were easy (the Presents) and some were hard (the Coal). I’ve had a mixed bag with what workouts I’ve gotten in the past and I figured I’d have the same this time.

I started on cardio with the bike. I’m still trying to figure out what I want to do with enjoying the bike more often, but I was glad I used it for this workout. I did 3 different cards and they were all Presents. The first and third cards that I drew were 3 rounds of .15 miles (which was .6 on the bike) with 30 seconds of recovery in between each round. Each round took me about 90 seconds to complete so it was a 90 second push pace for me. I forgot what the second card said exactly, but it was shorter than the other card. I think it might have been 3 rounds of .1 miles (.4 on the bike) but I’m not totally sure. But again, I did it as a push pace and I was using my new push pace resistance level on the bike.

I was on the rower next and I only drew one card, and it was a Coal card. I had 2 rounds of an 800 meter row with 50 squats using a medicine ball between the rows. The first row wasn’t too bad and I was able to do it in a decent time without stopping. But the 50 squats were a killer! I thought I could do them with only 1 break in the middle, but I had to rest every 5-10 squats. I was so happy to be back on the rower for my second 800 meter row even though I did it slowly and needed breaks. I was just finishing it when that block was done and I went to the floor.

I’m not sure if I was just normal tired or tired from the workout, but I got really confused when reading the card. We had 6 different exercises on the floor (low rows on the straps, sumo squats to presses, crunches, burpees, squats, and plank work) and the first card I drew said Exercise 4 x 25. I thought that meant 4 rounds of 25 reps of everything and started working on them. But after the second exercise, I realized that had to be wrong and I checked with my coach. The card meant I only had to do the 4th exercise (which was the burpees) for 25 reps. All the cards I got on the floor only had been doing some of the exercises, but by the end of the block I had done all 6 of them pretty equally.

I have a tradition of getting a photo with my coach Bruce before Christmas with him wearing a Santa hat, but I knew this year it might not happen. I don’t take his class anymore and I rarely see him. So I had to do some creative photo editing to make it happen this year.

Wednesday’s workout was a strength day, and I was on the bike again. We had 3 blocks with cardio and 3 blocks on the floor, but the cardio work seemed extra tough to me that morning.

The cardio was a similar pattern with a regular push pace, a hill, and ending with an all out with base paces in between everything. The push pace and hill work were 2 minutes each for the first block, 90 seconds each for the second block, and 1 minute each for the last block. And the hill work was 2 different inclines/resistance levels each time so we went higher and harder halfway through each hill. I was using my new base and push resistance levels and kept my hill work around what my all out resistance level is at now. I had Chinese food the night before and I think having that the night before an early workout did affect me because it felt so much harder than it had felt in a long time. I struggled a bit with the hill work, but I tried to not think about keeping my cadence the same and just focused on moving. The one really good thing was that my new base pace resistance level is feeling much easier and such a relief when I get to come back to it after higher resistance levels.

On the floor, we got to pick our own work for each block. We had 3 different row distances and 6 different exercises. For each block we picked 1 row distance and 2 exercises and by the end of 3 blocks we did them all. The rows were 200, 300, and 400 meters and the exercises were hip hinge low rows, double crunches, shoulder presses, single arm fly, pullovers, and toe reaches. I decided to do the longest row first and go down with each block. And I didn’t have a plan with the exercises more than I was going to do 1 and 3 for the first block, 2 and 4 for the second, and 5 and 6 for the last. We were told not to do the double crunches and pullovers in the same block since they were the same movement, and for some reason the way I split things up made the most sense to me. I wasn’t using the heaviest weights I could because there is a small chance I have a pinched nerve in my right arm (I’ve got some recurring pain and weakness in my hand) so I wanted to be careful. But using light weights really did help me see my progress since those weights were ones I would have used for those exercises toward the beginning of the year and they felt very easy to me in this workout.

Friday’s workout was a mix of endurance, strength, and power and it was a workout that made me happy to be on the bike. For cardio, we had a mix of progressive pushes and incline work. And neither of those are things that are easy to do on the treadmill. So being on the bike really was the best option and it made me appreciate knowing I can do some good work on there.

We had 2 blocks and each block started with a 4 minute progressive push and ended with 4 all outs using different inclines. For the progressive pushes, I increased my bike resistance by 1 level each time starting at the resistance level between my base and push. And for the incline work I did high resistance levels starting at my all out level and going higher from there. As it’s been since I increased my base, push, and all out resistance levels; it was really tough but felt really great. The base resistance level is feeling so much more normal even if the other levels are feeling much tougher than I’m used to.

On the floor, we had 2 blocks as well and they all had rowing plus regular floor work. The first block started with a 100 meter row and then we had 1 round of lateral raises, single arm snatches, and bench hop overs. Then we had a 200 meter row and 2 rounds of the exercises. The block ended with a 400 meter row and doing the exercises again. The second block was a similar pattern but started with the highest row and moved down. And the exercises were Y raises on the straps, plank rows, and sit-ups.

Saturday’s workout was a power day and it would have been a perfect day for me to work on my running. But I’m working on being happier with the bike so I tried to reframe my thinking and look at it as the perfect day to work on being faster on the bike.

There were 5 blocks for cardio and 5 blocks for the floor. The first and last blocks were 2 minutes, the second and fourth blocks were 3.5 minutes, and the third block was 5.5 minutes. For cardio, it was a run/row format. The first and last blocks were a .1 mile run (.4 on the bike) and then row until time was done. The second and fourth blocks were .2 miles (.8 on the bike) and then row until time was done. And the third block was .3 miles (1.2 on the bike) and then row until the block was done. I was able to get through the bike work pretty quickly and had a decent amount of time on the rower each block. But I was never on the rower more than 2.5 minutes which was nice. I felt pretty great about my biking speed and my rowing for all of the blocks and also felt like I had worked harder on the bike than I would have on the treadmill.

The floor blocks were the same amount of time as the cardio blocks. The first and fifth blocks had push-ups and sit-ups, the second and fourth blocks had tricep extensions with weights and chest presses with weights, and the third block had tricep extensions on the straps, plank shoulder touches, and toe touch sit-ups. I tried to not go too quickly with the exercises so I could keep my form the best I could, so I didn’t do too many rounds each block. But that’s ok.

Overall, I’m happy with how my feelings about the bike were at the end of this past week. I was looking at it more positively and started to think of ideas of challenges for 2019 for the bike (more on that soon). I’ve got just today’s workout left for 2018 and then it’s time to start working on my 2019 fitness goals!

