Star rating (when to put a star)

Another I question that I received a few times and have often seen on forums is a variation of: "what does the star means?" or "when should I attribute a star to one of my workouts?"


Here is how Freeletics explains the star rating:

"If you complete a workout or MAX without a single modified repetition, your performance receives a star. Exercise modifications enable athletes of all performance levels to train Freeletics. You will find further information in the exercise video tutorials. Star performances are more effective and therefore always ranked before performances without a star, no matter if they are faster or slower, higher or lower."



Some of the confusion comes from the term "modified repetition".

In the video tutorials explaining each exercise, there is first a demonstration of the "regular" exercise and then what Freeletics calls the "modified" exercise. Below are 2 screenshots from the tutorial for the burpee. On the left, is how you you are supposed to hit the ground when doing a "regular" burpee. On the right, is how you you are supposed to hit the ground when doing a "modified" burpee. As you can see, it will be much harder to stand-back on your feet from the position on the left, than from the position on the right. 

In other words, the "modified" version of an exercise is the "easy" version. But why is there a need to differentiate them when recording workouts?

Actually, there are 2 reasons:

• motivation: if you keep doing an exercise with "no star", you know that you still have progress to be made. And the first time that you put a star, you know that you are able to complete a difficult exercise that you couldn't do before. You earned your star (that's how I felt when getting a star on pullups)
• comparison: remember in this method, all athletes train using the same routines. You can't compare the results of one guy doing 41 "modified" burpees with his friend doing 40 normal ones. This is like comparing apples to oranges.

Another source of confusion is that the explanation uses the term "exercise", while you need to assign (or not) a star to a "workout".

The rule is actually simple, if you use a modified version of an exercise (e.g. burpees) for any portion of a workout (e.g. Aphrodite), you don't get a star. For example, you start Aphrodite doing everything in the most difficult version, but are so exhausted that for the last 10 burpees you switch to modified burpees. You don't get a star.

Sometimes it can be a bit frustrating not to get a star. It feels like we're not performing at our best. But remember, there is no shame in not getting a star: for some workouts it may take over a year of training to complete the star version.

I'm not exaggerating. If you take Hyperion (probably the most difficult workout to get a star), even the guys that you see in the Freeletics videos performed the no-star version for months after completing their program. Alexander only got the star after completing 500 Freeletics workouts (about a month ago). And as of today Levent still can't do all the pistols in the regular way, so he still records his Hyperion results without a star.




A last point that I wanted to bring-up, is other types of modifications. By that I mean, cases when instead of doing the "regular exercise" or the "modified exercise", you do a different exercise instead.

The purists will tell you that any modification, even the slightest you should not put a star. It's a valid position, and you can make it you own.

My interpretation is a bit more pragmatic. I think that the Star was implemented, because without the modified exercises most beginners people would not be able to finish the workouts (if you physically can't do pullups, you will never finished Hades unless you help yourself with your feet). Therefore the star is more about "easy versus hard" than about changing the workout.
Don't get me wrong I'm not saying that you can give yourself a star if you replace burpees by squats or if you complete Aphrodite by doing 15 rounds of 10 repetitions instead of doing 5 rounds, or respectively 50/40/30/20/10 repetitions. In these examples you are significantly altering the workout, so clearly you shouldn't put a star.
However, I think that there are some modifications that are still worth a star:

• your modification makes the workout harder (e.g. instead of doing one-hand pushups you decide to do them only on 3 fingers) 
• you replace an exercise by something very comparable. For example, if you always run 2 kilometers in 12 minutes, and choose to replace running 2K, by 12 minutes of rope jumping because you are stuck at home because of the snow, or watching the kids, or whatever.

Just be honest with yourself. If the modification is making the workout easier or will help improve your personal best, then you know that it's not worth a star.