Coach W6D2 - 4/5 Aphrodite (Standard)

 4/5 Aphrodite (S): *00:30:01 

Second training session of this week, and it is Aphrodite (standard version), but only 4/5, meaning I don't have to do the last series of 10 reps. Well, when you've done the series of 50, 40, 30 and 20 reps, doing the last series of 10 feels like a walk in the park, and I don't really see the point of skipping that... but hey, I'm not about to begin questioning what the #COACH tells me to do, right?! He's probably just saving my strength for the third workout of this week...

I wanted to finish in under 30 minutes and I missed by just 1 second (which is basically the time that it took me to press the "finish workout" button after actually finishing), so I'm pleased I sort-of-met the goal I had set for myself. I had to rush through the last series of 20 reps because I had rested a bit much during the previous series and lost quite a few seconds. At some points I was really gasping for air and sweat was pouring heavily. I don't remember ever sweating as much as I do when I do Aphrodite. I guess we can blame it on having a more active metabolism and on the high intensity training?

Overall I felt good, faster and stronger than the last time I did Aphrodite. The only thing I can point out is that I had a rougher time than expected on the squats. I felt it right away; this time squats were not going to be part of the "active rest"... I really don't know what it was because I wasn't sore at all to begin and I had rested well, but my quads just felt tired and lazy. Usually I can do the 50 reps in two series of 25 but this time I had to break the series into 15 - 15 -10. I can only think that it is because I've been exercising my legs a lot this past couple of weeks and it has accumulated. 

After finishing the workout I stretched long and hard. I must confess I do not always elongate well after training, and I know it is not smart. It's that kind of thing that you know perfectly well that you MUST do, but you still don't do it well (like eating clean all the time or training dirty). The difference that it makes to elongate all your body while still being warm from the exercise is evident. I felt immediately relieved and I woke up the next day in great shape. I wasn't sore at all (and I'm still not sore!). I'm only feeling my hamstrings -surprisingly not my quads- quite tight, and I can only imagine what they would feel like if I hadn't stretched!

Afterwards I fixed myself a quick "dinner"; I ate a slice of turkey breast ham and a hard boiled egg to provide the protein, and then I made this yummy greek yoghurt with chia seeds, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and a little bit of granola. It was super fast and delicious, it also looks great don't you think? It's one of the perks of the #summer!

#ClapClap   Eat clean 

30% off of the Coach - ONLY 5 DAYS LEFT

Hey guys! I wanted to give you a quick reminder that there's only 5 days left of January, which means there's only  5 days left of the New Year's discount!  I think that this is a great opportunity for you to test the Coach, at an even more convenient price than usual, and see for yourselves all the advantages I've been talking about on my posts, mainly:

• The Coach focuses on your personal goals. Weather it is to gain muscle, burn fat, both, to train 2 or 7 days a week, just to get in shape or becoming a fuller athlete, the Coach will offer you a 100% individualized and tailored to your goals training program.

• You don’t need to go to a gym to train. You always carry your personal trainer with you and you can train anytime, anywhere. Most of the workouts can be performed in your living room and the only equipment you might need from time to time is a bit of space to run and a pull up bar, which and be found in pretty much any park in any city.

Make 2015 the year of no excuses! Get out of your comfort zone, start exercising and eating healthier, start feeling more alive than ever, see what your body and your mind can achieve!

Remember; 30% off until January 31 on the Freeletics Coach using the coupon code: NOEXCUSES

Don’t make excuses. Make results.

Coach W6D1 - Venus (Standard)

 Venus (S): 00:29:39 

A new week of training has started. I absolutely LOVE that after finishing each week the coach asks how it was: 1) too easy; 2) hard, but ok or 3) too hard. With that feedback, the training volume for the following week can be adjusted. It also asks if you want to change your training focus (endurance, strength or both), how many days are you planning to train and if you have any muscular limitation, to prevent injury by letting particularly sore muscles rest.

I thought last week was OK for me as a comeback to regular training. I really could not have fitted in another workout so it was overall good. I don't want to be burned out too quickly, specially at the beginning, so I'll keep the same intensity this week but I'll train 3 times instead of two (I have no soccer). I'm a bit sore but I have no real limitations, and as usual I want to keep on training endurance and strength at the same time.