Comments Off on Holiday Workouts (or Making Myself Enjoy The Bike)

Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged bike, fitness, Orangetheory, workout

Almost End Of The Year Workouts (or Hitting A Milestone And Debating A New Plan)

Posted on December 24, 2018 | 1 comment

I never should predict how a workout week will go. In my post last week, I said how I would expect the coming week to be a good week of workouts because my nausea was done. I clearly spoke too soon.

Monday was a weird day for me. I’m not sure if my pain and nausea was due to hormonal things (it should have been over by then) or if I got food poisoning or something, but I wasn’t feeling good that morning. It was not just the pain and nausea that I’ve dealt with for the past 2 years but I was also having hip issues that morning. I don’t know why everything was happening for me, but I went into my workout with the mindset that I was just going to do what I could and that was better than missing my workout.

It was a power based workout and we had 3 blocks with cardio. I was on the bike and used my normal resistance levels since I wasn’t feeling good enough to push myself. Every block was a longer push pace, a base pace, a push to all out, a recovery, and another push to all out. For the first block I was feeling not too bad and didn’t need to take any breaks, but for the other blocks I just had to stop when I felt like it was too much. I was frustrated, but not because of how I was feeling. I was frustrated that I wasn’t mentally prepared for a day like this. I thought I was going to be feeling great and I hated how let down I felt when it was a rough day for me. But I did what I could and that’s all I can hope for sometimes.

On the floor, we also had 3 blocks. The first 2 blocks had 3 rounds of 2 different exercises and then a timed row. We had chest presses, squats to upright rows, push-ups using the bench, and single arm chest presses. And then the last block was rounds of 30 second rows with squat jacks using the medicine ball. I couldn’t do the squat jacks so I did regular squats with overhead presses. My rowing wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t great either. But I was able to use heavy weights for the weighted work on the floor so it felt like that made up for something.

The weirdness continued on Wednesday for me. I started out on the treadmill, but my hip was just bugging me. And since I was going to be going to Disneyland later that day, I didn’t want to do anything that would make me hurt too much while walking around at Disneyland. So after I did my warmup I switched over to the bike for the rest of the cardio.

The goal of the cardio work was to work with a new base pace. I ended up being pretty glad I was on the bike since I know I couldn’t go faster on the treadmill yet. What I did for the bike was use my normal push pace as my new base pace, my normal all out as my new push pace, and then go higher with the resistance level for my new all out. It ended up working out well and it wasn’t as tough as I thought it might be. There were a few times where I was wishing the push pace was shorter because my legs were getting tired, but that is to be expected with any workout.

On the floor, we had a long block followed by a short core blast. For the long block we had deadlifts, shoulder presses, back extensions, and mountain climbers. And after completing a round we went to the rower. The first row was 800 and it was cut in half each time we were back on the rower. I didn’t do my fastest row, but it was one of my more consistent speed rows so I was very happy with that. And we ended the workout with a core blast with different types of crunches.

On Friday I pretty much decided to stick with the bike. I’m doing some thinking about not trying to use the treadmill for a while just to get happier with the bike (more on that when I figure it out) so this would be a good chance for me to work with the new base pace I got to on Wednesday. It was a bit frustrating because this would have been the perfect day to work on running, but that’s exactly why I knew I needed to stay on the bike.

All of the blocks were very short and it was a switch day so we were in each section of the room 3 times. On the cardio all the blocks were a push pace, base pace, push pace, base pace, and all out. Each block the last base pace got a bit longer which was a good chance to work on my endurance with that new base pace resistance level. It was a bit easier than it was on Wednesday which was a good sign to me.

On the rower, we started with a 200 meter row and then had different types of squats each block. Then we went back to the rower and finished the row to 400 meters. And since there was time at the end of each block before we switched, we had to hold a squat to complete the block. The last squat was usually about 30-45 seconds for me which wasn’t too long.

And on the floor every block had some form of a lunge movement and some core work. For the lunges we had speed skater lunges, regular lunges, and lunges knee raises (which I was able to do by using the straps for balance). And for the core work we had sit-ups, side plank crunches, and seated torso rotations. I got through 2 rounds of the movements each block before we switched and the time really flew by.

But I did hit an amazing milestone on Friday. I had the goal to do 199 workouts this year, and my workout on Friday was my 200th workout of the year!

I can’t believe that not only did I make it to my goal but I would pass it! And having that milestone happen really did help me feel better about the workouts.

Saturday’s workout was a strength day and I stayed on the bike. But I felt much better about that decision and that helped me feel much better about the workout in general. I was also able to keep working with my new base pace resistance on the bike and combining that with the hill workout made it so hard, but in a good way!

The cardio workout had 3 blocks with a similar format. There was a push pace, a hill base pace, a regular base pace, a push pace, another hill base pace, a regular push pace, and it ended with a push to all out pace. The difference was that each block the hill (or resistance level for me) went down. It was hard doing that work with my new base resistance level, but I think it was a good thing in the end because that new resistance level doesn’t feel as hard as it did when I was using it as my push pace.

On the floor, we had rowing in the first and last block. The first block had a 1 minute row and the last block had a 100 meter row and then a 300 meter row after a 15 second recovery. The rest of the work had a lot of good weight work. We had single arm snatches, goblet squats, shoulder presses, lunges, uppercuts, and sit-ups. I tried to go with the heaviest weights I knew I could use for those exercises to not go easy on myself. I might have done more weight with the goblet squats, but I’m happy with what I did.

I pretty much just have this week to finish up my workouts for the year (except New Year’s Eve which will be the week after) and it’s a good time to evaluate what I want to accomplish in 2019. The idea of making myself use the bike more often is something I think I need to do, but I don’t have the exact plan figured out. But I also want to set more goals beyond that so I can have something to try to reach for in rowing or with weights. Hopefully this week’s workouts will inspire me so I have a good plan for 2019!

1 Comment

Posted in Fitness

Tagged fitness, goals, Orangetheory, workout

Working Through A Rough Week (or Just Keep Moving)

Posted on December 17, 2018 | 1 comment

I knew this week of workouts would be a rough one for me. I am glad that I can plan for these weeks so they don’t take me by surprise, but it doesn’t necessarily make them easier to deal with. But I just have to continue trying new things that might help my workouts (and my life) not as hard and hope for the best. And that’s the attitude I really tried to go into these workouts with.

