During the cumulated 30 weeks of program that I trained using My Coach, I was assigned twice Hell Days & twice Hell Days:
- Week #7 - Hell Days
- Week #15 - Hell Week
- Week #22 - Hell Days
- Week #28 - Hell Week
Based on these 4 iterations, I couldn't see any standard periodicity. I started to wonder if the coach randomly assigned Hell Days/Weeks, or if there was a hidden logic behind this schedule. So I contacted the Freeletics support and asked them the question directly.
It turns out that there is a fixed schedule, so everyone will get to enjoy their weeks of pain & misery at the same points throughout the program. However there is no fixed periodicity. The first Hell day week is always week 7 and the Hell week is always on week 9, and afterward happen every 5-9 weeks.
The support representative actually listed in her email all the week numbers when these special weeks are assigned. I found that reading a list of numbers made it hard to visualize the frequency, so I have summarized this information in a chart:
While her comment about special weeks coming-up every 5-9 weeks is generally correct, if you look closely there are a few times when the distance between 2 special weeks is 10 or 12 weeks. It also appears that there are not always Hell Days in-between 2 Hell Weeks.
I'll only know for sure by subscribing to the coach for another 100 weeks in a row. It's going to take two years.
So if you have a subscription running and wonder when the next special week is coming I'd say you can trust the chart above to give you the exact weeks. Just keep an eye open when you see a long stretch of normal training weeks. For example, I wouldn't be surprised if there were Hell Days hidden somewhere in-between week #41 & 52 or #92 & 105.
If you're like me and like to plan things in advance, this schedule isn't perfect but hopefully that will give you a bit more clarity as to what's ahead of you. Enjoy your training!
