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October 12, 2014

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Freeletics coach – Week 5

Trying the HS-Pushups at a palm-tree

Trying the HS-Pushups at a palm-tree

This week I was on the beautiful island of Guadeloupe in the caribbean sea with 3 of my friends. I decided to continue with my workout plan, although it might be challenging to to integrate the exercises in our travel plans. But I have to say, it was easier than I thought. I tried to do the workouts in the morning or in the evening when the sun was not that aggressive and my friends where still sleeping. One of them is quite sportive too and he joined me for some of the exercises – but as everybody who is new to freeletics he could barely complete a workout.

Pull-ups at the beach

Pull-ups at the beach

One of the best things about freeletics is, that you can do it almost everywhere. The only thing that was sometimes hard to find, was a place to do the pull-ups. There are many possibilities like trees, bars on buildings or walls. Keep your eyes open and be creative.

Apart from this exercises I did a lot of other activities like hiking, swimming, running and other exercises with my friends on the beach. So from that point of view it was no problem to continue my workout routine. The only bigger problem I experienced was with nutrition. As Guadeloupe is a small tropical island with not much industry much of the food has to be imported and is accordingly expensive. I ate a lot of chicken to get the amount of protein I usually take, but being with 3 other people all the time made it hard to always get my “special treatment” regarding the nutrition. If everybody wants to eat hamburgers for dinner and there is no alternative around, you have to defer to the majority. Also rum is cheap in the caribbean and on your vacation you always want some fun too. But fortunately fresh fruits are cheap here, so the recovering from hangovers and the vitamin input is no problem.  I was far away from beating my PBs this week but at least I completed all the workouts.

I could not make a screenshot of my workout plan this week, as WiFi spots were also rare during the past days, so I write it down this way:

  • Day 1: Artemis
  • Day 2: Poseidon 2X
  • Day 3: Kentauros
  • Day4: Artemis

Now we are continuing our trip to Dominica. Other than Guadeloupe it does not belong to the european union (Guadeloupe was a french colony and is under french administration) but is a independent nation. It is much more native and less developed than Guadeloupe so it might be harder to find safe places for the workouts or get the nutrition I want…but I will see, and from what I heard so far, they have chicken there as well 😉

Here are some pictures of the trip so far, enjoy:

 

 

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September 30, 2014

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Freeletics Coach – Week 4

Freeletics coach week 4

Freeletics coach week 4

This week I keep it short. I am going on vacation to the caribbean sea and have a lot of things to prepare. Anyhow I will try to keep up with my coach and do all the workouts. Let’s see if I stay motivated to do Burpees on the white sand beach. I will also try to post something here.

The 4th week was kind of hard, after the 15k run on the first day my legs hurt the whole week, but I kept going. I was far away from PBs this week, I remember having that kind of a through in my last 15Weeks challenge as well in the 4th or 5th week. Don’t let this tear you down, keep going, progress will come. Apart from that I found a nice spot to do the workouts not far from my home. It is a playground with a basketball field and there is the possibility to to pull-ups and to go an a run, as it is located in a park. I also found a training group that meets in my town to do the workouts together. After my vacation I will try to join them more often.

So, the train to the airport leaves in 5 hours, time to finish packing and doing the last workout at home for the next 3 weeks.

See you soon!

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September 21, 2014

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Freeletics Coach – Third Week

This was my third week of the new Freeletics strength coach. You can see the workout plan in the image below. I can not really say what the focus  was – partly on upper body, especially on chest with the two venus sessions that include 200 pushups each. But Kentauros and Gaia gave me nice burning thighs, too.

Freeletics strength coach - week 3

Freeletics strength coach – week 3

It was raining a lot this week, so I did most of the workouts inside. Sadly I cancelled my gym membership last week, so I had to do the workouts at home. This can be a huge pain in the a**, you sweat more, don’t have that much fresh air and maybe your neighbors beneath will not be amused after a workout like Gaia where you are literally jumping all the time. But it’s better than not working out at all.

