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.
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:yIris (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...
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*)
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.
Week #9 out of 15 Last time I suggested that my next post would be an update on the evolution of my body stats. Then I realized that I was already in the middle of week #9. To be consistent with my previous measures, I decided to delay the measures until the week-end. A few days might not make a big difference, but I prefer taking snapshots at clearly identifiable milestones (like "after week #9") than fuzzy ones (like "after 8 and a half weeks"). So first I'm giving an update on my week #9 training, and then the body stats post will follow shortly (measures are already taken, I just need to sit and write them down).
Tuesday: ARES (08:06*) + LUNGE MAX (134*) + POSEIDON (05:55*) + SQUAT MAX (173*) My training week started Tuesday (impossible to schedule earlier). No easy ramp-up for me this week: my first session was made of 4 workouts, including a new one.
First came Ares, a workout that I consider as relatively easy. As you can see I didn't get a new personal best. This shows that even when a workout is not particularly challenging, you need to be at your max intensity to get these damned PBs. Taking it easy is not an option! Then came Split Lunge Max. If anyone wants to create the "Lunge Max Haters Club", I will sign-up immediately. This exercise is basically a static version of the Lunge Walk. The strange thing is that I actually don't mind the Lunge Walk. I even wrote that, to me, it felt easier than Squats. After thinking about it, I think that I understand why Split Lunge is harder than Lunge Walk. When you walk, while your left leg moves forward, your weight is 100% on the right leg. Once the left foot connects with the ground, your body weight progressively shifts from the right leg to the left one. It's the same thing when you do a Lunge Walk: progressive weight shift. To do a Split Lunge, during a split second both feet are off the ground (see video below). Which means that their is no progressive shift, one leg has to absorb 100% of the body weight at once when you re-connect with the ground. Hence the effort is bigger.
Then I completed a Poseidon workout. No PB either. Generally I expect to have a slightly sub-par performance if I have already completed a few workouts beforehand. In this specific case I was disappointed. The last time that I did Poseidon was on week #2. 7 weeks later it took me 5 additional seconds to complete. This clearly wasn't my best day ever. I wrapped-up the day with a Squat Max. No need to say I didn't get a PB. On a regular day this exercise is already a weak spot for me, but doing it after the Split Lunge Max was even more difficult. The positive point is that to stay focused I had set as a personal objective to do at least 170 repetitions. Mission accomplished. This last workout was my 100th Freeletics workout since starting the program! I took a lot of sweat to get there! Wednesday: DIONE (29:16* -personal best) Before moving to my daily training, let me share a personal anecdote. As you know I practice boxing, which is a sport that makes the entire body work. Over the year I have gotten sore muscles pretty much all over the place (even jaws muscles!). Sometimes it hurt in places where I didn't thought that I had muscles. But I never had a sore butt like the one I got on Wednesday! Ladies & Gentlemen, I may hate this workout, but I tell you: if you are looking to get an ass of steel before the Summer, Split Lunge is the exercise that you should be doing! Only Dione was on the menu today. I'm very familiar with this workout by now, and my last PB was a 9 weeks old. So I expected a massive improvement, around 5 minutes or more. In the end, if I did get a new PB, the time "only" improved by 02:11. Was my expectation unrealistic? Was my performance sub-optimal? I don't know. Next time that I have to complete Dione, if my results improve dramatically (or not), I'll get the answer.
Thursday: Boxing training
Friday: KENTAUROS (30:59*) When starting this program I have decided to spread the training load over the work-week, and use the week-end to get 2 consecutive rest days. Over the past few weeks scheduling constraints have extended my training to include Saturday as well. To get back to my original setup, if possible I wanted to do my last 2 sessions on Friday. I can't do pull-ups where I train near work, so I decided that I'd train Kentauros during my lunch break and do the last session in the evening.
Kentauros is a workout that is physically demanding, but fairly balanced. To put it in other words: I respect this training, but that I don't really fear it. My confidence & motivation levels were good when I started training. The workout began with the Lunge Walk, which was completed normally. But when came the time to do the first High Jumps, at first I couldn't do them. My legs didn't provide enough force to lift me off the ground high enough. The strange thing was my legs did not feel sore at all. I had no pain. Simply the muscles did not respond as expected. Eventually, I got the 10 jumps completed. This shook my confidence at bit but I kept going. Then came the Burpee Frogs . Doing the burpee part was ok, but I couldn't jump forward as far as I usually did. The ironic thing when training over a fixed distance, is that because my difficulties to jump, I was forced to complete more repetitions. The icing on the cake was that the ground was soaking wet, so my gloves & tracksuit were quickly dripping with water. Afterward doing the high jumps felt normal again, but the burpee frogs remained very difficult. As you can imagine I didn't get a personal best. I actually scored a "personal worst": 49 seconds more than when I first attempted Kentauros in week #7.