Monday’s workout was a strength day and I knew that while I couldn’t pedal as hard on the bike as normal that didn’t mean I couldn’t try to work hard. Since there was incline/resistance work for the cardio, I went with increasing my resistance levels on the bike as the incline work was happening on the treadmill. I didn’t get quite as high on the resistance levels as I have before, but I was still doing more than my normal levels.

We had 3 blocks on cardio and the first block was 1 minute intervals between incline/resistance work and a base pace. Each incline went lower as we went through the blocks, so I started the resistance level at close to the highest that I have done to represent hill work. I went down 1 level each time but I was still above my normal resistance levels the entire block. The second block was 1 minute intervals with incline/resistance work and push paces. During this block, I was getting closer to my normal resistance levels but decided to not go below my all out resistance level for hill work. And the last block was 1 minute intervals with push and base paces and I used my normal resistance levels for these.

On the floor, every block had 2 exercises plus a row challenge. The exercises included lunges, shoulder presses, single leg squats, hip hinge reverse fly, uppercuts, and bicep curls. Each block had 1 exercise that was 6 reps and the other exercises we could choose between 6-10 reps. The idea was to be able to try heavier weights and have the option to do fewer reps. Because of how I was feeling, I did heavy weights but nothing I hadn’t done before. And the row challenge each block was to do 15 stokes slowly on the rower and see how far you could get. It’s not easy to row slowly and that’s the point of this challenge. We were supposed to get at least 150 meters each time, and I managed to do over 200 meters each time. So I guess my nausea was good for something.

Wednesday’s workout was a power class and even though it’s normally not a 3 group class it was this time. So I was at each section of the room for about 15 minutes. On the bike, we had short push to all out challenges and then we had squats right after. We did 5 rounds of push to all outs that got shorter throughout the block and the squats started at 12 reps and went down 1 each time. I wasn’t pedaling as fast as I could on the bike, but I tried my best and tried to work harder during the all outs than I was working during the push paces.

On the rower, we started with a 500 meter row and each round it went down 100 meters. And between the rows we had more squats plus squats to front presses with a medicine ball. We kept working down for the number of reps we did for the regular squats, so I started at 8 squats after my 500 meter row. My rowing time was slow, but it was steady and consistent so I tried to look at that as a good thing.

And on the floor, we had 1 long block that had 4 exercises plus continuing to work down on the number of reps for the squats. We had sumo squats with weights, dumbbell swings, weighted hip bridges, and crunches. The goal by the end of class was to be at the round of doing 1 squat (so you worked from 12 down to 1), but I didn’t quite make it. I did my round of 2 squats and was working on the other exercises by the time class was done. But considering how awful I was feeling in class, getting within a few exercises of making it to the goal is a big accomplishment.

Friday’s workout was a strength day and I was cautiously optimistic that my nausea was over. I was feeling pretty good when I woke up and went to the workout, but when I got on the bike it was only a few minutes before I was feeling nauseous again. But since I had planned for this week to be like this, it did make things a bit easier. Plus, as I’ve mentioned before I do like using the bike for strength days because I can add resistance on the bike much more than I can do incline work on the treadmill.

The cardio blocks were all pretty short and they combined having push work without hills and push work with hills. I was using my normal resistance levels on the bike when it wasn’t hill work but I went to the new higher resistance levels I’ve been using for the hill work. I didn’t get as high up there as I have in past workouts, but the hill work wasn’t as high as it has been in other workouts so that seemed reasonable to me.

On the rower, we had an interesting workout where we got to determine how many reps of exercises we would do by how we did with the rowing. We had different distances to row and we had to count the number of strokes it took us to get to that distance (very similarly to us having to count the strokes in Monday’s class and see the distance we could get). I know that I can do long and slow rowing and that helps to keep my stroke count down. After the first row we had calf raises, after the second row we had squats, and after the third row we had squat presses. I know that my number of reps was much lower than our coach was expecting us to do since I focused on rowing as slowly as possible. But I still had a lot of reps of everything.

And on the floor we had 2 blocks. The first block had deadlifts, double crunches, and bench sit-up to stands. I couldn’t do the sit-up to stands because of the nausea so I just did regular full sit-ups. And the second block had hip hinge high rows, hammer curls, sit-ups, and lunges. Fortunately the majority of the floor exercises that we had were things that weren’t an issue with my nausea, so by the end of the workout I was feeling almost back to how I was feeling before the workout.

Saturday’s workout was a benchmark day. We had the 2000 meter row which is the longest benchmark row that we have. It’s not an easy distance to do, but I’ve done it enough to have a good idea of goals I’d like to accomplish. My PR is significantly faster than I’ve been able to do any other time (I have no idea how I did the row so quickly that one time), so I don’t go into that row expecting to get a new PR. But I still try to do better than other rows so I can feel accomplished.

I started out on the bike where we had a short cardio block with a push pace and ending with an all out. Then we went to the floor to do some skater lunges, woodchoppers with the medicine ball, and lunges with tricep extensions with the medicine ball. I was trying to go easy on the floor work since I knew I’d have the 2000 meter row right after that, but I was going harder than I thought so toward the end of the block I took a break so I could catch my breath.

When I got to the rower, my goal was to see if I could do the row in under 9 minutes. It’s not easy to do that, and I was still feeling a bit off, but I was determined to do my best. What we are told to do with long rows like this is to start with 5 really hard pulls on the rower to get the water moving, then work on finding a steady pace we can maintain for the entire time. I knew if I wanted to be under 9 minutes that my 500 meter split time needed to stay under 2:15. I was able to do that in the beginning, but I was tiring out quickly. So instead of going at that pace as long as I could and then slowing down a lot, I found a pace I could stick with and just had to be ok with not making my goal. I ended up finishing about 15 seconds slower than I wanted to, but I was able to do the entire row without stopping.

After the row was done, we had blocks where we had short cardio bursts with lunges between each burst. I was on the bike and only made it through 2 rounds. I had to take time to recover after my row and that cut into my cardio time. And the last short block on the floor was lunges and superman work, which was easy enough to do even though I was so tired.

While this past week of workouts weren’t record breaking or amazing, I did try to stay in the mindset that I was doing something good. I think I found a small victory in all of my workouts even if that victory was a part of not reaching a goal I had earlier. I should hopefully be back to my normal workout for the next 2 weeks, so I should be finishing my 2018 workouts with some awesome workout days!