Why did I cancel my gym membership? Because I’ve not been there since I started with freeletics and I have to commit, even some month before that…and in that case 80€ per month are huge waste of money. Also I did not really like going there. It was always crowded and you never could do a workout without waiting for a machine to be free.

I was at three different gyms so far and it was always the same: A trainer constructed a workout plan (which was basically the same in every studio) at the beginning and I started to follow the plan. After some time I increased the weights or the repetitions, but anyhow it got boring after a while. So I started to look for more advanced and effective exercises, read books, searched the internet or asked people at the gym (not the trainers because they never had time – or the gym wanted extra money for their time). This was time-consuming and I found a confusing set of opinions about what workout philosophy is the best.

In every gym, after a while I was responsible for my workout routine all by myself. No trainier helped me, there where no given targets, except the ones I set myself. And that is the point when I always started to cheat. “I had a hard day today, I will skip and go tomorrow” – “I’ll just do a short workout today” and suddenly I realized – Oops I didn’t go there the whole week. Setting targets and challenging yourself is key for improving in every kind of sport. But especially in the beginning you might try to find a lot of excuses. There will be the point when you stop doing this, when sport becomes an essential part of your everyday life and you do no longer cheat yourself. Just keep going!

But why is it so hard to do this? One point is, that creating a diversified, challenging and effective workout routine is complex and takes a lot of knowledge and time – or you spent a lot of money in a personal trainier. With the freeletics coach you get all this for a good price. There is a lot of knowledge behind the creation of the plans and a huge variety of exercises. The aims may be high in the beginning but you will grow and reach them and once you completed you first workouts with a star or beating repeatedly you personal best time you get hungry and always want more! And the best part is, even after the 20week that I do freeletics now,  the coach sets challenging targets. I love it!

So enough for today, I bought new shoes yesterday and now I have to try them on the 15km run the coach has given me to start week  no. 4. Stay focused and no excuses! Success will come as long as you are trying!

Peace 😉

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September 17, 2014

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Freeletics – HIT Techniques

Freeletics is a form of high intensity training (HIT). HIT is not new, there are different forms of HIT techniques and workouts since the 1970’s. High intensity workouts are basically all based on the following principle.

There are 4 levels of intensity:

Pull-ups

Pullups – do easier versions (like jumping-pullups) or take slight breaks (5-10 seconds) if your muscles are to tired to complete the whole exercise.

  1. Level one is when you work with a submaximal number of repetitions. Lets say you could do 10 repetitions but only do 8.
  2. Second level is, when you go to your maximum – you do the 10 repetitions.
  3. Third level means you go over the point of muscle fatigue – you do the 10 repetitions and try to do one more, it might not be a complete exercise and there will be the point when the movement has to be interrupted.
  4. Level 4 is where high intensity training begins. You go until you reach your maximum and then use the following HIT techniques to do even more.

To bring your muscles behind the point of failure, there are several techniques that can be used for different kind of exercises and depending on your personal favor. At the beginning it might be hard enough to finish a freeletics workout in acceptable time but later, when you get stronger an more experienced you can use HIT techniques to make even faster progresses.

Interval training

This technique is particularly suitable for bodyweight training like Freeletics. If you reach the point of muscle failure, take a short break (5 to 10 seconds) and then try to do some more repetitions. You can repeat this multiple times. As some of the Freeletics workouts contain exercises with a lot of repetitions (like 100 pushups in Artemis) that you can not do in one go at first, you might even do this without knowing that it is a HIT technique.

Particular repetitions 

This is also good for Freeletics and even included in the regular workout routines. When you reach the point of muscle failure, and you can not do an extra repetition, do a slightly modified, easier version. In Freeletics for almost every exercise there is a easier version that you can do, when the actual exercise is to hard. You won’t get a star for your workout, but you will get better at it.

An other possibility is to do the additional repetitions with swing (for example when doing pull-ups) but be careful as the risk of injury is increased. Also the strain on the muscles is lower that when doing easier versions of the exercise. This should only be used by experienced athletes.

