Let's break the suspense now: there is not much difference versus week 20 :
Height: 178 cm (5.84ft)
Weight: 75.4 kg (166.2 lbs) - week 20 measure: 75.7 kg (166.9 lbs)
Waist size: 84 cm (33.1 in) - week 20 measure: 84 cm (33.1 in)
Nonetheless, I think that this lack of change is actually news in itself, considering that my training load has decreased significantly during the last 6 weeks. It means that exercising only 60 minutes per week on average (on top of my usual boxing session), was enough for me to maintain a stable physical condition.
After only a month & half, it's too early to make definitive judgments. But at least that's a first indication that my conclusions in the calories counting post were not completely off the mark. Long term impact remains to be seen, but at least short/medium term 3 sessions per week should be enough to stay in decent shape. Of course, this is based on my personal case, other people could experience different results, depending on their eating habits & level of activity.
To be honest, my workouts felt a bit too light lately. So my intention is to increase my training load in the coming weeks. I will probably ramp-up to 3-4 sessions per week, with slightly longer sessions. If I am disciplined enough to stick to this plan, my training will be around 90mn per week. Additionally, while I will stay focused on Strength, I will be increasing the share of Cardio in my training schedule.
The good news is that this adjustment will give the opportunity to test if my hypothesis is correct. If 60 minutes of intensive training is the minimum to stabilize my physical condition, any additional training should lead to a deficit of calories and I will start to dig into my fat reserves. I don't expect radical changes: I have already lost most of my overweight during the first 20 weeks. Besides my targeted 90 minutes is still less time that what I was doing when following the program. My guess is that in or month or two, I will weight around 74kg and lose another cm at the waist. Next body stats update, we'll see if my "prediction" was any good!
Here is the traditional pic (week 26):
I had not reported on my training since completing the program. It's only now that I'm writing this post that I realize that 6 weeks have already passed. Time flies.
While I kept training every single week, overall the past weeks felt much more relaxed. Partly because there were more relaxed (less workouts), but also because peace of mind came from adjusting my training around my schedule.
My training was the following:
Week 21:
- Tuesday: Aphrodite (19:43* -PB) + Leg Levers Max (196* -PB) + Ares (08:16*)
- Thursday: boxing training
- Friday: Venus (21:24*) + Leg Levers Max (192*)
Week 22:
- Monday: boxing training
- Tuesday: Hades (16:04* -PB) + Sit up Max (133*)
- Wednesday: Venus (20:58* -PB)
- Thursday: boxing training
- Saturday: Venus (19:23* -PB) + Leg Levers Max (187*)
Week 23:
- Monday: Venus (20:14*) + Pullup Max (32*) + Pushup Max (41*)
- Tuesday: Pullup Max (34* -PB) + Pushup Max (47*) +Leg Levers Max (186*) + Lunge Max (173* -PB) + Aphrodite (20:09*)
- Thursday: boxing training
- Saturday: Venus (21:05*) + Pullup Max (28*)
- Sunday: Pushup Max (49*) + Pullup Max (29*) + Pushup Max (41*)
Week 24:
- Monday: Venus (21:13*) + Leg Levers Max (188*) + Pullup Max (30*)
- Tuesday: Venus (21:38*)
- Thursday: boxing training
- Saturday: Aphrodite (20:00*) + Pushup Max (42*) + Leg Levers Max (183*) + Pushup Max (53*) + Pullup Max (31*)
- Sunday: Pullup Max (30*)
Week 25:
- Tuesday: Hades (17:42*) + Situp Max (145*)
- Wednesday: Aphrodite (19:38*)
- Thursday: boxing training
Week 26:
- Monday: Venus (24:24*)
- Tuesday: Hades (17:35*)
- Thursday: boxing training
- Friday: Venus (19:38*)
If I exclude, the Sunday were I just did a single MAX session for fun, over 6 weeks I performed 17 sessions for a total training time for ~339 minutes. That's 3 sessions per week on average, each of approximately 20 minutes.
True, the average is slightly lowered by Week #21, which was very light on purpose to recover from the preceding Hell Week. But figures don't lie. As outlined in a previous post,
I intended to reduce the number of session and focus on strength workouts (which tend to be shorter than cardio).
Free training is new to me, so I'm still experimenting and trying to find the best balance between personal life & training. I will do a separate post for body stats after these 6 weeks, but there are already a few take-away:
- Adjusting training on the spot to fit unexpected schedule changes is great. That's the kind of flexibility I was looking for before starting Freeletics...
- ...but, I will probably need to fix myself a few strict guidelines. An absolute minimum number of 3 sessions per week is probably a good rule to put in place. As you can see on week 25, one schedule constraint after another led to only 2 sessions being done. It's not dramatic once, but it should not become a habit. Another rule that I'm contemplating is to do each workout at least once every 3 months. Just to avoid becoming too comfy by never doing the messy workouts that require you to crawl in the dirt (like Kentauros).
- Performance gains in Strength workouts have been slower than anticipated. As you can see, I have scored very few personal best lately. With the amount of push-ups that I have performed, I would have though that each new Venus would be easier than the previous one. But it wasn't so. I will need to be more patient to see progress, but also add a bit more Cardio sessions in my training mix (more time for muscles to recover and to keep good stamina).
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.