The first workout this week is one I had never done before: VENUS. Named after the Roman goddess of love, beauty and fertility (equivalent to the Greek Aphrodite), this workout consists of four rounds of 50 Push Ups, 20 Sit Ups and 50 Squats. I feel like Venus is the most basic workout you can do since it only involves three of the "fundamental" (if you can call them that) body-weight exercises that exist. Nonetheless, workouts don't need to be fancy and elaborate to make you sweat!

Knowing myself and my absolute lack of push/pull up strength, I decided right away not to go for the star version and do Knee Push Ups. There's a saying here in Chile that goes something like "starting off like an English pure-blood horse, finishing up like a donkey". What that means is that you start with full strength, super fast but midway you burn out and fall back and can barely get through the finish line. That happened to me on the first round of Push Ups; I did around 15 super fast because they felt easy with my knees and all, and I had already started thinking I would finish up Venus in the blink of an eye when it hit me... I really really have low push up strength, and it shows! I struggled to finish that first round of 50 and the following 4 rounds I had to break the 50 into sets of 10 to be able to complete it. The sit ups were a walk in the park and the squats very manageable, so overall I think I must have spent around 18 minutes of the 30 doing my 200 push ups, BUT I DID IT! #ClapClap 

I got extra points for PB which I think is "wrong" because it's the very first time I do the workout! But hey, If you want to give me some extra points for that... To my surprise, I'm not even that sore today. Usually pain kicks in the day before and hits the highest note after 48h. Maybe tomorrow I'll say something different, but for now, I'm more than OK. I can raise both my arms and have mild chest soreness. After training I ate a piece of fish with veggies (bell pepper, zucchini and mushrooms) and a little bit of chick pea puree. It was super healthy (high on proteins and veggies, low on carbs) and super delicious. I'm ready to take on the next training session!

The Birth of Venus - Sandro Botticelli (1486)

Coach W5D2 - 5/6 Kentauros (Endurance)

 5/6 Kentauros (E): *00:37:26 

On Saturday night I did the second and last training session of week #5 of my Cardio&Strength Coach... In front of me was a modified version of the much dreaded Kentauros: 5/6 Kentauros, with endurance focus.

Modified workouts are, I think, one of the nicest features of the "new" Coach. The same workout (eg. Aphrodite or Kentauros) can be performed in a standard, endurance or strength version, each with the "same" exercises performed in a different way to focus more on a specific goal.

About the endurance focus, the coach says:

Endurance workouts consist of less complex movements that allow experienced athletes to train with higher volume and focus on cardiovascular endurance. They are also suited to introduce beginners to the sport of Freeletics.

I'd like to say I fall in the "experienced athletes" category, but I actually feel more like a "beginner" when it comes to Kentauros!

As you can read on previous posts, I'd done Kentauros (standard) 2 times before. The first time I could not finish it; it took me 40 minutes to do 3 of the 6 rounds, got painfully bruised knees from the lunge walk, was absolutely crushed and just couldn't move past the gigantic mental wall I was in front of. That was the first -and only time- I've quit in the middle of a workout. After that I started progressively declining -motivation wise- and when I had to do Kentauros again, I stopped Freeletics completely; that is how big that mental wall was. A few weeks later I came back to finish Kentauros; using knee protectors it took me an hour and a quarter to finish all 6 rounds. It was awful and I could barely walk for a week after that.

The endurance version of Kentauros is still hard, but MUCH more friendly than the standard one, not only because it is 5 rounds instead of 6 (hence the "5/6"), but mostly because the exercises are different; the lunge walks are HH (Hand-Helped),the high jumps replaced by high knees and the burpee frogs by sprawl frog jumps.