The “Afterburner”

This is a technique that you only should use if you are on an advanced fitness level. You combine two exercises that target the same muscles and do them right one after another without a break. The first exercise (basis) will put the weight on your smaller muscles while the second exercise will stress the bigger muscle. You will find these pattern in some Freeletics workouts and in the coach, but you can also use it to combine your own exercises and workouts if you don’t work with the coach.

Most of these techniques are already implemented in the Freeletics workouts and you might be doing them already without knowing it. But I think it is interesting to understand why the workouts are built the way they are and that it is normal and desired that you don’t do the 100 pushups in one rush. This is not a sign of weakness – this is HIT training.

I hope you found this helpful 🙂

Never Quit!

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September 12, 2014

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Freeletics Coach – Second Week

Week number two is over…and I have to say – don’t mess with the new coach! On the feedback of the first week I responded that the training program was “way to easy”…so the coach generated a much tougher workout for this week. You can see the result in the image below.

Freeletics strength coach - week 2

Freeletics strength coach – week 2

At first I thought, yeah this is much better. But after the first day, my whole body hurt. I also had to work a lot and was really tired in the evenings. And I made the mistake to do the workouts on the first training day outside in the rain with inappropriate clothing. I felt like getting sick afterwards. I knew that I had to take a break – so I paused for three days and started from the beginning.

With the old coach you had 20 weeks to complete your 15 weeks workout. What I understood from the FAQ of the new coach, this is now longer the case.  After 15 weeks your subscription will continue, but you have to pay again…no matter how many weeks you completed.

Anyhow, it is important to take your time to regenerate. I always tell myself, that freeletics is still cheaper than a gym – so what. And I also think that it makes no sense to stop after the 15 weeks, maintaining a healthy lifestyle is about integrating sports and good nutrition in your everyday life and not about doing short periods of diet or sports.

So after my three days break I returned and this time I managed to complete the week in time (6 days). The focus of this week was clearly on legs. I had to do a lot of jumping-jacks, froggers, different versions of squats and climbers. For details check the workouts of my plan on the left side.

When I completed my last 15 weeks coach (cardio & strength) I was able to complete each workout with a star in the end. In the first week of the new coach, this was no problem too. But now I had to go back the the easier version of some exercises (pistols, froggers and Hand-Stand Pushups) as it was simply to hard. But I think this is good – there has to be potential to improve. At the beginning of the 15 weeks it is normal that you can not complete all workouts of even not one workout with a star – don’t worry this will happen soon enough. Set your goals and keep trying.

What helps me a lot is to make a strategy for every exercise. That means that you do the given repetitions in variable blocks. Like

Protein after workout - 536g T-Bone Steak - njam :)

Protein after workout – 536g T-Bone Steak – njam 🙂

for example if you have to do 100 Burpees – in the beginning when you start you try to make them in a whole, but after 30 or 40 you have no power left. And then all the following will be much harder. For me it worked better to do like 6 x 15 and 1 x 10. Later you can increase the repetitions to do 5 x 20, then 4 x 25 and so on. At the moment I would do 2 x 35 and 1 x 30. When I started with this strategies my PBs got much better and I started to make quick efforts in increasing the repetitions.  It gives you a even better control over your workouts and your progress.

So, thats it. Week 2 done! It was hard, but thats how it is supposed to be. It reminded me of my first weeks of freeletics, when I was not sure if I could complete the 15 weeks, but I did and now I know that I can complete this 15 weeks to and the next, and then the next…and so on. I rewarded myself with a big T-Bone Steak this evening – I needed protein and so I think I will sleep very well this night. Let’s see what next week brings.

Have fun, keep going and never quit 🙂

 

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September 2, 2014

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Freeletics Coach – First week

The first week of my new Freeletics strength coach is over and I want to do a quick review. Compared to my former cardio & strength coach the first week was not that hard, but maybe after a hellweek everything seems to be easy. The coach gave me the following exercises (see image below). It was a little bit to much cardio for my taste, but a little running never killed nobody.  I have not been running for a while and the 8km gave me burning legs for two days, in that time I did only upper body exercises and continued with the Hyperion when my legs were ok again.

