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 #5

Week #5 out of 15


As year-end is getting near, my schedule is getting a bit chaotic. I have less days available for training, yet this week I received 5 sessions to complete, instead of the usual 4. Three of which required running and had to take place outdoor.
As skipping training is not an option, whenever possible I have been doing a couple sessions within the same day.


Monday:

• Session 1: HERA (21:35*)
• Session 2: HERA (21:30* -personal best)

The week started with a double dose of a new training routine: Hera.
This workout is focused on legs:

• 40 jumps
• 60 seconds rest
• 400 meters run
• 60 seconds rest
• 5 rounds (no rest at the end of the 5th round, the training is over after the run)

Last week, it felt strange to get 60s breaks during Ares. I was just standing there, waiting fo the workout to restart. This time, I was glad to have them!
Jumps are less difficult than high jumps (knees only need to go up to waist level), but they are executed faster and with more repetitions. Performed at high-intensity, this exercise gets your heart racing. The rest time is really useful to breath deeply before & after the 400m run.

I performed the 2 workouts back to back. I took a 10-15 minute break in-between, but that wasn't planned. Since the last update the Freeletics app on y phone has been bugging a lot. When saving my first completion time the app froze. I had to kill the app, and record the time later on the website. Even that part was painful. Those of you following me, may have noticed that I posted/deleted 10 times my results before getting things recorded properly.
Anyway, after these technical problems I completed the second workout scoring a new personal best. I got had give everything in the 100m meters to gain these few seconds.

To summarize, this workout is designed for intervals training. However don't underestimate the muscles building factor. The jumps are not just there for the cardio, it's a full legs drill.


Tuesday: IRIS (35:01*)

Another running workout, and I still have sore legs for the double Hera the day before.My calves hurt. Usually after a long run, pain is located in my thighs. So my guess is that the jumps did more damage than the 400m runs.

Iris is a new workout for me, and its structure is a bit unusual:

• 1km run
• 5 rounds of:
• 100 jumping jacks
• 100 climbers
•  1km run

Unless you have an injury or hate running, the 2km shouldn't be a huge issue. The jumping jacks neither. However, climbers are hell. There are several difficulties here:

1. 100 reps per round is a lot for a demanding exercise
2. There is basically no opportunity to rest between each round of climbers
3. 500 reps in total. The last 2 rounds were exhausting.

Don't be fooled by the 35mn completion time. It's not very long, but the repetitions will grind you down. Iris is amongst the most difficult trainings that I have encountered so far.


Saturday:

• Session 4: HADES 21:40*
• Session 5: BURPEES MAX (60*) + SQUAT MAX (181* -personal best)

As mentioned this week's training plan was irregular. I had 3 days of rest before tackling the last 2 sessions. I felt good, and started Hades at full speed. My pace was high, it took me about 12m to complete the first two rounds. I thought that I would explode my personal best.
However my pace was too high. After the first burpees of the third round, I had a stitch in my side. I kept going, but it slowed me down considerably. Strangely, pushups were by far the most painful. When the clock stopped, I had missed the PB by 5 seconds. There is always a thin line between high-intensity and over-pacing, but it's the first time that I get a stitch doing Freeletics. I could imagine that happening during Iris, but never during Hades which is more strength oriented. I guess it was just a bad day.

A few minutes later, I completed my 2 Max workouts. I had not fully recovered from Hades, but tried focused on keeping a decent pace during the burpees to avoid a shameful performance. The Squat Max personal best was unexpected, and partially saved the day.


I have suffered this week. I guess that after going through 10 weeks of Freeletics training, I need to me reminded: no pain, no gain.