1 Comment

Posted in Fitness

Tagged challenge, fitness, Orangetheory, workout

A Week Of Tough Workouts (or Frustration As Motivation)

Posted on December 10, 2018 | Comments Off

This past week of workouts weren’t my best. I had issues with the weather affecting how I was feeling plus I had to deal with nausea. These issues are frustrating to me, but I really tried my best to not let it get to me too much.

Monday’s workout was an endurance day, but it felt a bit like a power day with how the treadmill section was formatted. I was on the treadmill, but my hips were a bit off so I was power walking the entire time. I tried not to be frustrated since the format would have been a great running day, but I am struggling with feeling ok with not being able to run sometimes.

On the treadmill, the first block was a 1 minute all out pace followed by a walking recovery. Then we had 3 rounds of a 30 second push to 1 minute all out pace. The next block was 2 rounds of a 2 minute push pace followed by a 30 second all out pace with a walking recovery in the middle. And the last block was a 4 minute progressive push followed by a 30 second all out pace. And we ended with a walking recovery and one more 1 minute all out pace. I was keeping my inclines on the treadmill at the inclines I usually do, but I was having to take more breaks than I normally do. My hips were just feeling tight and off and I wasn’t sure how to fix that.

On the floor we had 3 blocks and each of those blocks included a 1 minute all out row. I was able to get better every time I did the row so that made me feel a bit better after the treadmill. In the first block we also had lateral lunges and squats, in the second block we had lateral lunges and regular lunges, and the last block was a core blast. The core blast included plank work, push ups, and sit ups.

Wednesday’s workout was a power day. And I thought I had been frustrated to not run on Monday, but Wednesday was even worse for me. We had rainy weather and that always makes me hurt. So I had to use the bike and it was hard because this was another perfect workout to work on my running if I could have done it.

On the cardio side, it was a timed run/row format. All of the runs were 90 seconds long with a 30 second push pace, 30 second base pace, and 30 second all out pace. For the bike, I tried to go 1 or 2 resistance levels higher than I normally use since it was so quick. And after those 90 seconds we switched to the rower where we had 3 rounds of 30 second all out rows with 15 seconds to recover between for a total of 2 minutes. We did the treadmill/bike part 5 times and the row 4 times before switching to the floor.

On the floor, it was timed as well and it matched the cardio side. Whenever it was a 90 second round, we were doing a form of burpees. Whenever it was 2 minutes we had ab work following the same pattern as the rower with 3 rounds of 30 seconds of work and 15 seconds to recover. I pulled the bench down to use it for my burpees, but I still had to do some of my burpees stepping back instead of jumping back. The burpees started basic and we added on every round to include things like using weights, doing bicep curls, doing shoulder presses, and doing ultimate burpees. The ab work switched between sit ups and weighted double crunches.

Friday’s workout was a 3 group workout and I was starting to deal with nausea that morning. I used the bike for my cardio to keep the nausea to a minimum. It wasn’t that bad when I started class, but I knew it was probably going to get worse as the morning went on.

We switched between the blocks so I had 2 rounds on the bike, 2 rounds on the rower, and 2 rounds on the floor. On the bike, I wasn’t thinking too much about what I was doing. I just didn’t want to feel sick. I used my normal resistance levels for my push and all outs, but I wasn’t pedaling as fast as I know I can go.

On the rower, we had sprint rows with half squats between each row for the first block and slightly longer rows with calf raises between each row for the second block. My speed on my rows was within the time we were supposed to be at, but they weren’t my best. But I was able to get through my half squats and calf raises quickly so I got a lot of rounds on the rower done.

And on the floor, we had mini-blocks within the blocks. The first block had push ups and plank reaches as a mini-block, pull ups on the straps and triceps on the straps as a mini-block, and plank low rows and pop jacks as a mini-block. And the mini-blocks in the second block were the same but we had them in the reverse order so we didn’t miss out on doing any exercises. I struggled a bit with some of the plank work, but it was much better than I expected I could do.

Saturday was a strength day and a day that my nausea was a bit worse. I was pretty happy to be on the bike because I do know that even with my nausea being bad sometimes I can do some great things with my resistance levels.

And that’s exactly what I did. I was usually higher resistance levels for almost all of my hill work on the bike. I was trying to push myself more than I normally do and there were a few moments that I could do exactly that. And when I was using the resistance levels that I’m used to, I was working on pedaling faster than normal to make up for it. I did have to take breaks to let the nausea pass, but I used those as my regular breaks and then tried to go harder when I was working.

On the floor, we had 2 blocks and the big focus was on doing single arm clean to presses. We had so many of those to do and then we had other exercises between. In the first block, we had 3 rounds of single arm clean to presses with bench overhead extensions, bench sit-ups to jump squats, and a 200 meter row. I had to split up my bench sit-ups to jump squats to crunches and then doing squats because I couldn’t take going from laying down to standing that much. And the second block had single arm chest presses, plank work, and a 200 meter row between the single arm clean to presses. I had to do my plank work using the bench, but it wasn’t the worst workout for me to deal with my nausea.

I know that I probably sound like a broken record because I am always trying to figure out how to tolerate my nausea in my workouts. It’s not something that is easy to figure out, even 2 years into the process. But I am trying to use the 1-2 weeks a month that I have it as a motivation to try to find where I can do better work. I think I accomplished that a bit this past week and I’m looking forward to trying to do that even more this week.

Comments Off on A Week Of Tough Workouts (or Frustration As Motivation)

Posted in Fitness

Tagged fitness, health issues, Orangetheory, workout

Back To My Normal Workouts (or Another Challenge Switch)

Posted on December 3, 2018 | Comments Off

After having a shorter workout week the week before, I was happy to be back to my normal workout schedule this past week. My workouts are one of the few super routine and regular parts of my life and when things switch up it feels weird. I know that normally happens around the holidays, but I’m still not used to it. So getting back to my regular schedule was really nice.

Monday’s workout was a strength day, but the inclines on the treadmill were going to be pretty limited so I was going to use the treadmill. I had such a great running day on Saturday the week before and I was excited to keep that going. But I don’t know if it was being of my great running day, the heavy weights I used for squats, or something else but I was seriously struggling on the treadmill. My legs felt like they were so heavy and I had a hard time moving as quickly as I needed to. So I jumped off the treadmill right after the warmup (when I was taking breaks every 30 seconds of so) and went to the bike.