Strength coach week 1

Strength coach week 1

All of the exercises were a little bit different, than I knew them. Zeus (Standard) now has 5 more repetitions of each exercise, running is completely new, Hyperion was the Endurance version, not really tough. Only Metis was the same, Iris was only in the 1/5 version what means, that between the two 1km runs there is only one of the former 5 sets of 100 Jumping Jacks and 100 Climbers.

The volume of 4 workouts per week was ok, as I said the hellweek last week kind of brought me to a new level, so it seemed to be a little to easy. The new exercises that replaced the max workouts are perfect for filling up those gabs between workouts when they were to easy for you. So I did some extra pull-ups, burpees, squats and sit-ups after the regular workouts.

After completing the week, the coach gives the opportunity to evaluate the weak and change the settings for the next week. You can either say it was way to easy, hard but ok or way to hard. I choose way to easy because of all the extra exercises I did.  Other settings you can make are the volume settings (how many workouts per week) and the muscular limitation, in case you hurt yourself or just want to train a special part of your body.In general the new update brought some major changes to the Freeletics Experience.

Workouts, Exercises, Running - the tripod of the new Freeletics experience

Workouts, Exercises, Running – the tripod of the new Freeletics experience

Apart from the warmup and stretching routines I wrote about in the previous post there are the following new features.

New Exercises
Exercises are the elemental parts of the workout, like Burpees, Pushups or Situps. In total there are now around 39 Exercices available (excluding running). Some are new at all, some are just the former modified version of known workouts that have now a name. For example “Pikes” was the former modified version of Handstand Pushups. Exercises are clustered in Endurance, Standard and Strength exercises witch you can choose depending on your training fokus. There are no more MAX workouts, instead you can choose how many reptitions of an exercise you want to do in a range from 10 -2000 or for distance based exercises like frogs the max distance with a range from 1 x 10m to 2 x 1km.

New Running
Running is a complete new feature in beta version that introduces a nike+ like user interface. You can choose a distance and see the route you are running an a map. A really good feature is the “turning point” where the App tells you when you reached half of your distance and it is a good time to turn. This feature anyhow is not included into the workouts, so if you do an Iris, where there is a 1km run at the beginning and the end, there will be no map and no distance measuring, but maybe this is comming later.

New Workouts
Every Workout is now available in three different manifestations (like exercises) Endurance, Standard and Strength and in different intensity. Different intensities are only available with the coach I gues, they can not be choosen from the Workouts section. Here you can see the differences between endurance, standard and strength version of a workout.

Ares Endurance version

Ares Endurance version

Ares Standard version

Ares Standard version

Ares Strength version

Ares Strength version

In summary, the new coach has a lot more different workouts and so is much more individualizable. I thought it was a little bit to much cardio focused but the second week looks much better. After the next week I will take another picture to see if there is any visible progress. Keep going, never give up and stay updated 🙂

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August 31, 2014

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Freeletics Coach – Warmup and Stretching

With the update there came a lot more information about warmup before and stretching after the workout. Normally I just did around 75 Jumping Jacks and some High Knees (running on the spot) as it was written in my former coach. But now there is a set of 7 exercises that you can do to warm up and prepare your body for the workout. It is a combination of cardio-focused exercises (cardiovascular) like the before mentioned Jumping Jacks and High Knees and exercises that should activate your nervous system and the interaction of your essential body parts (neuromuscular). Some of them are available for free in the Freeletics Knowledge Center. I integrated the new warmup routine in my workouts and it feels great. Some of the neuromuscular exercises remind me of yoga positions – even they seem to be very simple, I can feel that they improve the coordination of the muscles. The warmup routine takes me about 7 Minutes to do. Be careful to not give all your power on the warmup, as a general rule of thumb you should give around 50% of your capacity.

