Cardio-Strength Program: week #7 (Hell days)

Week #7 out of 15


First of all, I wish a Happy New Year to all my readers. For me the New Year started with sweat & physical efforts: my "coach" had decided that I should start 2014 in Hell.

For the newcomers, in Freeletics-speak from time to time the program requires you to go through "Hell". A week during which you have to train much more than usual.

The last time that I went through Hell was at the end of the pre-program. It was called "Hell Week", with workouts every day for 7 days. Followed by 3 days of rest.
This time the training structure changed. My goal for the week was to complete 3 "Hell days", each of them made of 3 workouts.
The 3 workouts don't have to be completed back-to-back, but they have to take place within the same day. So, athletes are free to do the first in the morning, the second at lunch and the third in the evening. After each Hell Day you should take at least 1 day of rest.

I chose to do all my Hell Days in one go. The last workouts seemed more difficult to complete, but at least I got rid of my daily training once and for all.



Tuesday: APOLLON (24:23*) + JUMP MAX (185*) + KENTAUROS  (30:10*)

This was my most difficult day of the week physically & mentally.

Due to scheduling constraints the best time for me to train was early morning before breakfast. I can tell you that when I went outside half-awake, only to realize that I had to do burpees on frozen ground my motivation wasn't very high. While doing the Apollon workout, part of my brain was trying to convince me that I should do the other 2 workouts later in the day. I didn't improve my completion time, partially due to this lack of focus.

Still debating with myself, I decided to do the second workout right away. It made more sense to do Jump Max, while my legs were still warm. This was my first attempt at this workout. I had not fully recovered, so at times I had to pause to catch my breath. I completed as many as I could, but still felt like my results were not optimal. Next time that I do this training, I'm aiming to do much better than 185 repetitions in 5 minutes (>200).

Luckily, as the sun rose higher the temperature improved. I couldn't use the cold as an excuse to stop training, so I kept going and tackled my my last assignment for the day: Kentauros.

I expected the worse. I had never attempted Kentauros before, a workout that also includes 2 new exercises for me: Lunge walk & Burpee Frogs.

Lunge Walk looks like this (on leg after the other):

While Burpee Frogs are like on this video (except that you only jump forward):

:

The Kentauros routine is the following:

• 2x20 meters Lunge Walk
• 10 High Jumps
• 2x20 meters Burpee Frogs
• 10 High Jumps
• 6 rounds

Given that the people that I follow on the app completed this workout in 25mn to 42mn (25 minutes being the completion time of guys that you see on Freeletics promotional videos...)
I expected to train around 35mn to 40mn. Closer to 40 given that it was my third workout for the day.

To my great surprise, I was done in 30 minutes. Including the several occasions when I was literally sitting on the ground while catching my breath! Which means that next time I should be able to do much better than this.
Honestly, my first impression was that I had made a mistake somewhere. Either by not completing the movements properly or by wrongly measuring the distance. Afterward I watched again the Freeletics video, but it confirmed that I did the exercises correctly.

I have thought of 2 reasons to explain the "good" results:

1. Top athletes don't do this workout often. Their 25mn personal best is several months old, and probably not very representative of their current performances
2. When doing the Burpee Frogs, from the start I always jumped forward as far as I could. In this exercise you have to cover a fixed distance: the longer your forward jump is, the less repetitions you need to do. Therefore, by making an effort on the jump, you actually save time & energy.

To summarize, Burpee Frogs didn't seem much more difficult than regular ones. Lunge Walk was not too difficult either, I actually prefer it to Squats. Just be careful if you train on concrete, not to hit the ground too hard with your knee.
High jumps remain demanding on the cardio side, but I have noticed some improvements over time. At times I still need to catch my breath for a few seconds after the exercise, but completing the 10 repetitions is done in one-go in less than 30 seconds.
Overall I liked this workout. Like a number of outdoor sessions, it can be annoying to complete if you have to do it in the mud or wet sandy ground (my case). Especially burpee frogs, which a bit harder on shallow ground. But physically it's not as bad as I expected. 


Wednesday: Mandatory rest day.

