Post-program (self-scheduled training): week #34-42

Here is the usual update on my training schedule. Don't be surprised if this time the training-load seems irregular from one week to the next.

About a month ago, I hurt my wrist and my hip while boxing. These were not serious injuries (i.e. no hospital), but the resulting back pains were incapacitating enough that I had to reduce my training significantly. While I try to keep a minimum of physical activity when I'm sick (unless I have fever), I'm much more conservative when it comes to injuries. It would be stupid to make the injury worse by returning to training before the body had time to recover. 


Week 34:

• Monday: Pushup MAX (60*) + Situp MAX (151*) + Lunge MAX (178*) + Pushup MAX (55*) + Pullup MAX (25*) + Leg Lever MAX (183*) +Poseidon (05:48*)
• Tuesday: Aphrodite (19:01*)
• Wednesday: Iris (28:05* -PB) + Pushup MAX (50*)
• Thursday: boxing training
• Friday: Dione (24:38*)

Normal sessions.

 
Week 35:

• Monday: Uranos (28:16* -First time) + Ares (07:46*) + Situp MAX (135*)
• Tuesday: Gaia (34:20* -First time) +Poseidon (05:22*)
• Wednesday: Apollon (27:46*)
• Thursday: boxing training
• Friday: Artemis (21:34*)
• Saturday: Burpee MAX (81* -PB) +  Pullup MAX (31*) + Situp MAX (145*) + Pushup MAX (36*)

Normal sessions. Feeling great, tried 2 new workouts (see review below).


Week 36:

• Tuesday: Venus (19:50*) + Dione (30:29*)
• Wednesday: Kentauros (25:22* -PB)
• Thursday: boxing training
• Sunday: Pullup MAX (23*) 

Finally pushed myself to re-do Kentauros. Week 36 was when I hurt myself. Went to the chiropractor on Friday followed by 48 hours of full rest. Sunday was not a training session. Just a quick exercise that I did to test if wrist pains were due to bruises or a mechanical issue.


Week 37:

• Thursday: boxing training

Forced rest. No Freeletics the entire week. 


Week 38:

• Monday: Apollon (25:55*) + Pushup MAX (55*) + Leg Lever MAX (163*)
• Wednesda:y Iris (29:26*) + Pushup MAX (50*)
• Thursday: boxing training
• Friday: 3km run + Venus (19:23*)

Resumed regular training. Back pains returned at the end of the week. Might have been too eager to start training again...


Week 39:

• Tuesday: Pushup MAX (50*) + Pullup MAX (33*) + Pushup MAX (50*) + Pullup MAX (25*)  + Pushup MAX (50*) + Pullup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (50*) + Pushup MAX (44*)
• Thursday: boxing training
• Saturday: Pushup MAX (50*) + Situp MAX (150*) + Pushup MAX (50*) + Squat MAX (219* -PB)  + Pushup MAX (50*)

Switched to light training. Only a couple sessions. No burpees, squats, jumps, running, or anything that would cause stress to the hips. Hence mostly push-ups.


Week 40:

• Thursday: boxing training
• Friday: boxing training

Again a visit to the chiropractor, followed by 48 hours of full rest and no Freeletics the entire week.


Week 41:

• Monday: Pushup MAX (52*) +  Leg Lever MAX (183*) + Pullup MAX (29*)  + Pushup MAX (49*) + Situp MAX (139*) + Pullup MAX (27*)
• Tuesday: Pushup MAX (53*) + Jackknife MAX (45* -PB) + Pushup MAX (49*) + Pushup MAX (50*) + Situp MAX (127*) + Pullup MAX (30*)
• Thursday: boxing training
• Saturday: Hades (17:14*) + Poseidon (05:13*)

Progressive return to training. Almost only push-ups/pull-ups/abs. Adding short running distance on Saturday.


Week 42:

• Monday: Dione (26:51*)
• Tuesday: Hades (18:07*) +Poseidon (05:05*)
• Wednesday: Ares (08:01*) + Metis (05:09*) + Ares (08:01*) + Pushup MAX (48*)
• Thursday: boxing training

Progressively adding back burpees (max 25 reps in a row), climbers and jumps in my routine.

Before running into these annoying issues, I had been quite pleased in week #35 to try Uranos for the first time. On paper I really liked this routine, but the location near work where I usually perform long-distance running workouts has nothing to do pull-ups. Finally, on day-off, I managed to go to a park where I could do both running & pull-ups. It was a before-breakfast training, nice weather but early enough to be cool. I had the park for myself. Perfect conditions.
To complete Uranos I had to go through the following routine:

• 2 km run
• 50 burpees
• 50 pullups
• 50 climbers
• 50 pushups
• 100 jumps
• 1 round only (thankfully!)