All of our blocks had push paces at no added incline/resistance, push paces at added incline/resistance, and all out paces with no incline for the treadmills with base paces in between. For the base, push, and all out paces with no added incline I used my regular resistance levels on the bike. But for all the incline work, I went to the new higher resistance levels that I had been using recently. Even though we had recovery between all of the all outs, this felt almost like an endurance workout and I was working hard!

On the floor, we had 1 long block but we also had rowing. When we started, we had a 250 meter row and then went to the floor to work on skier swings, uppercuts, deadlifts, high rows using the straps, bicep curls, and plank low rows. The exercises were grouped into 3 mini-blocks each with 2 exercises and we did 3 rounds of each mini-block before moving on. But every time the treadmill had an all out we went back to the rower for another 250 meter row so we did a total of 1,000 meters in the workout. I was using medium heavy weights for all the weighted work and made it through all the exercises by the time class was done so I was very happy with my floor work. Plus, I was able to get my 250 meter row faster every time I did it.

Wednesday’s workout was a signature workout. It’s called Go Row and it is all about timed rowing. Even though I started on the treadmill for my warmup, my group went to the floor first. But since it was a switch class I didn’t feel too weird doing my rowing and treadmill work second with each block.

For the rowing/treadmill blocks, we started on the rower every time. The first block was a 4 minute row, the second block a 2 minute row, and the last block a 1 minute row. The goal was to do at least half of what you did the previous row, and I did much better than half every time. After the rows we went to the treadmill for a quick treadmill workout. The first block was just a push to an all out, the second block was a longer push to a base to an all out, and the last block was another longer push to a base to an all out. I walked my base and push paces but did run all of the all outs. There was so little time on the treadmill that I did want to maximize my time on there so I’m glad I got some running done.

On the floor we had a lot of work using the Bosu. The first block was supposed to be plank leg lifts and knee tucks using the Bosu and I tried doing those at first but it wasn’t working for me. So I did my plank leg lifts on the ground and did sit-ups on the Bosu instead of knee tucks. The second block was running men, hip hinge tricep kickbacks, and single leg V ups on the Bosu. I switched the single leg V ups to sit-ups again due to my hips. And the last block was lateral shoulder raises while kneeling on the Bosu and back extensions on the Bosu and I was able to do both of those exactly how we were coached to do them.

Friday’s workout was another strength day, but it was a 3 group class and the format looked like a good one to do on the treadmill so I skipped using the bike. On the treadmill, we had 3 blocks and they all had a push pace that was supposed to be at an incline and then an all out pace on a flat incline. So I decided to do all the push pace incline work as a power walker and the all out paces as a runner. The 1 minute all out paces did feel a bit long to me, but they were doable. And not worrying about using incline work while running was helpful. Even though I have done a lot of 3 group classes, this seemed to be the quickest 3 group treadmill block I’ve ever had.

On the rower, we had 3 blocks as well and each block started with a distance row. The first block was 200 meters, the second block was 400 meters, and the last block was 600 meters. After the row we had squats using the medicine ball and then we rowed until the block ended. I did make it back to the rower every time and did about a minute of rowing at the end of each block. It was a lot of rowing which was helpful to finish my Orange Voyage challenge (I ended up rowing 24,854 meters in November).

And on the floor, we also had 3 blocks which focused a lot on lower body and abs. The first block had lunges, sit-ups, crunches, and leg raises. The second block added deadlifts to the exercises from the first block. And the last block skipped the abs but we added weighted squats to the lunges and deadlifts. The number of reps for each exercise was pretty low so we were encouraged to go very heavy with the weights. I didn’t go as heavy as I knew I could go because the heavy weight that I usually use for deadlifts was being used by other people and I didn’t want to go even heavier than I’ve ever done.

Saturday’s workout was a power day and the treadmill half of class was really fun! It started as a run/body weight exercise and then switched to a run/row. And it gave me a lot of opportunities to work on my running!

The first round was a .1 mile run and then squats. I ran the entire thing (even though it’s a bit longer than I have been running lately) and that felt awesome. The next round would have been a .2 mile run, but I did it as a run/walk with 45 second intervals and split the difference between the run distance and the walk distance. Then there were more squats. Next was another round where I did it as a run/walk and split the difference between the run and walk distances with more squats after it. Then the distance got longer and I switched to power walking only. After that round we had more squats and then the longest distance we had on the treadmill followed by 200 meters on the rower. I made it back to the treadmill to work on the next distance, but we switched before I finished the distance. I did 3 rounds of running (or run/walking) and 3 rounds of walking which felt pretty good!

On the floor, we had a very unique format. The first 12 days of December are a new challenge with themed workouts at Orangetheory and this one was all about working our way down from 12 reps to 1 rep. We had 4 blocks and each block had 2 exercises. We did exercise 1 for 12 reps, exercise 2 for 11 reps, exercise 1 for 10 reps, and so on. If we made it all the way down to 1 rep, we then held a plank until the block ended. The first block was plank shoulder taps and pop jacks. The second block was squats and hip hinge reverse flys. The third block was lunges and weighted triceps. And the last block was palms to elbows (which I did as plank shoulder taps) and sit-ups. I made it to doing the plank at the end for the second, third, and fourth blocks which is much more than I expected!

I’m excited for this week to see what the challenges will be in the workouts. I know they will be tough, but they aren’t as bad as Hell Week so I know I can do whatever they are!

Comments Off on Back To My Normal Workouts (or Another Challenge Switch)

Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged challenge, fitness, Orangetheory, workout

A Short Workout Week (or 3 Workouts In 3 Different Locations)

Posted on November 26, 2018 | 1 comment

This past week of workouts was a short workout week for me, but it was also a really amazing week. I technically worked out in 3 different cities (2 of them being my regular LA studios) but I also had my traditional family workout in Sacramento! It was so fun getting to have my family workout in the middle of my workouts this past week and I loved that we were able to continue our tradition.

Monday’s class was at the Brentwood studio (where I go on Mondays) and it was an endurance day, but it was a unique format so it didn’t feel as tough as most endurance days have been in the past for me. We had regular treadmill and floor blocks, but we also had run/floor blocks and row/run blocks. Things were switching up every block so it kept things very interesting and challenging!

I started on the treadmill and the first block was the run/floor block. We started with a 6 minute run for distance and I did run/walk intervals. I did 1 minute of running with 90 seconds of walking. The running was a bit tough because I had been on the bike the week before, but I’m glad I did it. I pushed myself but I didn’t push myself too much. After the run for distance, we moved to the floor where we had work on the Bosu. We had single arm chest presses while laying on the Bosu, crunches, and hip bridges with our feet on the Bosu.

