Freeletics is a fitness-program that combines high intensity functional body weight training with running exercises.
Find my 15 weeks training program here: Freeletics
Tag Archives: noExcuses
Freeletics coach – Week 15 HELLWEEK!!
Freeletics – coach week 15 Part 1
The 15th week of a Freeletics program is essential – it’s the Hellweek! That means 7 days of training, no rest-day and always giving everything. The mere amount of exercises might seem impossible at first – but you are a Free-Athlete and nothing is impossible! Just keep going, you will be surprised what potential you developed over the past weeks.
During this week you will put your body under huge stress, so the key elements of a healthy lifestyle (like mentioned many times before) are more important than ever! I can not stress it enough: Eat clean, sleep enough (7-8 hours) and trink a lot of water! During Hellweek the recovery phases will be extremely low so you need to provide your body with the best you can do in this short periods.
Freeletics – coach week 15 Part 2
The most challenging part will be the mental negotiation to do a workout every day. After 3 or 4 days you will reach the edge of your physical capacity. Your workout times will become longer and that is normal. You might want to take a day of and if you must, you can. This was my second Hellweek and as I remember, during my first Hellweek I did a rest-day on day 6 – but did the 6th and the 7th workout on the last day. This time I went through with the whole thing and even did some extra exercises and broke a lot of PBs even on the second half of the week.
During this Hellweek I did:
- 595 Burpees
- 280 HS-Pushups
- 560 Pullups
- 705 Pushups
- 905 Situps
- 1550 Squats
- 275 Jumps
- 425 Straight Leg Levers
- and a little bit of running
To overcome this immense workload will make you strong – mentally and physically. But let’s not talk – let’s do it! Have fun with the Hellweek and don’t let it get you – you can do it!
Freeletics coach – week 13 & 14
Hey, I am back! Sorry for not posting for two weaks – but I had a lot of things to do. My project at work is at a critical state and everybody had to work a lot of extra hours. It is a software development project and we are slowly running out of developers – to complete my currently assigned tasks in time, I would have to clone myself three times 😛
Freeletics coach – week 13
But anyhow, now christmas holidays are about to start and it got a little more quiet and I finally found the time to write this post. During the past two weeks the freeletics workouts were a really good distraction from work. Nothing is better to clear your mind after a hard business week than a good and intense workout – besides alcohol, but you feel much better afterwards…So, today I want to talk about how freeletics – or sports in general – have an influence on my performance at my working place.
Training made me much more resistent to stress and increased my productivity. Before I worked out so much, being at the office for 8 or more hours exhausted me. It was hard to work extra hours and if I did one day, I left earlier on the next day because I had no more energy. And even on a normal working day, I felt that my productivity was at a really low level for the last 2 or 3 hours at work. On a stressful day, this point was reached even earlier. Most of the time, when I returned from work I was so tired,  I didn’t want to go out  anymore.
Now – here are the differences. I worked almost 10 hours every day for the past 2 weeks and this feeling of having my head full of things, that always gave me a headache during the day did not come. Many of my coworkers, who had to work extra hours too, were on a bad mood after short period of time or even got sick because of the stress. I didn’t. I can not really explain why – I had more to do then ever before, and even much more demanding things – but they never tied me down. I suppose it is because of the following things:
Freeletics coach – week 14
First, I feel better than ever before in my life. Eating healthy and habitually doing sports are the basis for this. If you are in a healthy and physically good state, progress will come and with progress comes self-esteem and confidence. And other people realize this and they will treat you in a much better way. You can work much more productive because your body is much more reliable and during stressful times it is easier for you to focus and keep your head clear. I realized this in many grueling meetings during the past days where complex things were discussed over hours. Most of the people got confused, lost their focus, got angry or backed down completely. And even though I was a rather small fish among these people, it was me who tied the important topic back on the agenda or showed solutions when it seemed like we ran into a dead end many times. Before I changed my lifestyle, I was rather the guy who was sitting in meetings and just trying to follow and it was always another person who brought up the solution.
Another key factor is the will to take challenges. If you are doing high intense sports, you will not be able to avoid challenging yourself. And if you do, you will see that almost every challenge can be achieved if you just try it. You may fail for the first time, but in the end you will succeed. You will learn that every challenge, however big it may look, can be beaten. You just have to keep going, focus on the next step but not loose the main target…And always care for yourself. As I said, a healthy body is the basis for all this. Eat clean, do sports, sleep sufficient, trink a lot (water or tee) and no or at least just a little alcohol.
You can see the workouts I did in week 13 and 14 in the two pictures. Week 15 is going to be the last week of this coach ( the coach will continue but I will stop to write a post every week). It is going to be a hellweek, I know this because I am already in it and almost at the end, as I am writing this lines. But you will see it next week. Until then, keep going, take your vitamins and remember: even though life is hard some times – you can be harder!
sincerely yours
Stefan
PS: here are are some inspirational pictures of healthy food 😉
fish with vegetables, brown rice and tzatziki
whole-grain noodles with prawns and pesto
wholemeal sandwich with grilled vegetables, sheep milk cheese and salad
Freeletics coach – week 10 & week 11
Freeletics coach – week 10
This time it’s two weeks in one post. The first day of week 10 was hard – a lot of Burpees. If you hate Burpees and sometimes ask yourself why you are doing this to you, check out this page and join the million-burpee-challenge. To see how many crazy people are doing this many Burpees every day might push you.