I was very tired and out of breath for most of the workout but got through it in a fairly decent time. I forgot to use knee protectors and I got again both of my knees bruised from hitting the cement during the lunge walks... still I powered through and actually the lunges were my "active rest" time. Being HH actually makes a big difference. The same goes to the high knees, which are much easier than the high jumps. When you are on round number 5, you appreciate those seemingly slight differences all the more!!! I have not many nice things to say about the sprawl frog jumps; they are just slightly less horrible than the burpee frog. Instead of a full burpee  followed by a forward keep-your-feet-together jump you just go into plank position and then jump. Again, the extra energy you get from not going down makes all the difference to get through 5 rounds of this!

Today my gluteus and hamstrings are sore, but not as much as I feared. My gluts hurt quite a bit when I'm sitting, (specially on the hard toilet! xD) but I'm pleased I decently got through week#1 of my comeback to Freeletics . Now I'm hungry for more!!!

Coach W5D1 - Aphrodite

 Aphrodite: *00:44:09 

So, as I anticipated on a previous post, we played on Monday the quarter finals of this summer's soccer league (I said before it was semi finals but I was wrong, we could have played another two matches). Sadly we lost our game... but it was a hell of a match! I ended up exhausted and I'm upset that putting in that much effort was not enough and that that was the the way our last game of the season went down. But hey, that's soccer, and I can't expect to always be on the winning side, right?! Now we go on break because it's summer vacation time here in Chile. The leagues will restart most likely mid March or in the beginning of April. 

This means I no longer have soccer on week days, so I have more time to dedicate to getting in shape with #Freeletics. Hopefully I'll come back stronger than I left. This also means I won't have to "arrange" and cut back my training so I'm not sore or tired on match days. For the next couple of months I'm a 100% Free Athlete and nothing more (sports-wise). I'm ready to give my all to the Coach, once again.

The Coach restarted on week #5, taking in consideration the four weeks I did before. I don't know why, but I was expecting a fresh start, beginning from week #1. It doesn't really matter though, but I'm just a little OCD :-P. I've set up two training session this week and of course, what else would the Coach give me to start off than a classic (and always a "favorite"): APHRODITE.

I usually train after work, very late at night. It's not always great because I end all pumped up and hyperactive, and sometimes it's hard to fall asleep afterwards. I therefore tried something new today I got up earlier than usual and  trained before going to work. 

Aphrodite was HARD. A couple of weeks ago I wrote about trying to do Aphrodite out of the blue and having to stop after the round of 40 reps because I was not feeling well at all. Today was not that different. The series of 30 reps had me feeling light headed, dizzy, wanting to throw up, pouring buckets of sweat... you now, all the not-so-fun-deal. I had to stop to catch my breath at least five times, for around 20 seconds each time -even a whole minute once-. I  wanted to quit. Really really bad. As I'm going up and down on the burpees, and see the clock ticking away, I started to question why on earth would I do this so early in the morning, no why on earth would I do this AT ALL. I've been down that road before so I know I have to power through and ignore my mind. I obviously was late to work because I was hoping to be around 35 minutes, not 45!

I think this is one of the most important victories one gets out of Freeletics; winning over one's mind. Being better than yourself. Developing willpower. It's hard to start training. and it's easy to quit mid-way through. With Freeletics it's just you against yourself, and I feel that every finished training is a victory on it's own. Even if you're far from your PB, like me today,you and only you have the willpower to start the workout, to go through it, to push harder when you are tired, to ignore your mind which will always want to take the easy road. 

About the whole "training early the morning" thing, I think I'll have to give it a couple more chances before I make up my mind completely. I'll write about this on another post, but nutrition in this situation plays a particularly important role. I ate a little something about half an hour before I trained and went through Aphrodite OK (energy wise), with maybe just one moment when I felt my three sips of coffee were coming back up... Then I intended to have a proper breakfast but I wasn't that hungry just finishing the workout so I ate less than I usually do... so of course on my way to work I felt dizzy on the subway and had to eat a banana I brought along to pump up my sugar and not faint right there! Then I started feeling really hungry and had a peach when I got to work... Man was I looking forward to lunch today!!!

#ClapClap

Cooking Protein Bread

 #Eat clean and Train Dirty

I decided to start off by making Protein Bread, the first recipe in the "breakfast" category of the nutrition guide, to make a healthy high-protein sandwich to take with me and eat about 1 hour before soccer.