At first sight this is an extremely balanced workout. A lot of different exercises, but moderate repetitions. Nothing crazy the like the 100 push-ups/pull-ups in Khronos or the 2x100 burpees in Helios.

While I liked this workout, as often with Freeletics it proved more challenging than I expected. Starting with running is a great warm-up, but be careful not to finish too fast or you risk being out of breath before starting the burpees. The first real challenge is the set of 50 pull-ups. For beginners this will be a huge obstacle. After a few months of training, I was quite confident. This is less than Khronos and my MAX are usually ~25 reps in 1:40. But for some reason, I found the last 20 reps difficult to perform. Were my arms tired from the burpees? The lack of energy from an empty stomach? Was just simply not my best day? I don't know, and I would need to re-do this workout to see if I get the same impression again.
Climbers & push-ups were fine. However the last 100 jumps also proved to be very demanding. This is not an exercise trhat I do very often, but by grouping them by sets of 10-20, it normally doesn't take too long to complete. But in Uranos, these need to be done after 2Km run + burpees + climbers. Needless to say that at this point your legs aren't "fresh" anymore and the heart is already racing! I really had to force myself to stay focused during these jumps and keep going. After the workout I was wiped-out!

I had to sit for a while to recover my breath before attempting the next workout. Interestingly, after when I performed Ares, I had no issue at all to complete the pull-ups. So maybe the 50 burpees had an impact afterall.



I was so fired-up from finally doing Uranos, that the follwing day I tackled another new workout: Gaia. Here is how "mother Earth" looks like:

• 40 jumpings jacks
• 30 jumps
• 20 froggers
• 10 standups
• 10 rounds

This baby is supposed to be a pure Cardio workout. If you purchase the Cardio-only program, I believe that you'll end-up doing this one very regularly.
I expected a good sweat but without much physical difficult. For me, the only question mark for me was how difficult the froggers would be (esp. toward round #10!).

The workout went very well, but I was close to turn into a pool of sweat at the end!

The shorter sets made the jumps much easier than in Uranos (even with sore legs from the previous day). Froggers also felt very balanced (just enough to get a good workout). The real surprise came from the stand-ups!
It turns out that if getting back to one's feet without the hand is not that hard from a muscular stands-point it does requires a bit a technique. It took me 4 rounds to get the movement right (I even had to pause to re-watch the tutorial video to check that I was doing it right!)
The difficulty is to maintain a proper balance during the whole movement and avoid shifting too much body weight on one foot only. In the first rounds I lost much time trying to regain my balance at each repetition. Once I had caught the right movement, repeating the exercise became more fluid and right way I could feel that my pace had improved.



That's all for the moment. I'm not sure when my next post will be. Probably not before the end of August or early September, unless something worth mentioning pops-up.

Post-program (self-scheduled training): week #27-33

Here is an update on my training schedule.

Week 27:

• Tuesday: Hades (17:21*)
• Wednesday: Atlas (22:39* -PB)
• Thursday: boxing training
• Friday: Ares (07:57*) + Poseidon (04:25* -PB) + Metis (05:02* -PB) + Squat Max (196* -PB) + Pushup MAX (46*) + Situp MAX (124*)
• Saturday: Custom-made workout (14:02). I tested for a reader the following routine: 3 rounds of: 10 Burpees + 30 Squats + 45sec Plank + 2x5 (L+R) Spiderman Push Ups + 30 Mountain Climbers + 60sec Superman (note: I did Sipderman & Climbers assuming both sides = 1 rep)

Week 28:

• Tuesday: Kronos (38:50* -PB First attempt)
• Wednesday: Iris (30:30* -PB)
• Thursday: boxing training
• Friday: Hades (16:54*)
• Sunday: Ares (07:46*) + Lunge MAX (178* -PB) + Ares (07:53*) + Lunge MAX (191* -PB) + Pushup MAX (49*)

Week 29:

• Monday: Artemis (23:11* -PB)
• Tuesday: Dione (26:24*)
• Wednesday: Metis (04:36* -PB) + Hyperion (17:58 -PB)
• Thursday: boxing training
• Friday: boxing training + Poseidon (04:37*) + Leg Lever MAX (165*)

Week 30:

• Thursday: Aphrodite (18:59* -PB) + Pullup MAX (32*) + Pushup MAX (37*)
• Friday: Venus (21:52*)

Week 31:

• Monday: Hades (16:37*) + Poseidon (05:11*)
• Tuesday: Apollon (22:23*) + Pushup MAX (35*) + Pushup MAX (20* -holding 3s in locked arms positions) + Pushup MAX (12* -right arm only) + Pushup MAX (14* -left arm only)
• Wednesday: Zeus (21:25 -PB)
• Thursday: boxing training
• Saturday: Dione (23:17*)
• Sunday: Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*) Test to see how my body reacted to 100 PU broken into in 4 sets of 25 consecutive repetitions.

Week 32 (launch of the Pushup challenge):

• Monday:
• Morning: Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*)
• Evening: Ares (07:56*) + Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*) + Ares (07:52*) + Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*)
• Tuesday:
• Morning: Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*)
• Evening: Aphrodite (19:07*) + Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*)
• Wednesday:
• Morning: Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*)
• Lunch: Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*) + Hera (21:40*) + Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*)
• Thursday:
• Morning: Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*)
• Evening: boxing training (included at least 100 PU)
• Friday:
• Morning: Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*)
• Evening: Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*)
• Saturday:
• Morning: Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*)
• Evening: Artemis (21:46* -PB -includes 100 PU)
• Sunday:
• Morning: Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*)
• Evening: Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*)

Week 33 (last week of the Pushup challenge):

• Monday:
• Morning: Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*)
• Evening: Venus (20:29* -includes 200 PU)
• Tuesday:
• Morning: Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*)
• Evening: Kronos (38:06* -PB includes 100 PU)
• Wednesday:
• Morning: Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*)
• Lunch: Iris (29:03* -PB) + Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*) + Pushup MAX (25*)
• Friday: running (3.32km in 16:58) + Pushup MAX (60*)

I have previously discussed the Pushup challenge, so I won't cover it further in this post. However another highlight of these past weeks is that I tried a new workout: Kronos.
If you have never met this workout before, you will learn very quickly to respect it! It only has 1 round, but what a Hell of a round:

• 100 Pushups
• 200 Situps
• 300 Squats
• 200 Leg Levers
• 100 Pullups

If you are new to Freeletics, unless you already have an excellent physical conditions pretty much each of these sets will be a challenge. You will need to break each of them into smaller bits (e.g. 10 sets of 10 pushups with short breaks in-between). So expect a very long completion time (over an hour).
In my case, "My Coach" never assigned this workout to me. For my first attempt, I was fortunate to already have 8 months of training (week#28) behind me. From the start, I knew that I would not be able to perform 100 consecutive pushups. Based on my past experience with Artemis, I did short sets (~20) to avoid killing my arms from the start but paying attention not to take too long breaks (~10-20 seconds). The effort was more manageable while avoiding losing too much time. The next 3 exercises were fine. Leg Levers have always been one of my strengths. 200 reps is nearly what I do in 5mn for the MAX, however it took me a bit more time. The effort is more difficult for abs after the 200 situps.
The real difficulty were the 100 pullups. The high number of repetitions makes this set very hard to complete, especially since the previous pushups have already taken a toll on shoulders. I spent nearly 10mn just on this exercise. On my second attempt (week #33), my PB had already improved by ~45s mostly due to better execution on pushups (thanks to the pushups challenge), but I had little gains on pullups side. Improving pure strength to reduce pushups & pullups completion time will be the key to drop further my personal best.



While it requires some time for me to sit down and write these long posts with all my results, it proves to be very useful. Often, I just do one workout after another, without giving too much thoughts about it. Writing these posts forces me to analyze my schedule and see if I stick to my good resolutions.
So let's see how I performed versus what I had planned last time:

• Training frequency: Over 7 weeks I performed 30 sessions for a total training time of ~661 minutes. That's 4 sessions per week on average, each lasting approximately 22 minutes. The increased training load of the Pushup challenge has offset the lack of training during my short vacations in week #30. Conclusion: average number of session/week increased as intended.

• Training content: while my first month without "My Coach" was a bit disorganized, I am getting closer to finding the right training balance. It's now part of my weekly routine to perform 1 outdoor training over my lunch break. This kills several birds with one stone: I regularly practice running, it frees-up one of my evenings, and by doing it on Wednesday I'm in much better shape from my Thursday boxing training (my body gets 36 hours of rest + running workouts don't strain much arms or shoulders). Additionally, I'm more careful to include some Cardio in my schedule as I had leaned a bit too much on the Strength side. 