Apart from this my week had the usual Venus sessions. I think almost all of the past weeks had at least 2 Venus workouts..and I can see and feel the 200 Push-ups on my chest. I would say it is in a better shape than ever before. I also broke my PB again, slowly but constantly I continue to make progress.
Freeletics coach – week 11
Week 11 started with a lot of Burpees too, Burpee Frogs are even harder than normal Burpees I think. They are not done by counting the repetitions, but by doing them on a given distance. How many repetitions you do, depends on how far you jump – and jumping takes strength. So when your legs start to feel heavier and your jumps become shorter you need to do more repetitions to reach the required distance. It is cruel but effective…and looks kind of ridiculous 😉
My workout-plans became a little bit one-sided lately, a lot of Venus, Artemis  and Poseidon. To unlock new workouts, you must acquire new skills on your freeletics profile. These are advanced exercises that are extra tricky and you might need a lot of strength or balance. Do not worry if you can not do them from the beginning – I think no average person can do this. In the image below you can see the available skills and wich I unlocked. You unlock a skill by doing one repetition according to the rules in the describing video.
Freeletics advanced skills
This week I unlocked the Strict-Handstand-Pushups. This is a crazy exercise. You need to stay in balance while all of your blood rushes to your head – and then you do pushups. It took me a while to find the right balance, take care that your hands are not too close, as it is much harder then. Also try not to make a hollow back – tense your shoulders and your back.
I did around 5 repetitions to find the correct technique. During the first two I bent one of my legs – this stabilized my stand and helped me to find the right position for my hands. Go ahead and try it. Now I will see how this new skill influences my weekly workout plan.
I also tried to do a one-hand-pushup…but this was too hard. My upper body did not move an inch away from the floor…long way to go!
Freeletics coach – Week 8
Freeletics coach – week 8
This week I wanted to work harder on my PBs as the last couple of weeks I was far behind them and did not made any progress. I set the goal to break at least one PB this week and I was highly motivated! The first workout was Venus and although my arms were tired from the hellday  of last week, I gave everything…and missed my PB by 30 seconds. But getting this close only made me wanting more. The next day’s workout was Artemis – and this time I beat his a*s. I was almost 5 minutes faster then my old PB. It is amazing what can be reached with the right mindset and motivation. Even when there are times during the freeletics 15-weeks challenge when you feel like stepping back – do not give up! This is normal, take your time to recover and try to figure out what restricts you like: do you get enough good sleep ? do you trink a sufficient amount of water during the day? do you eat clean? do you feel sick or have pain?  All this are factors that influenced my results in the past. The good thing is that you can do something about it. In this way, Freeletics also helps  to “monitor” the healthiness-level of your current lifestyle. If my workout times get longer, there was something I did wrong.
Outside you can feel that Winter is coming and I did most the workouts inside. Before I started with Freeletics, I always (literally) got a cold during this time of the year, with sinusitis and all the stuff. But not this year! Maybe it is because I escaped to the caribbean, but I think that also my body and immune system got stronger. It is such a great experience to see all this positive effects Freeletics has on me, it astonishes me almost every day!
Third training-day was right after halloween and I was completely hungover – so no chance to break another PB. But finally, on the last day I broke my Venus PB as well! After all, this was a very successful week.  I unlocked a new kind of warmup routine that replaces some of the former exercises with more advanced ones – maybe I will create an extra post to show some of them. So far – Keep going and give it your best 😉
Freeletics coach – Week 7 – Helldays!
Week no. 7, first week after my vacation and – as in every 15 Weeks Freeletics program – the 7th week had only Helldays.
Week 7 – Helldays
A Hellday is a day with at least two workouts. The purpose is to go to your limit and beyond. You are allowed to spread the workouts over the day if you can not do them in a row. This week had three Helldays.
Wednesday: Hellday 1 Artemis & Kentauros
I completed Artemis in the evening and decided to do Kentauros in the morning of the following day. I was really tired and could not even do it with a star, I had to replace the Burpee Frogs with Burpees.
Friday: Hellday 2 Artemis and Poseidon
I did the two workouts in a row. I was very slow with the Artemis, don’t know whats up – but I am far from my PBs the last time.
Sunday: Hellday 3 Venus and Hades
I decided to bite my teeth and try to work harder on my PBs. I did not reach them but got closer than ever in the last 3 weeks.
The week was not that hard – but I have to admit that I did not gave my best. This is something that developed over the past weeks during my vacation; I could not break or even reach close to my PBs. So I am setting a goal for the next week: break at least one PB! I know, normally I should try to break my PB every time – but I am this far away from archiving that. Most of my PBs were set during my last 15 weeks coach (cardio & strength). I remember that the last time, the coach varied not that much in the workouts as this coach does. Most of the time, the first and the last workout of the week were the same, with workouts in between that trained other body parts. Â So it seemed to be easier to improve.
Anyhow, the target is set – let the hunt for PBs begin!
No Excuses!
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
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 IÂ 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 😉
undevined 