While analyzing what happened, I came to the conclusion that my tights had not recovered from the Split Lunge and the Squats on Tuesday. The leg muscles were still strained from the effort, but I had not realized it because they did not feel sore. Those of you who follow me on the app saw that, I was a bit gloomy after the training and hoped to have better performance in the evening. Ultimately, it didn't train further. It was a bad day and I came home late, so I took a rest in the evening.
Saturday: ARES (08:07*) + LUNGE MAX (143* -personal best) + POSEIDON (05:13* -personal best) + SQUAT MAX (171*) A new day and a new start. I wanted to score as many personal best as possible to wash off the bad Friday. Session 4 was exactly the same as Session 1. I felt great while doing Ares. I thought that I was flying. If anything was flying around it must have been my mind, not my body. Because my completion time was not stellar. 1 second more than on Tuesday, that's an average performance. Next came Lunge Max. I didn't want this exercise to because a phobia, so despite tired legs I gave it all to improve the number of repetitions. It worked, I got a PB. For Poseidon I knew that I must be possible to improve. I stayed focused and managed to get a PB, improving by over 30 seconds. For the Squat Max, just like in Session 1, I knew that the PB was out of reach but I didn't want to let my myself slack-off. So, again I set myself the objective to do over 170 reps. I barely made-it with 171 reps, but I was satisfied.
I was pleased with my last session. It's not my best day ever, I got 2 PB and it cheered me up after the Kentauros failure. It's always nice to finish the week on a positive note!
First of all, I wish a Happy New Year to all my readers. For me the New Year started with sweat & physical efforts: my "coach" had decided that I should start 2014 in Hell.
For the newcomers, in Freeletics-speak from time to time the program requires you to go through "Hell". A week during which you have to train much more than usual.
The last time that I went through Hell was at the end of the pre-program. It was called "Hell Week", with workouts every day for 7 days. Followed by 3 days of rest. This time the training structure changed. My goal for the week was to complete 3 "Hell days", each of them made of 3 workouts. The 3 workouts don't have to be completed back-to-back, but they have to take place within the same day. So, athletes are free to do the first in the morning, the second at lunch and the third in the evening. After each Hell Day you should take at least 1 day of rest.
I chose to do all my Hell Days in one go. The last workouts seemed more difficult to complete, but at least I got rid of my daily training once and for all.
Tuesday: APOLLON (24:23*) + JUMP MAX (185*)+ KENTAUROS (30:10*)
This was my most difficult day of the week physically & mentally.
Due to scheduling constraints the best time for me to train was early morning before breakfast. I can tell you that when I went outside half-awake, only to realize that I had to do burpees on frozen ground my motivation wasn't very high. While doing the Apollon workout, part of my brain was trying to convince me that I should do the other 2 workouts later in the day. I didn't improve my completion time, partially due to this lack of focus.
Still debating with myself, I decided to do the second workout right away. It made more sense to do Jump Max, while my legs were still warm. This was my first attempt at this workout. I had not fully recovered, so at times I had to pause to catch my breath. I completed as many as I could, but still felt like my results were not optimal. Next time that I do this training, I'm aiming to do much better than 185 repetitions in 5 minutes (>200).
Luckily, as the sun rose higher the temperature improved. I couldn't use the cold as an excuse to stop training, so I kept going and tackled my my last assignment for the day: Kentauros.
I expected the worse. I had never attempted Kentauros before, a workout that also includes 2 new exercises for me: Lunge walk & Burpee Frogs.
Lunge Walk looks like this (on leg after the other):
While Burpee Frogs are like on this video (except that you only jump forward):
:
The Kentauros routine is the following:
2x20 meters Lunge Walk
10 High Jumps
2x20 meters Burpee Frogs
10 High Jumps
6 rounds
Given that the people that I follow on the app completed this workout in 25mn to 42mn (25 minutes being the completion time of guys that you see on Freeletics promotional videos...) I expected to train around 35mn to 40mn. Closer to 40 given that it was my third workout for the day.
To my great surprise, I was done in 30 minutes. Including the several occasions when I was literally sitting on the ground while catching my breath! Which means that next time I should be able to do much better than this. Honestly, my first impression was that I had made a mistake somewhere. Either by not completing the movements properly or by wrongly measuring the distance. Afterward I watched again the Freeletics video, but it confirmed that I did the exercises correctly.
I have thought of 2 reasons to explain the "good" results:
Top athletes don't do this workout often. Their 25mn personal best is several months old, and probably not very representative of their current performances
When doing the Burpee Frogs, from the start I always jumped forward as far as I could. In this exercise you have to cover a fixed distance: the longer your forward jump is, the less repetitions you need to do. Therefore, by making an effort on the jump, you actually save time & energy.