After that, I switched to the rower side where we had our row/run. We started with a 1000 meter row and then had a minute of recovery before going back to rowing to get the meters to 2000 meters. The first 1000 meters were tough, but I only needed 1 break in the middle to catch my breath. The second 1000 meters were much harder and I was taking a lot of breaks. But I got it done and then it was time to be on the treadmill for a 3 minute distance run. After that there was more rowing and distance runs, but the block ended while I was working on the 3 minute distance run so I didn’t get to do that.

Then I was back on the treadmill for 2 more distance runs. The first was 3 minutes and the second was 90 seconds. I wanted to try to run but my legs were tired so I did those both as power walks. And I finished on the floor with a block that had a lot of plank work including side plank rotations, side plank crunches, plank hip dips, and back extensions. The back extensions were tough for me because I had a little nausea and queasiness while doing them, but I pushed through and was fine by the end of class.

I didn’t work out on Wednesday because of being out of town, but I had my Thursday Thanksgiving workout! For the past 4 years (since we started this tradition), we have always done the workout at the La Jolla studio since that is where we went for Thanksgiving. Now that we were in Folsom, we worked out at the studio there. It was so easy to get there because it was right across the street from the hotel we were staying at! So for the first time, I was able to walk to my workout!

Since this was a new studio for us all, we got there early to get things figured out. And as soon as we walked in, we felt super welcome from how amazing the staff was and from the sign they had welcoming my family!

Technically we are the Fry family (this family is my mom’s side), but over half of us in my family in the class have the last name Levin so it worked.

This workout was a 3 group workout that was all partner based. There were 7 of us in my family in the workout, but since I am so used to the workouts I let my family form 2 groups and I partnered with 2 people from the class that I didn’t know. Technically the rower was the pacer, but the floor and treadmill people paced things as well.

The rower started with a 1600 meter row. Every time the rower was back on the rower they went down 400 meters (my group only got through the 1600 and 1200 meter rows). While they were rowing, the people on the treadmill and floor were switching back and forth on their own. The treadmill person had a .25 mile run (I walked) and in the second round it went down to .2 miles. And the floor person had ground to presses, burpees, plank jacks, and high rows using the straps. Whoever finished first between the treadmill and floor initiated the switch between them. And when the rower person was done, someone else went to the rower and the new treadmill and floor person switched between themselves.

It probably sounds more complicated than it was, but fortunately it wasn’t too tough to follow. Some people in my family had some confusion, but it didn’t really matter since they still were working out for the entire class and they had a great time! Some of my family were a bit sore from the workout, but they weren’t used to rowing or some of the floor exercises. Everyone was so happy we could continue this tradition and of course we had to get a photo to add to the collection of Thanksgiving workouts!

I didn’t workout on Friday because I was traveling back home, but I was back at the Culver City studio for my Saturday workout. It was a mix of endurance, strength, and power and it was the perfect way to get back into being in my normal routine. Plus, the workout had a lot of great chances for me to run which was an added bonus!

On the treadmill we had 3 blocks. They all had a push to an all out pace, a walking recovery, 2 rounds of a push pace to a base pace, and then ending with another push to an all out pace. All of the all outs were 30 seconds so I knew I could run all of those but the push and base paces changed with each block. The first block had 1 minute intervals and I did all of them as a power walk. But the second block was 45 seconds and the third block was 30 seconds so I was able to run the push paces in those blocks.

On the floor, we had 1 long block. Every round started with a row, starting with 100 meters and going up 100 meters each round. Then we had clean to presses, sumo squats using weights, double crunches with weights, and mountain climbers on the floor. I tried going heavy with my weights, but I could only do that with the sumo squats. For the rowing, since they were short rows I tried to go as hard as possible. But I might have gone a bit too hard on my 200 meter row because I was so exhausted after that and had to take a bit of time on the floor to catch my breath. But I made it through 3 rounds on the floor so I was happy about that.

Even though this past week of workouts was a shorter one than I’m used to now, it was such a great week. I loved the things I was able to do and I always love working out with my family. My dad and I like to compete against each other with these family workouts, but it’s all in good fun. But when I said goodbye to my parents before flying home I did remind my dad that he’s only got a year to train for next year’s family workout. And I can’t wait until it’s next year and we can do this again. But at least I don’t have to wait a year to do another Orangetheory workout since I’m back to my normal routine this week.

1 Comment

Posted in Family, Fitness, Fun Stuff, Travel

Tagged family, fitness, Orangetheory, Thanksgiving, workout

A Week Of Nauseous Workouts (or Just Doing My Best)

Posted on November 19, 2018 | 1 comment

I knew before this past week of workouts that it was going to be a tough one for me. I knew it would be a week that I would likely be nauseous every day and even though I have found strategies to push through, it’s still not easy to work out when you feel queasy and in pain. This past week did challenge me, but I think I did the best that I could considering the circumstances. But that doesn’t mean that I went easy on myself or didn’t feel frustrated I couldn’t do more.

Monday’s workout was endurance, strength, and power based; but it was also the really bad nausea day for me. I always think I have a handle on the really bad days, but either I was totally unprepared or this one was worse than I usually get on a bad day because it was brutal. I was in enough pain that I guess I looked pretty bad. My coach has seen me have days of nausea before, but this time he had to check in on me to make sure I was really ok. One of my friends in class did the same even though I know he has seen me have occasional bad days over the past 2 years. Obviously because of all this, I was on the bike for cardio.

We had 3 blocks on each side of the room. For cardio, we had a long push pace, a base pace, and then 2 all out paces with a recovery in between. Each block the push pace got longer and the all out paces got shorter. I really tried to stick with my normal resistance levels on the bike, but I know that I wasn’t going as fast as I usually do (even when I’m nauseous) so I didn’t work as hard as could work.

On the floor, each of the 3 blocks had a 300 meter row. We could do them at any point during the block, but I always did them at the beginning to make sure I got it done. I almost always can do a 300 meter row done in under a minute, but this time they were all over a minute. I didn’t care too much since I was just proud for rowing and also not needing to take breaks when I was feeling queasy. The first block on the floor also had burpees and lunges (I did the burpees with my hands on the bench so I wasn’t going to the ground. The second block had squats and lateral squat walks. And the last block had burpees to squats (I split the moves up to make it easier on me) and weighted double crunches. I feel like I worked much harder on the floor than I did on the bike, and that might have been because my anti-nausea medications seemed to have kicked in a little after halfway through class.

