Overview of the upgraded program (released Aug 26, 2014)

In the last post I mentioned that I had signed-up again for a 15 weeks program.

Upon completing my first program, I knew I wanted to continue to train using Freeletics but not always with the program. My idea was that I might subscribe to the program once per year, just to make to force me out my comfort zone and challenge my training habits for a few months. 

It was a loose idea, but during the summer I realized that the first week of September would be perfect to sign-up:

• The 15 weeks would be over just before Christmas (it's a bit of a headache for me to follow a tight schedule during the holidys season)
• Most of my training would take place during late-summer and fall, so no worries about where to run when it snows.

I was already 90% convinced I would start, the only drawback for me was that whenever I get assigned 5 sessions per week it starts to conflict with my regular boxing training. And that's when Freeletics released on August 26th an upgraded program with several new features (including the possibility to choose the number of sessions in the week).

The timing couldn't have been better! This will also give me the opportunity to test the new program and see how it works.


On Sunday evening, I bought the program to be ready to start the following Monday. The first surprise was that upon sign-up I was requested to take a physical test!

I had not planned at all to be jumping around for ~12 minutes, but did it anyway as I wanted to complete the sign-up process. As you can see from the screenshot below, I had to take 3 MAX tests. For newcomers, it means doing the maximum number of repetitions of a specific exercise in a given time. Pullup MAX lasts 1:40, Burpees MAX and Lunge MAX 5:00 each.

Optionally, on top-of the Fitness Test you can connect on the website to indicate why "advanced skills" (understand "difficult exercises") you are able to perform (respecting exactly the correct movement).
Supposedly the more of them you master the most likely that the Coach will assign them to you. Note that even if you don't master one of these skills, you may still be asked to try to do it (for example I can't do Strict HS Pushups, but it didn't prevent the Coach to assign me Zeus, a workout that includes HS Pushups).

Note: except the "advanced skills" picture above, all the screenshots below have been taken via the smartphone app. Layout can be slightly different if you connect via the website.



Once the test has been completed, you can choose your area of focus. As before, there are 3 options: Strength and Cardio, Strength only and Cardio only. And, the key feature for me, the number of training days that you want to have (minium 2, maximum 5).
This choice is NOT definitive. It only applies to the current week. At the end of each week, you can decide to change your focus or the number of training days.

Once you click on "Start your Coach", your training for the week is generated and there is no way to change its content. For me the first novelty was that I could see my Training plan directly on my smartphone (that feature was already implemented a few months ago, but since I took my first program almost a year ago, I had never seen the interface up to now).

On the screenshot there are a few things we can notice:

• I have been training for ~11 months but it says "Week 16" at the the top. The reason is that this week counter only takes into account the weeks when one actually followed the premium program.
• The guys at Freeletics have replaced the old term of "Session 1" by "Training Day 1". This is smart, because the old expression confused a lot of people. Beginners didn't knew if they were supposed to do all the sessions in the same day. Now it's much clearer what should be done when.
• Below "METIS" it says: "Endurance 1/3". 

This last bullet point actually includes two of the most fundamental novelty from the upgraded coach.


First of all, the coach can now assign partial or multiple workouts. If we take Metis as and example, you may know that this work out is composed of 3 rounds:

• Round 1: 10 burpees, 10 climbers, 10 jumps
• Round 2: 25 burpees, 25 climbers, 25 jumps
• Round 3: 10 burpees, 10 climbers, 10 jumps

When the coach assigns me "Metis 1/3", it means that I only have to complete 1 round out of 3. So as soon as I have finished my 10 burpees, 10 climbers and 10 jumps, the workout is over and I can stop the timer.
On contrary, if I am given "Metis x 2", it means that I will have to do the workout 2 times in a row (i.e. 6 rounds in total: 10/25/10/10/25/10).
Of course fractions and multiplications are taken into account when tracking Personal Bests. So your PB in "Metis x2" will be tracked separately from the the PB in the regular Metis.

Note that this feature of partial/multiple workouts is only available via the paying program. This means that the Training Plan algorithm can assign you a partial Metis, butr



The second major change is that Freeletics updated its workouts & exercises portfolio:


Workouts


There is the same number of workouts as before (no new god or goddess), but now each workout can be done in 3 different degrees of difficulty. Whichever difficulty you choose, you still have to perform the same number of rounds, only the difficulty of the movements vary:

• Standard (in most cases workout is identical to original routine)
• Endurance (easier movements)
• Strength (harder movements)

While the names of the variants ("Endurance", "Strength") may suggest that the different versions of a given workout have been created to focusing on different training objectives (cardio vs muscles), I believe that these are just politically correct way to describe difficulty level. After all, who wants to say "I am doing the easy Aphrodite, and you?"

When putting side by side the different versions of any workout (see below with Metis), it's clear that difficulty goes crescendo (High knees vs. Jumps vs. High Jumps).

Speaking of Metis, while I mentioned that Standard is almost always identical to the origianl workouts, there are some exceptions and Metis is one of them. As you can see, the High Jumps from the "old" Metis (see screenshot below), have now been replaced by regular jumps. I'm pointing this out because this is something to keep in mind when comparing your results with someone else or with your old results (i.e. comparing "old" Metis to Standard Metis, is not really comparing apples to apples).

Exercises

In complement to workouts (i.e. God names) you can still choose to perform repetitions of a single exercise. But here there are greater changes. First of all, the old "MAX" have disappeared. Instead of doing the maximum of repetitions in a given time, you now much do a given number of repetitions as fast as possible. And we now can choose the number of repetitions.
For example, while the old "Burpees MAX" had to be performed in 5:00, now you can select from various options (don't count on me to test a 1'000 burpees for you!)

Additionally the choice of exercise has been greatly improved. While in the past there were 10 MAX we could choose from, now there are 39 single exercises available (13 endurance, 14 standard and 12 strength).
This brings more diversity to the training. Personally, I'm a fan of Jumping Jacks (great warm-up exercise), so I like the fact that I can now track my time when I perform them.

Runs

Last but not least, Freeletics is now integrating running more deeply in its training routine. The original workouts did include some short/medium distance runs, but it didn't go further than 2 kilometers and only as part of an existing workout.

Now you can record runs separately (several fixed distances available or as well as a free run mode), and for those of you planning to buy the program, the training algorithm can now also integrate running to your training plan (e.g. Training day 4: 5K run).

The running feature is still in Beta mode. Like many fitness app out there, it can use your smartphone's GPS to calculate distances but as I write these lines, this feature is still bugged. When testing it on a familiar route, the GPS gave me some strange results (it calculated a 6K route instead of roughly 2K!!!)
So for the moment my advice is to keep using alternative apps (Nike Running, MapMyRun, etc.) to track your runs via GPS. Once your run is over you can log the result manually into the Freeltics app. It creates an additional step but until they fix the issue it's the only way to be sure that the distance & speeds are correct.