Neuromuscular Warmup

Example of an neuromuscular exercise from http://knowledge.freeletics.com/en/dynamisches-aufwaermen

Stretching is a controversial issue. Some say it is as important as the warming up and that it helps to improve the flexibility of your muscles and to regenerate after an intense workout. It results in improved muscle control, flexibility and range of motion. Some say that is has no value and may even cause harm and weakens the muscle. Here is an interesting article about it.

I did not do stretching so far, but I tried it this week.  The update introduced 6 stretching exercises, some I already knew as they are basic stretching positions, some of them where new to me. You have to hold each position for about 45 seconds. The whole routine takes me about 7 Minutes. Maybe one week is a little bit to short to evaluate the effects of stretching compared to not stretching…but in compare to the new warmup routine I did not feel any differences. Anyhow the above linked article has some good arguments against stretching, I think I will do it sometimes after the workout. The Freeletics philosophy contains warmup and Stretching as key elements for sustainable success with high insensitive workouts and for what I experienced so far, they know what they are talking about. Due to the warmup and stretching the time I need to execute a workout is slightly increased. In total it takes about 14 minutes longer. I will see if I keep  this up, as one of the things I like most about Freeletics are the short workout times and the great effectiveness of those. They allow me to maintain an athletic body without interfering with my work schedule and free time to much.

Let me know how you do it! Do you do warmup and stretching?

Greetings and keep going!
Stefan

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August 30, 2014

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Freeletics Coach – Getting started

Heute geht es los! Der neue Coach ist da und ich brenne darauf in auszuprobieren. Wichtig – stellt sicher dass ihr die neue App habt! Ich hatte versucht den Coach mit der alten Freeletics Pro App zu starten und das funktioniert wohl nicht. Dafür benötigt ihr außerdem die aktuellste  iOS Version habt (7.1.2)  da es die neue App leider nicht für ältere iOS Versionen gibt. Wenn ihr in der Freeletics Pro App diese Fehlermeldung bekommt, ruhig bleiben – iOS Updaten, dann gibt es ein Update der Freeletics Pro App im Appstore welches euch nach dem Start der App sagt, dass es eine neue App gibt…und damit klappt alles Super. Wie das bei Android aussieht kann ich leider nicht sagen.

Coach Setup

Freeletics Coach Step 1 - Profile

Coach Settings Step 1 – Profile

Der neue Coach wirbt damit, noch individueller zu sein. In meinem Fall ist das nicht schwer, da ich bisher den PDF Coach verwendet habe. Dort waren alle Übungen für die 15 Wochen fest vorgegeben. Ich war trotzdem sehr zufrieden mit dem Ergebnis, bin jetzt aber vor allem gespannt, wie sich die indviduellen Wochenpläne gestalten und vor allem wie das Ergebnis aussieht.

Bevor es losgeht, müssen einige Einstellungen vorgenommen werden, diese können entweder am PC oder über die App gemacht werden. Der Weg über die App hat bei mir aber leider nicht richtig funktioniert – da ich die neue App nicht hatte – weshalb ich das ganze am PC gemacht habe. Ein Wizard navigiert den Benutzer über die nötigen Schritte. Zuerst müssen persönliche Daten wie das Geschlecht, die Größe, Geburtsdatum und Gewicht angegeben werden. Wenn man bereits ein Freeletics Profil hat, sind die Werte schon voreingestellt.

Freeletics Coach Settings Step 2 - Experiences

Coach Settings Step 2 – Experiences

Als nächstes wird der bisherige sportliche Werdegang abgefragt und wie häufig man bisher pro Woche trainiert hat. Bisher hatte ich durch meinen PDF-Coach 4-5 Workouts pro Woche. Ein Pensum, das ich eigentlich echt super fand, vor allem den Wechsel zwischen 5 und 4 Tage-Wochen. Die 5 Tage waren teilweise schon anstrengend und nicht so leicht in den Alltag zu integrieren wohingegen die 4 Tage Wochen teilweise zu einfach waren und ich zusätzliche Workouts (MAX oder kurze Einheiten wie Poseidon oder Metis) eingebaut habe.