• Getting out of my comfort zone: One of my fear was that I would follow the path of least resistance and end-up only doing the workouts that I liked. So far I have managed to be disciplined enough to include my routines workouts that I had not performed in months or the ones that I never tried. It's not perfect yet (for the moment I have managed to dodge doing Kentauros!), but workout diversity is definitely a criterion that I take into account when doing my schedule. Since training on my own, I have not organized any Hell Week, but I enjoyed the Pushup Challenge and I might use similar highly-focused training from time to time to push my limits.

As usual, another post will follow shortly to give an update on my body stats.

Cardio-Strength Program: week #10

Week #10 out of 15


This week I was introduced to a new workout: Zeus. And just to make sure that we get to know each other properly, My Coach asked me to do it three times. We'll get to a review of this workout later, but to summarize it's completely strength oriented. With Artemis as my last session, this week was all about muscle building.


There an aspect of the training that I have not discussed so far: "instructions".
When you purchase the program and log on the Freeletics website you can see what sessions have been assigned to you for the week and there is a short paragraph titled "instructions". Each time you click on the "next week" button, you get your sessions for the following weeks and the instructions change as well.

In the first weeks, the instructions are mostly motivational and basic health advises. I don't have the exact quotes, but it's stuff like "Training will be harder than anything you've experience before. Take as long as you need but always try to complete each workout". Sometimes instructions include a special challenge for the week. To be honest, these challenges were so far from my training experience, that up to know I didn't think that they were worth mentioning. May be because of the 5 weeks of pre-training, I was a bit ahead of the game (compared to someone who starts Freeletics on week 1), but they seemed to easy.
For example, a challenge may say: "This week try to complete 2 workouts in their star version". I haven't compiled detailed stats of my results, but my guess is that 80%-90% of my completed workouts have stars. So there was no real "challenge".

So why this long discussion all of a sudden about instructions?

This week, I actually got a challenge that I wasn't 100% sure to complete: "This week’s workouts are well suited to train your capacity to withstand fatigue. Therefore, the goal of the week is to break your PB in two different workouts.".
With 3 Zeus sessions, it was sure that I'd get at least 1 PB (when starting a new workout time improves simply from getting used to the routine and not always looking for what should be done next). However, if I didn't score a good time on my Artemis session, the challenge couldn't be achieved.

So finally I paid more attention to these instructions, and I realized that even the early challenges that I had disregarded so far could be worthwhile for beginners. If you have been out of shape for a few years and follow the program, being asked to get a star, may give you that extra motivation to from "easy" burpees to "normal" burpees.


Monday: ZEUS (25:46)

Tuesday: ZEUS (25:21 -personal best)

Wednesday: ZEUS (24:31 -personal best)

So here is what Zeus looks like:

• 5 HS pushups
• 15 pullups
• 25 pushups
• 35 situps
• 45 squats
• 120 seconds rest
• 4 rounds (no rest at the end of the 4th round, the training is over after the run)

Now I'm gonna say something very paradoxical coming from someone who hasn't got a single star in 3 attempts: it's actually a nice training. I didn't even sweat (which is exceptional enough with Freeletics to be mentioned!).

I don't get the star because of the Hand-stand pushups. Let's face it, I *really* suck at it. I'm so annoyed at wasting time on the normal version, that I prefer doing the easy version to at keep the cardio intensity high. At some point I'll have to take time aside from regular training to learn how to do this exercise properly...
Aside from HS pushups, there is no major difficulty. Of course if you are assigned this training in your first weeks, pullups will be an issue but you'll get over it rapidly.

Here what makes me say that it's a no sweat workout:

• Pure strength exercises only have a few reps (5 to 25 max)
• The routine starts by focusing on arms, but after that the rest of the round is a complete recovery time for your arm muscles.
• There is not a single cardio exercise that will drive you out of breath. The only exercise that made my heart race a bit was when doing squats quickly...
• 120 seconds rest! Three times! Seriously people, how often have you seen Freeletics workouts that allow you to go check your emails during training? Even if your cardio is a bit high after squats, it will be long gone by the time you start the next round.

Not surprisingly after my first attempt, I score 2 personal best as I was learning how to perform the routine more efficiently. I was surprised at how easy the squats seemed to me. I usually hate them, but I didn't have any difficulty in any of the three sessions. I guess that it's partly due to the fact that no other exercise in the routine strains the legs.
I also hope that it means that the heavy leg work that I completed in the past weeks is starting to pay off and that my tights muscles are getting stronger.