Thursday: KENTAUROS  (27:04* -personal best) + HERA (22:14*) + ARES (08:35*)

Upon waking-up I still had sore legs from the Tuesday workouts. I wondered if that would affect my performance today. However it gradually went away over the morning. I had no discomfort when I trained in the middle of the afternoon. This time I could go to a park where both the running exercises and the pullups can be done.

My second Hell Day started with Kentauros. I knew what to expect and I had fresh legs, so without any surprise I scored a personal best, improving the time by 3 minutes. I didn't need to sit this time, but did pause a few times. So I still have a lot of room to improve my time. Once in better physical shape, going under 25mn should not be a big issue.
For the records, I trained at a different location this time and there were marks on the ground that measured exactly 20 meters. So it confirmed to me that I have been training on the correct distance, and that therefore my time is perfectly legit.

I continued the training with Hera. Not much to report here. I didn't improve my time, as I ran slower than usual on the 400m exercises. On the contrary, I had a good pace or the Jumps. Even if I must have looked crazy jumping like that, given the looks I got from a few dog-walkers...

My last session was Ares. For the anecdote, that's actually the first time that I complete it outdoor. When training indoor I have always replaced the running exercise by some high-knee static running. The first time that I attempted this workout, I estimated based on 100m run-time that to have representative completion time I should hold the high-knee static run during 15 seconds. Later in a forum discussion an athlete pointed out that 15 seconds might be too short, as just running 80m is not the same thing as running 80m after pullups and jackknives. Based on his input, in later sessions I have increased the static run to 20 seconds.
Today I got to test this time in real conditions. Each time, it took me about 20 seconds to run the 80m distance. Okay, it was the end of Hell Day so may be on a regular day I would do slightly better, but my point is that the other guy's comment was perfectly valid. I'm definitely sticking to 20 seconds for the moment. I don't want to get new Hades PB, just by artificially decreasing static run. May be in a few months I'll test it again and see if I should decrease the time. 

Friday: Mandatory rest day.


Saturday: VENUS (25:06*) + BURPEE MAX (54*) + HADES (23:31)

Another week, another new workout: Venus. Let's have a look at its content:

• 50 pushups
• 20 Jackknives
• 50 Deep Squats
• 4 rounds

As you can see the guys at Freeletics chose the wrong name for this workout. Venus is not just an alternate Aphrodite. Forget Cardio, it's all about muscle building.
In my opinion the challenge here is the number of Pushups. 200 repetitions in total and 50 per round is also fairly long. The Jackknives are no problem, and 50 Deep Squat is the standard number of repetitions in most workouts.
For the pushups, I paced myself to avoid starting too fast and then have no arms left to finish the exercise. My method is  to  do 10 reps, breath a few seconds while laying on the ground, and repeat until 50. The key is to keep the breaks as short as possible.

Strangely, after 200 pushups the last 2 workouts (Burpees Max & Hades) were more difficult to complete than usual... I could feel that achieving a personal best on any of the two would be mission impossible. However, I focused on keeping intensity as high as possible, to avoid slacking-off.

And that was my last Hell Day. All week long I had been looking forward for this last day. Somehow I had assumed that it would be a nice indoor session. It was definitely doable, but more difficult than expected. I had underestimated the soreness from the previous days and how focused on the arms session 3 was.

Sunday: Mandatory rest day.


I have mixed feelings about these Hell Days. I think that I preferred the Hell Week.

Both make you train much harder than usual. Which is painful on the short term, but in the end brings us closer to our self-improvement goal(s).

Both are annoying to schedule. Hell Week, because training everyday (even for 25mn) is not always possible due to personal constraints. Hell Days because longer sessions (1h00-1h30) are harder to fit within the day, especially outdoor training in the winter when daylight is short. And mandatory rest days mean that you have little opportunity to choose which day to schedule these longer training sessions.

One thing that I really liked about my Hell Week, is that after training  7 days in a row, in the middle of the rest period, I was actually missing training. I wanted more. Sitting in my couch doing nothing felt strange.

This time I was really glad to get a rest on Sunday! But that day didn't last long, as I write these lines I'm already well into week #8 training.
To be continued next week...