Protein Bread, according to the nutrition guide, is lower on carbs and higher on proteins and vegetable fats than regular whole grain bread. It's still bread, so don't go crazy eating tons of it, but it is the best alternative you can find for making a healthy sandwich.

I started off by going to a Nuts & Seeds shop to buy a few ingredients I was missing. I bought Linseeds, Pumpkin Seeds and pealed Sunflower Seeds. I modified a little bit the Nutrition Guide recipe; I used Almond Flour instead of ground almonds and white flour instead of whole flour -because my adorable girlfriend has trouble digesting whole flour-. I also used free range eggs because hey, we're being healthy here! The other ingredients are Oatmeal, Baking Powder and Greek Yoghurt. 

The dough is very very very wet and "fluffy". I was afraid it would not bake well. Other than that it's very easy and quick to assemble and mix. I used a silicone loaf pan and I baked the bread in a preheated oven for 60 mins, very late at night, so then I left it to cool down overnight inside the oven.

Voilà! The bread turned out great in spite of my modifications (it is actually mother in law approved ^.^). At first it is a bit unsettling because it does not have the texture of a usual whole grain bread, which normally are quite consistent, hard and dry. I don't particularly mind that, but for some people it can be an issue to have to eat such a hard, dry piece of bread in the mornings. The protein bread has more of the consistency of a cake, spongy and moist.

Flavor wise, the seeds on top make all the difference, I believe. I don't use salt when I cook and this time I think I could have put a little on it to make it taste stronger. It is a little dull on its own, but with some avocado and a piece of cold turkey breast it's great! Also this time I followed (pretty much) the recipe to the T, but there's tons of room to play around. I think carrots would be nice on it. Also I really can see it going very well with berries! I'll keep you posted on my future innovations... In the meaning time, it really made a great pre-workout sandwich, tasty and easy to eat; I could not be more thrilled!

In with the Nutrition Guide

Ok, so things have changed a bit (a lot) in my life these past few months. I'm living with my girlfriend now and the days of keeping my training "hidden" are behind me. She's doing CrossFit three times a week so, since we're both training hard and consistently, we decided to give the Freeletics Nutrition Guide a real try. Its not like we're eating only out of the recipes from the guide, but we'll try out the ones that seem the most appealing to us. From now on I'll be not only posting about the workouts but also whenever I try out any of the recipes (and I'll probably add up some of my own culinary creations since I love cooking <3 ).

Eat clean

Starting My Coach (version 2.0) - Fitness Test

As I was saying in my previous posts, I'm trying myself to make 2015 the year of no excuses. In that line, I've re-activated my coach and I'm starting to do Freeletics on a regular basis again. I started off by doing half Aphrodite on a Sunday a couple weeks ago and I was really sore until Thursday that week! Since I'm in the final rounds of my summer soccer league, I didn't want to see my performance on the field be affected by sore quads and wiggly legs, so I kept off of Freeletics. On Monday, however, I will play the semi-finals, and if we win, the final will be on Wednesday. That means soccer will be over, no matter what, this week. Therefore I thought now was the perfect time to keep momentum and "replace" soccer (which will most likely not start over until April) with Freeletics.

One of the things I like the most about the "new" Coach is how personalized it is. When I started doing Freeletics back in August 2013 we used to get e-mails with PDF instructions of the workouts with a few pointers and a couple of photos. Today, however, the Coach had me taking a fitness test to assess my current fitness level and plan my next week  of training accordingly.

The first step is to fill your profile; basically it asks your age, height and weight.

Then the coach asks about your previous sports experience, which of course is very relevant to asses the athleticism and fitness of any individual. It also asks about the frequency of weekly training.

Then you have to actually take the test; PushUp Max (100 sec), Squat Max (300 sec) and SitUp Max (300 sec). All exercises must be done in the star version. I did them all in a row, with two minute breaks in between exercises. The Squats made me sweat quite a bit! Overall I think I did decently (considering the months of inactivity) although I still have little to no upper-body strength as you can tell by my lazy 17 PushUps... Well, this is what I'm training for!