I was feeling a bit better by Wednesday’s class, but I was still nauseous. My medication was managing it much better so I was able to do a bit more work while I was on the bike. It was a strength based workout so it was a lot of incline work for the treadmills (and resistance work for me on the bike). Everything in both blocks was based on 45 second intervals. In the first block, we alternated base to push pace and base to incline work. What I did on the bike was use my regular resistance levels for the push paces and higher than my all out resistance level for all the incline work. And in the second block we rounds of all out paces with recovery in between and the all outs alternated between regular ones and incline ones. Again, I used the same plan with my regular resistance when there was no incline and higher than normal for incline work.

On the floor, the first block had bench toe taps, hip hinge reverse fly, and ab work. I can’t do bench toe taps because of my hip issues, but I wanted to get the same type of balance workout so I did single leg squats using the straps for stability. And the second block was deadlifts, bicep curls, hip bridges with weights, and side plank crunches. All of those things were things that didn’t affect my nausea so I was able to do them without modifications and without having to go too low with my weights.

Friday’s workout was a mixture of the different types of workouts, but it really felt like a strength day for me. I was on the bike again and for cardio we had timed runs for distance. The first one was 8 minutes and the treadmills started at 4% incline and went down every 2 minutes. The second one was 4 minutes and the treadmills started at 4% and went down every minute. What I did was use my usual push resistance level the entire time for the 8 minute challenge and a level between my push and all out for the 4 minute one. I didn’t really track my distance so I don’t know if I hit the goals I was supposed to hit, but I know that I was doing much better on the bike than I had been doing earlier in the week.

On the rowers, we had one long block with timed rows with squats and lunges between. The first row was 4 minutes and the second one was 2 minutes. After doing those rounds I decided to just stay on the rower for the rest of the time to get as much distance in as I could for the Orange Voyage and to try to keep my heart rate up since it’s not as easy to do that with the bike.

And on the floor we had drop sets. That means we do a set of 6 reps using a very heavy weight and then immediately after do a set of 12 reps with a lighter weight. We had hammer curls and tricep extensions for the first block and I used 20lb weights for the 6 rep round and 15lb weights for the 12 rep round. I probably could have gone a little higher for my hammer curls, but I was feeling it after both rounds and was a bit nervous I’d hurt if I went heavier. The second block was skier swings and goblet squats. I used my normal weight for the skier swings and went with the 45lb weight for my goblet squats. I was thinking about using the 50lb weight when the reps got lower, but I couldn’t find that weight on the rack and I knew I wasn’t ready for the 60lb or 70lb.

By Saturday’s workout, I was almost back to normal. And when I saw that the workout was a power based class, I really debated pushing myself and going on the treadmill. I wanted to work on my running and the format was perfect for me to do that. But as I drove to the workout I was having some small waves of nausea and I knew that it wasn’t worth it for me to push myself because I wouldn’t be able to do what I wanted to do.

For cardio we had 4 blocks. The first 3 were all short blocks with a push pace, base pace, push pace, base pace, and all out pace. Each block the push paces got a bit longer. Because I was feeling a bit down on myself for not being able to be on the treadmill, I decided to push myself hard on the bike. I kept my base pace the same but I used my normal all out resistance level for my push pace and what I usually use for hill work only for my all out pace. My heart rate really was getting up there but I see that as a sign that I was doing some good work! The last block was rounds of all out paces with walking recoveries. I used the new resistance level for my all out paces and used my base resistance level for the recoveries just allowed myself to pedal slower. This was one of the hardest bike workouts I’ve done and it helped me feel a bit better about not trying to run.

On the floor, we had 3 regular floor blocks and a partner row block. The first 3 blocks all were short and had 2 exercises each. We had pop jacks, lateral raises, skater lunges, chest fly, push ups, and front raises. I wasn’t going that heavy on the weighted work because we had a lot of reps for each. And I used the bench to help with my pop jacks and push ups so I wasn’t putting my hands on the ground. But I did feel really good about my floor work. And the partner row block was the last 8 minutes of class where we partnered with someone else and one of us did 30 seconds on the rower and the other did front raises with the mini-bands. We switched back and forth until class was done.

Considering how bad this past week of workouts could have been, I really did the best I could. I know that I can do better, but that’s when I’m feeling better too. And I’m hoping this week of workouts will be a better one. It will be a shorter one and I’ll have a workout with my family, so I have motivation to work extra hard!

1 Comment

Posted in Fitness

Tagged fitness, Orangetheory, struggle, workout

Not Exactly A Recovery Week (or Working With Different Challenges)

Posted on November 12, 2018 | Comments Off

After making it through Hell Week, I was thinking maybe the workouts would be a bit easier this past week. Even if they weren’t necessarily easier, I thought they’d feel easier than the Hell Week ones did. I don’t know if it was because I had some challenges this week or because the workouts weren’t as easy as I thought they would be, but this past week really had some tough workouts!

Monday’s workout was similar to a run/row format but it was more like run/do floor work/row if you have time. I didn’t make it to the rower each time, but I did get at least a little bit of rowing in to add to my total for the month.

On the treadmill we had 3 blocks. Each one had a run for distance, medicine ball squats to press, run for distance, more medicine ball squats to press, and then row until the block was done. Each block the distance on the treadmill went down which is why I made it to the rower for the second and third block. I power walked all the distances since I didn’t want to be too tired from running if I made it to the rower. Plus, since power walkers only do half the distance, I knew I’d have a better chance making it to the rower if I power walked half the distance over running the full distance. I didn’t get a lot of rowing done for those last 2 blocks, but it was at least a little something.

On the floor we also had 3 blocks. The first block was chest presses, lunges, and knee tucks. The second block was hip swings with weights, mountain climbers, and single arm chest presses. And the last block was push ups, running men, and rollouts using the straps. We didn’t have a ton of weight work, but I did go heavier than normal on my single arm chest press. I actually used the same weight that I did for the regular chest press which not what I normally do. But I think that is proof that my core is stronger since I wasn’t feeling off-balance.