Thursday: Boxing training

Sunday: ARTEMIS (26:31* -personal best)

History repeated itself all however again. My kids came back from school sick, and after managing a few days to dodge viruses and germs, I finally got sick as well. The last session had to be postpone to Sunday. There will be no break between Week #10 and #11.

I still wasn't in my best shape, but I was lucky to have only a strength workout to complete. I'm not sure that I would have attempted it if it had been an outdoor cardio workout.
From my personal experience, I think that Cardio is the worse when not feeling well. No matter what condition(s) you have.  It's not recommended to get hot & sweat when feverish; you can't breath properly with a running nose or sore throat; and you don't want to be jumping/running all over the place with stomach ache or when nauseous.

Anyway, in the end I decreased my personal best by about 3 minutes. This may seems like a big improvement but keep in mind that my last Artemis was 8 weeks ago. Given all the pushups & pullups that I have completed over this period, it's normal that my body is now better prepared to handle the long repetitions (50 pullups and 100 pushups).


That's all folks. Let's hope that week #11 will be virus free!

Cardio-Strength Program: week #2

Week #2 out of 15


This week, the Cardio vs. Strength workload was more balanced. I was also assigned new workouts to complete.


Monday: METIS 06:00* (personal best) ) + Bonus: LEG LEVERS MAX (143* repetitions) + Bonus: PULLUPS MAX (21* repetitions)

The week started very lightly with only one Metis required for session 1. I was happy to finally get a new personal best, as I had not improved my completion time in this specific workout over the past month.

Afterward, I had some energy left to burn, so I added a couple extra workouts: a Leg Levers MAX to train the abs and a much needed Pullups max. Last week clearly demonstrated that I have to improve pullups to be able to complete the most difficult version of Hades. Regular training is the only way to achieve this objective.


Tuesday: DIONE 32:13*

Dione is a familiar exercise by now. However, it didn't manage to get a personal best. I am just realizing that as my training becomes more diverse, I'm less focused on specific exercises and therefore improve more slowly.
It was easier to get new personal bests during my first 5 weeks of pre-program, when I was heavily focused on Cardio and performing the same workout several time in the week.


Wednesday: ARTEMIS 29:57*

For my third session this week, I was assigned a brand new workout: Artemis. The structure is a bit different from the other workouts that I have done so far. There is only 1 round but with many repetitions:

• 50 Burpees
• 50 Pullups
• 100 Pushups
• 150 Squats
• 50 Burpees

As you can see, the goal of this exercise is to kill every single muscle in your shoulders & arms... To be honest this workout is scarier on paper than it really is. It's challenging but perfectly doable. It's just a matter of how long it takes to complete.

My main achievement with this training, is that I managed to complete 50 "correct" pullups. This exercise had been my focus for improvement lately.

The pushups took me the longest to complete. The first 20-30 were fine, but with strained arms from the pullups, it quickly went downhill. To tackle the last 70, I broke them down in series of 10. I would do 10 pushups, get back into kneeling position, waive my arms for a while to relax the muscles, and then do another 10 pushups.
I find that in pushup position, even while laying on the ground, the arms muscles stay contracted and take more time to recover from the effort. Relaxing the arms worked for me. If you ever have issues completing Artemis, you can try it out.


Thursday: Boxing training

Just a quick note to highlight that Murphy's law never fails. The day after my biggest arms workout ever, the coach decided that it was a good time to focus on... arms, of course!  :-)
I had not done so many pushups at training in a very long time. Thanks coach!


Friday: POSEIDON 05:50* + METIS 06:33*


My last session was made-up of 2 workouts. First a new one, called Poseidon, and the good old Metis. Poseidon is a short workout, 100% focused on arms strength:

• 20 Pullups
• 20 Pushups
• 15 Pullups
• 15 Pushups
• 10 Pullups
• 10 Pushups
• 5 Pullups
• 5 Pushups

Once your muscles have gotten used to pullups this shouldn't be a very challenging exercise. Repetitions have been structured in small groups, which make it much easier than Artemis' 50 or 100 reps.

The unknown for me was Metis. I was hoping to score a new Personal best, but didn't know how tired I would be from completing Poseidon. After a 2mn break, I started my second workout. In the end it wasn't too bad, but clearly I had left too much juice during the first session. It took me 33s more than my Personal best from Monday.


That's it for week#2. I'll update you very soon on week#3.