Post-program (self-scheduled training): week #43-46

Posting has been quiet on my side over the summer. But aside from a short vacation, I kept training. The piece of news is that since the beginning of September I have started following a 15 weeks program again! Since Freeletics underwent some important changes, there is much to say about the new program. I will discuss these novelties in my next posts. In the meantime, here is the summary of the workouts I have been performing while training on my own.


Week 43:

• Monday: boxing training
• Tuesday: Aphrodite (18:57* -PB)
• Wednesday: Hades (17:55*) + Pushup MAX (44*)
• Friday: Poseidon (04:51*) + Metis (05:29*) + boxing training

Friday used 2 short workouts as warm-up before sparring session. I was definitely, but Poseidon is a bit too intensive to be done before, probably best to do it afterward next time.



Week 44:

• Monday: Hera (20:11* -PB)
• Tuesday: Venus (19:00* -PB) +Pullup MAX (30*)
• Friday: Venus (18:44* -PB)

Normal sessions. 3 PB within the same week. It had not happened in ages!

Week 45:

Vacations!

Intentionally giving my body a full rest. No particular physical exercise (aside from a 40mn scuba dive)

Week 46:

• Wednesday: Hades (20:10*) + Squat MAX (189*) + Jumping Jacks x10 ('0:07* - First time)
• Thursday: Jumping Jacks x100 ('01:09* - First time) + Situps x100 ('03:27* - First time) + Metis strength (07:17* -First time) + Poseidon (06:43*)
• Friday: Dione (28:00*) + Pistols x25 (01:20 -First time)

Returning to training. Goal was to prepare body a bit before increasing the training load in the coming weeks and to test some of the new features of the just released Freeltics app.

This concludes the series of "self-scheduled training" posts. In week 47, I'll cover my first week of the new "Coach" (disclosure as I write these words I have already finished week 1 of my second program and I'm well into week 2). 

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.

Post-program (self-scheduled training): week #21-26

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).

Cardio-Strength Program: week #15 (Hell week)

Week #15 out of 15


Week #14 was relatively quiet, so I took it as a sign that the last week of the program would be harder than usual. Probably Hell.

At the end of week #7, I wrote that wasn't fully convinced about the Hell Days. I was feeling a bit nostalgic of the Hell Week. I preferred training every day rather than having a few long sessions. Well you know the saying: be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.

That's exactly what happened to me, I got what I wished for: Hell Week. 7 days, 7 sessions.

The work load was heavier than usual. Not only because of the more numerous sessions, but also several sessions were made of several workouts. Add to the mix some sport that I have been doing aside from Freeletics, and that gives you a pretty exhausting week!


Monday: DIONE (26:45*)

The beginning of the week was as ordinary as it gets. Dione is one the workout that I repeated the most (15 times over the past 20 weeks).
I had a hard time finding my pace, and was rapidly out of breath. So in the end no PB, and a subpar performance.


Tuesday: APOLLON (24:37*) +ARES (08:09*)

My fear this week was to see a tendinitis at the leg come back to haunt me. The pain was gone for only a few days, and yet I have 3 Apollon scheduled this week. Running is not as bad as jumps, but it still generates enough stress on the legs to wake-up an inflammation.

While running, I did feel that my tendons didn't like it very much, but the overall distance was short so the impact was limited. After the workout, I decided to take advantage of being outdoor to practice hand-stands without any risk to destroy my living room walls. I didn't try to do pushups while hand-standing, this was just to get used to the position and train to land on the wall softly. I did 12-15 attempts, and stopped as the shock from landing back on the ground hurt more than the run had. Thankfully the (small) pain didn't last and I wasn't bothered again for the rest of the week.

The workouts were not performed back to back. I performed Apollon during my lunch break, but had to wait to be back home in the evening to be able to do the Ares' pull-ups.


Wednesday: HYPERION (18:48 -personal best) +APHRODITE (21:38* -personal best)

A fairly big day today, with 2 workouts that are usually scheduled as stand-alone.
Hyperion went well, still no star due to HS Pushups & Pistols, but at least I got a new PB. For Aphrodite, my last PB being 2 months old, I was sure that I could improve my time, despite being tired from the previous workout. It improved by only a minute, not bad but I expect to do even better if I attempt it with fresh arms.