Zusätzlich kann man angeben wie lange man schon regelmäßig Sport macht und in welchen Sportarten man die meiste Erfahrung hat. Da ich vor meinem letzten Coach eher sehr unregelmäßig Sport gemacht habe, habe ich mich dazu entschieden meine bisherigen Sport Erfahrungen nicht hier aufzuführen. Als Softwareentwickler würde mich natürlich brennend interessieren, wie die hier gemachten Angaben in die Berechnung des Trainingsplans einfließen aber ich glaube das bleibt ein gut gehütetes Geheimnis…

Im nächsten Schritt folgt ein kleiner Test um das derzeitige Fitness-Level zu testen. Jeweils eine Einheit Pushup-Max, Situp-Max und Burpee-Max. Ich gebe alles, erreiche überall meinen PB mit ca. 3 Minuten Pause zwischen jeder Übung. Ich spüre die letzte Hellweek noch in den Knochen. Nach den Übungen kann der Test abgeschickt werden.

Freeletics Coach Settings Step 3 - Fitness Test

Coach Settings Step 3 – Fitness Test

Als letztes wird die Art des Coaches festgelegt. Es steht Strength (Muskelaufbau), Cardio (ideal um Abzunehmen) und ein Mix aus beidem zur Verfügung. Mein letzter Coach war ein Cardio & Strength Mix wobei der Fokus meiner Meinung nach eher auf Muskelaufbau lag. Es gab zwar auch einzelne Cardio-Einheiten (z.B. Iris, Metis oder Dione) die sich aber im Rahmen hielten. Besonders gefallen hat mir, dass es nicht so lange Runnings gab (maximal 2km). Diesmal soll es aber ein reiner Strength-Coach werden, wobei man den Fokus im Laufe der 15 Wochen auch ändern kann. Zuletzt noch die Anzahl der gewünschten Einheiten pro Woche – und ab gehts!

 

Freeletics Coach Settings Step 4 - Start!

Coach Settings Step 4 – Start!

 

Der Coach generiert mir jetzt einen individuell auf mich abgestimmten Trainingsplan – bin mal gespannt. So fertig. Die erste Woche besteht aus 4 Trainingseinheiten. Los geht es mit Zeus – super, eins meiner Lieblingsworkouts (zumindest seit ich die Handstand-Pushups mit Stern schaffe) – fängt ja super an, doch was ist das? Am zweiten Trainingstag 800m Laufen und danach direkt ein 8KM Run. Dass Running mit dem Upgrade eine stärkere Rolle spielen würde, wurde ja angekündigt, aber so? Ich hoffe das ist nicht jede Woche so. Naja #coachKnows. Am dritten Tag steht ein bekanntes Training auf dem Plan – Hyperion – allerdings in einer etwas anderen Variante, als mir bisher bekannt. Im neuen Coach gibt es verschiedene Typen von Workouts, entweder mit Ausdauer (Endurance) oder Kraft (Strength) Fokus. Der mir bisher bekannte Hyperion war Hammerhart, mit Handstand-Pushups, Strict-Pullups, One-Handed-Pushups und Pistols…eindeutig mit Kraft-Fokus. Hier erwartet mich jetzt wohl die Ausdauer-Variante mit Pikes (auch eine neue Übung – bzw. die einfache modifizierte Version der Handstand-Pushups), HH Squats (Squats bei denen die Hände zu Hilfe genommen werden?!) und High-Knees (Laufen auf der Stelle mit Knieheben) – eigentlich dem Namen Hyperion nicht würdig… Am letzten Tag stehen auch wieder zwei Ausdauer Workouts an (Metis und Iris). So langsam frage ich mich ob da nicht noch ein kleiner Bug in dem Upgrade steckt…für einen Strength Coach kommt mir das Verhältnis von 5 Ausdauer Workouts zu einem Strength Workout doch etwas zu viel vor. Egal, ich versuch’s und wenn nächste Woche nicht anders wird, werde ich wohl den Fokus auf Cardio stellen…und hoffen dass dann mehr Strength Übungen dabei sind…oder?!