Finally I had to tell the coach what my focus is: Cardio for losing fat, Strength for gaining muscle or Both. I've always considered that the more balanced a workout is, the better. I don't want to become super lean and loose my strength on the soccer field, but I also don't want to just build muscle and loose speed or overall cardio fitness, so I still think a balanced approach suits me best for now. Maybe in the future I may change to strength mode, just to get a bit bigger and tighter. Also, since this week I will still have one or two soccer matches, I asked to only train twice -another feature I love about the new coach because it matches up better with the reality of how much time I can spend training, how tired I am after soccer, and it eliminates the mental burden that before was constantly saying "You had to train 4 times this week. It is Friday and you've only trained once. You'll have to train today, tomorrow and the day after to reach your weekly goal, otherwise you will have failed".

So after I cliked the "Start your Coach" blue button, the Coach told me what my two workouts for next week will be. I will be posting about them when they are done, but for now I'm just going to say that one of them is a well known old friend and the other one terrified me... until I realized it is a slightly simpler version of the WOD I knew from before the Coach, so I'm thinking now it's within my possibilities. I'm excited!!! Wish me luck and keep tuned for updates and more descriptions on the features of the coach!

Back In Training... with Aphrodite OF COURSE!

04-01-2015, 1/2 Aphrodite: *00:23:02

Well, I just couldn't start blabbing about the coach being on sale and all these New Year Resolutions without actually doing something about it, could I? I have to #trainforit !

I decided I'd start this new year going back to basics, starting once again with the very first Freeletics WOD I ever did; APHRODITE. It's been forever since I last trained, and it showed. We're in full summer here in Chile and on Sunday (when I trained) it was 36°C. I don't deal very well with the heat, so that was an extra difficulty added to my evident lack of fitness...  I was pouring sweat like crazy, completely out of breath and struggling with on and off dizziness. I had to stop and catch my breath a couple of times; then I decided it was not wise for me to go past the 40 rep series, and I'm glad I made that decision. It's still mentally tough to leave a WOD unfinished, but I figured an unfinished WOD is better than no WOD at all.

The 50 + 40 Burpees, Squats and Sit Ups took their toll on me. I was exhausted. Yesterday I woke up a little sore in my quads and pecs. I had a soccer match last night and it was a little hard to begin moving during the warm up because my legs were hurting a lot. I stretched and massaged a little when I got home afterwards... But today I'm feeling even more in pain, adding the triceps to the list. As usual, the worse comes 48 h after the WOD.

DAMN I needed to workout! I'm re-activating my coach and I'll start training more consistently again. This is it. I'm getting back on the horse.

New Year Resolutions (30% discount!) #NoExcuses

Hello everybody!!! It's been a while since my last post, but contrary to what you could think, I'm still alive and kicking. First and foremost I want to wish to all of you an excellent 2015. May this year be filled with compassion, happiness, love and satisfaction in all aspects of your life.

Today I want to talk very quickly about the infamous "New Year Resolutions". Weather we admit it (to ourselves and/or to others) or not, I think we all do some sort or variation of a new year resolutions list. It's impossible not to think about the good and the bad of year that has passed, and at some point of new year's eve we find ourselves wishing for better things for the following year. I really don't know what it is about the arbitrary beginning of a new year that makes us suddenly hyper-motivated to do all things we have been putting off during the year... but hey, better at new year than never! 

Often (always, if I dare say) the list has some sort of "get in shape" or "do more exercise" or "re-start playing sports" in it. In my case, that wish was more in the lines of "re-start (yes, again) the Freeletics Coach Program (AND FINISH IT once and for all...)". To contribute to all those fitness resolutions the Freeletics Team has decided to release once again a New Year's discount -and we are all grateful for it!- This time it's 30% off during all January on the Freeletics Coach using the coupon code: noexcuses

And for those of you who already have the coach, well, you can get2 free bonus weeks . All you have to do is click on this link and share one of the campaign videos on Facebook. Just by sharing one video, 2 free bonus weeks will be added in February to your Coach!!!

Let's all start together a great 2015, filled with burpees, muscle soreness and getting in the best shape of our lives!

(Posts on my actual progress will be coming soon -I hope-)