Thursday: boxing training +VENUS (23:11* -personal best)

This was the day that I apprehended the most. Venus is heavily focused on arms. But so is my boxing training. Doing Venus first and its 200 puhups early morning would strain my arms and lead too poor performance in the evening. I did several time Metis after boxing, but I honestly didn't knew if I would be able to complete the entire Venus routine.
Skipped Freeletics training on Thursday (for example to do both session 4 & 5 on Friday), didn't feel right. After all, the goal of Hell Week is not just to train a lot but to train every day. 

I remembered one of the rules that I set: boxing comes first. So I decided to train at full capacity & intensity and do Venus right after. 

My arms were exhausted, my abs were strained from situps, leg levers and jacknives, so the only "comfortable" exercise was Deep Squat. It was very tough, I stopped thinking, my brain went completely on autopilot. Completion time didn't matter. Before starting I had already accepted that it could take up-to an hour,  as long as I could complete the workout.

To my great astonishment, I got a PB, improving my completion time by over 2 minutes!
This was only my second attempt at this workout so of course I had a margin for improvement, but given the context this was completely unexpected.
That night my arms were absolutely destroyed, but I was quite happy that the worse day of the week turned out to be a highlight of the week.


Friday: APOLLON (23:08* -personal best)

Another Apollon. My biggest room for improvement is on the running (that applies to all the workouts that include 400m run or more). The first round was fast, but I started losing my breath and slowed down for the second round. For the last round I was in "damage control" mode. Basically, I pushed to increase my pace. Not as fast as in round 1, but as fast as I could.
It paid off with a new PB, my time having improved by a few seconds.

Again, I practice a bit doing hand stands. I'm getting more comfortable at landing on the wall, hopefully with a bit more work I'll be able to do these damn HS pushups!


Saturday: APOLLON (22:35* -personal best) +PUSHUP MAX (38*) +VENUS (24:43*)

For the first time since starting the program, I changed the order of my training sessions. Session 7, originally scheduled on Sunday was very long and incompatible with my calendar. I would be gone all day skiing, and there is nowhere were way I can do Apollon by night. So I swapped days 6 & 7, in order to do the big session on Saturday.

Apollon went very well. This time I maintained a constant pace during all 3 rounds, and improved again my PB by a few seconds.

The real challenge came from the last 2 workouts. My shoulders & arms were still dead from Thursday's training load. While I didn't have sore muscles or felt any pain while at rest, when attempting the Pushup Max, it was clear that I had no juice left. I went through the motions to finish both the MAX and Venus, but a PB was clearly out of reach today.


Sunday: Skiing +HS PUSHUP MAX (69) +PUSHUP MAX (45*) +SITUP MAX (148* -personal best )

The numerous Squats & Deep Squats this week (800 reps if I counted well), took a toll on my tights. This time the skiing session was physically a bit more challenging than last time, but overall it was a very good experience.

After a full day spent driving & skiing (~5 hours of effective ski time), I was extremely glad to only have a few MAX to complete. Frankly, swapping sessions now really seemed like the wisest decision. Given my level of tiredness I probably would have risked injury by doing a big session tonight.

My arms had started recovering a bit, but HS pushups and Pushups were still more difficult than usual. No PB.
For the Situp Max, my abs were OK and mentally I was fired-up. This was the last workout of the program! Surely not the time to be holding back! I used whatever energy I had left to keep the pace as fast as possible. 
I literally got rug burns from these situps (and I still do as I write these lines 3 days later!), but I made it:148 reps. 6 more than my previous PB.

The program is over.

Free at last, Free at last, Thank Freeletics Gods almighty I am free at last!

Or am I?


Yes, I have completed every single workout in the program. I even tossed in a few extra. But now, the real challenge begins. I the next few weeks I won't be following any specific program. May be I will in the future, but in the meantime I will decide freely how frequently to train, what workouts to do and how to arbitrage between Strength vs. Cardio.

This is a welcomed break, as I will be able to tailor my workouts perfectly around my regular sport training and take into account any possible injury. For example, focus on arms & abs until my tendinitis is fully healed.

By now, I'm familiar with most Gods, so mixing the workouts to come-up with a good schedule will not be too difficult. The real challenge will be maintaining a high level of physical activity. This will require a lot of discipline and engagement. I like the results that I have obtained, and I want to get even more. So hopefully my motivation will remain as high as it is now!


Many of you have asked to see pictures after the program. I can tell you that the stats & photos have been taken, I just need to sit-down and summarize them in a post. It will come soon, so stay tuned!