Wednesday’s workout was all about rowing! I know this was done to help us get a lot of meters to add to our total for Orange Voyage, but it was more rowing that I feel like I have had in a long time! It was great to get to work on my rowing endurance, but I know that because we did so much that I wasn’t doing that great with my form. And this was a partner workout so I really worked hard to keep working so my partner wasn’t waiting on me for too long.

The first half of class was like a run/row. One partner was on the treadmill waiting for their partner to finish on the rower. On the rower, the first time we were on it we had a 1,000 meter row. The second time we were on the rower we had a 750 meter row. And the third time we were on the rower we had a 500 meter row. My partner was doing the 500 meter row (I had already done mine) when that block was done. When I was on the treadmill I was doing a power walk at my push incline to not go too easy on myself. But when I was on the rower I really tried to go hard so we could switch as quickly as possible.

The second half of class was a floor work/row block. The person on the floor controlled the switch while the person on the rower rowed until they were tagged out. On the floor we had single arm snatches, hip hinge single arm rows, knee tucks to push ups using the Ab Dolly, and crunches. I wasn’t going too heavy on the weight work since I had so much more rowing to do. My partner and I were pretty equally matched as far as timing goes on the floor work, so we were both on the rower for about the same time each round. In the end, I did just over 4,000 meters on the rower during the class!

Friday’s workout was a challenging one for me. First, I was dealing with nausea and that always affects my workouts. I wasn’t as nauseous as I have been before, but it was definitely making me off during most of the workout. But the second challenge we had was that we had to deal with a fire alarm going off! It was a false alarm so we were safe in the building, but for a couple of minutes we were working out to the sounds of the alarm. And after it stopped, the PA system in the studio was down for the first 20 minutes so we didn’t have any music and the coach had to yell so we could hear what to do. We were lucky that the fire alarm didn’t last that long and that the music eventually came back, but it really did make the workout feel different.

On the bike, we had 2 blocks. The first block started with a 1 minute push, 1 minute base, and 30 second all out. Then after we had recovery time we took out the base so we just had the push and all out. After another recovery we just had a 1 minute all out. The second block was the same but in reverse order (so starting with just the 1 minute push). I did use my normal resistance levels on the bike, but I was taking a lot of breaks and moving very slowly the entire time.

On the rower, the first block started with a 300 meter row and then 12 lunges. Then we did a 250 meter row and the lunges again. I was doing the 200 meter row when the time was called on that first block. The second block had the lunges between each row again but we started with a 100 meter row and went up 50 meters each time. Since I hadn’t done a lot of cardio work by going easy on the bike, I only did 2 rounds of the lunges and then stayed on the rower to finish out the block. I was still taking breaks, but I think I did more cardio work doing that than I would have if I did the lunges.

And on the floor, I had to make some modifications since I couldn’t do some of the work. The first block I did lunges (which were modified from the bench jump lunges we were supposed to do), weighted seated rotations on the bench, and rollouts on the straps (we were supposed to do Supermans but I know being on the ground like that makes me feel worse). The second block I did lunges (instead of step ups on the bench), plank shoulder taps using the bench so I wasn’t on the ground (we were supposed to do plank pull throughs with weights), and leg lifts on the bench. When I was switching from being on the bench to standing I had a lot of waves of nausea, so I just took my time and didn’t stress about how many rounds I was going to get done.

Saturday was another day with multiple challenges for me. Not only did I have the nausea to deal with, but Friday night to Saturday morning I didn’t really sleep at all. I rarely have insomnia, but when I do it’s pretty much not sleeping at all. I think maybe that entire night I slept 10-20 minutes. I was exhausted, but I was hoping a workout might wake me up a bit.

It was a strength based class and I was on the bike since it was incline work plus I had my nausea issues. We had 3 blocks and they all had a similar pattern. We had a 90 second push pace, 1 minute base pace, high incline work where all treadmill people were power walkers, 1 minute base pace, and each block ended with a push to all out pace. For the high incline work, the first block was 1 minute and each block added on 30 seconds. I did my normal resistance levels for the regular base/push/all out segments and went to one of the higher levels I have used when there was the high incline work. I have done a higher resistance level, but I really wanted to be able to do the base pace after the resistance and not need a full break. I feel like I did a good job considering the circumstances and was very happy with the work I did on the bike.

On the floor the first 2 blocks both had 2 exercises and a 400 meter row. The first block was shoulder presses and high rows using the weights and the second block was squats to upright rows and deadlifts. I used 15 lb weights for everything except the deadlifts. That’s not a super heavy weight, but the weight I usually use for some of those exercises isn’t a weight they have at the Culver City studio. And for the deadlifts, I started at 30 lbs but it was just a bit too much for me and I went down to 25 lbs. For both 400 meter rows, I was able to finish it in under 2 minutes and managed to be faster on the second row. And the last block on the floor was just the exercises without the row. I was definitely exhausted and ready for a nap after this workout, but I made it through even with no sleep.

I know this week of workouts will probably be a bit challenging for me since I will still be dealing with nausea. But I’m not too upset about it because I really didn’t want to have my nausea time to be during Thanksgiving. Not only will I be with family then, but I have my workout with my family on Thanksgiving morning and I want to do one of my best workouts then! Hopefully I’ll be ready to do some amazing work when I get to work out with them!

Comments Off on Not Exactly A Recovery Week (or Working With Different Challenges)

Posted in Fitness

Tagged challenge, fitness, Orangetheory, workout

Tag Archives: workout

Ringing In The New Year With Workouts (or A Rare 5 Workout Week)

Like this:

Orangetheory Goals (or A Blog/Vlog Partnership!)

Like this:

Holiday Workouts (or Making Myself Enjoy The Bike)

Like this:

Almost End Of The Year Workouts (or Hitting A Milestone And Debating A New Plan)

Like this:

Working Through A Rough Week (or Just Keep Moving)

Like this:

A Week Of Tough Workouts (or Frustration As Motivation)

Like this:

Back To My Normal Workouts (or Another Challenge Switch)

Like this:

A Short Workout Week (or 3 Workouts In 3 Different Locations)

Like this:

A Week Of Nauseous Workouts (or Just Doing My Best)

Like this:

Not Exactly A Recovery Week (or Working With Different Challenges)

Like this:

Follow me on Twitter

Like Me On Facebook

Follow Me On Instagram

thejenlevin

Recent Posts

Archives

Tag Archives: workout

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Connect With Me!

Subscribe To Finding My Inner Bombshell!

Follow me on Twitter

Follow Me On Instagram

thejenlevin

Recent Posts

Archives