To summarize, Burpee Frogs didn't seem much more difficult than regular ones. Lunge Walk was not too difficult either, I actually prefer it to Squats. Just be careful if you train on concrete, not to hit the ground too hard with your knee. High jumps remain demanding on the cardio side, but I have noticed some improvements over time. At times I still need to catch my breath for a few seconds after the exercise, but completing the 10 repetitions is done in one-go in less than 30 seconds. Overall I liked this workout. Like a number of outdoor sessions, it can be annoying to complete if you have to do it in the mud or wet sandy ground (my case). Especially burpee frogs, which a bit harder on shallow ground. But physically it's not as bad as I expected.
Wednesday: Mandatory rest day. Thursday: KENTAUROS (27:04* -personal best) + HERA (22:14*) + ARES (08:35*) Upon waking-up I still had sore legs from the Tuesday workouts. I wondered if that would affect my performance today. However it gradually went away over the morning. I had no discomfort when I trained in the middle of the afternoon. This time I could go to a park where both the running exercises and the pullups can be done.
My second Hell Day started with Kentauros. I knew what to expect and I had fresh legs, so without any surprise I scored a personal best, improving the time by 3 minutes. I didn't need to sit this time, but did pause a few times. So I still have a lot of room to improve my time. Once in better physical shape, going under 25mn should not be a big issue. For the records, I trained at a different location this time and there were marks on the ground that measured exactly 20 meters. So it confirmed to me that I have been training on the correct distance, and that therefore my time is perfectly legit. I continued the training with Hera. Not much to report here. I didn't improve my time, as I ran slower than usual on the 400m exercises. On the contrary, I had a good pace or the Jumps. Even if I must have looked crazy jumping like that, given the looks I got from a few dog-walkers...
My last session was Ares. For the anecdote, that's actually the first time that I complete it outdoor. When training indoor I have always replaced the running exercise by some high-knee static running. The first time that I attempted this workout, I estimated based on 100m run-time that to have representative completion time I should hold the high-knee static run during 15 seconds. Later in a forum discussion an athlete pointed out that 15 seconds might be too short, as just running 80m is not the same thing as running 80m after pullups and jackknives. Based on his input, in later sessions I have increased the static run to 20 seconds. Today I got to test this time in real conditions. Each time, it took me about 20 seconds to run the 80m distance. Okay, it was the end of Hell Day so may be on a regular day I would do slightly better, but my point is that the other guy's comment was perfectly valid. I'm definitely sticking to 20 seconds for the moment. I don't want to get new Hades PB, just by artificially decreasing static run. May be in a few months I'll test it again and see if I should decrease the time. Friday: Mandatory rest day.
Saturday: VENUS (25:06*) + BURPEE MAX(54*) + HADES (23:31)
Another week, another new workout: Venus. Let's have a look at its content:
50 pushups
20 Jackknives
50 Deep Squats
4 rounds
As you can see the guys at Freeletics chose the wrong name for this workout. Venus is not just an alternate Aphrodite. Forget Cardio, it's all about muscle building. In my opinion the challenge here is the number of Pushups. 200 repetitions in total and 50 per round is also fairly long. The Jackknives are no problem, and 50 Deep Squat is the standard number of repetitions in most workouts. For the pushups, I paced myself to avoid starting too fast and then have no arms left to finish the exercise. My method is to do 10 reps, breath a few seconds while laying on the ground, and repeat until 50. The key is to keep the breaks as short as possible.
Strangely, after 200 pushups the last 2 workouts (Burpees Max & Hades) were more difficult to complete than usual... I could feel that achieving a personal best on any of the two would be mission impossible. However, I focused on keeping intensity as high as possible, to avoid slacking-off.
And that was my last Hell Day. All week long I had been looking forward for this last day. Somehow I had assumed that it would be a nice indoor session. It was definitely doable, but more difficult than expected. I had underestimated the soreness from the previous days and how focused on the arms session 3 was. Sunday: Mandatory rest day.
I have mixed feelings about these Hell Days. I think that I preferred the Hell Week.
Both make you train much harder than usual. Which is painful on the short term, but in the end brings us closer to our self-improvement goal(s).
Both are annoying to schedule. Hell Week, because training everyday (even for 25mn) is not always possible due to personal constraints. Hell Days because longer sessions (1h00-1h30) are harder to fit within the day, especially outdoor training in the winter when daylight is short. And mandatory rest days mean that you have little opportunity to choose which day to schedule these longer training sessions.
One thing that I really liked about my Hell Week, is that after training 7 days in a row, in the middle of the rest period, I was actually missing training. I wanted more. Sitting in my couch doing nothing felt strange.
This time I was really glad to get a rest on Sunday! But that day didn't last long, as I write these lines I'm already well into week #8 training. To be continued next week...
