Saturday, February 28, 2015

Coach Week 9 - all Standard WODs @ the beach

 Day 1, Kentauros (S): *00:44:40  PB!!! 
 Day 2, Venus (S): 00:27:02 PB!!! 
 Day 3, 2x Metis (S): *00:21:54 
100 m sprint: 00:00:20
100 m sprint: 00:00:19

I took one week vacation at the beach with my GF from the 16 to the 23 of February. I had planned on training three times during that week, and I did! I'm very proud of that because I (we) have a bad record... Usually when we go to the beach, we go into hibernating mode and we just lay around on our PJs, watch TV or series/movies in the computer and cook and eat yummy-but-not-so-healthy foods (and we eat A LOT). This time it was a bit different; it's the first time we've been on vacation since she has started doing CrossFit. It makes a big difference to be with someone who also wants to be healthy and exercise as much as you do. Since she was going to miss her classes that week, we trained together on days 1 and 2, and then she cheered for me on my third training day, which I performed in the sand. It helped a lot, having someone else motivated to train alongside me or push/cheer for me. If she had stay in bed, it would have been so much harder for me to go out and train on my own! We still laid around the other days, but it felt like a much more balanced vacation week.

The first day, I had to do standard Kentauros. In the meaning time my GF did some loose exercises. It was amazing to get a PB on Kentauros, but more importantly, not to suffer throughout the workout as I usually did. The feeling of finally conquering this WOD, that has made me suffer so much in the past, is indescribable. I was genuinely happy and proud. I still remember the first time I did Kentauros, when I couldn't finish it and ended up taking around 40 minutes to do half of the repetitions (and all that went along with me quitting...) and then the second time I did it, when I managed to do all the rounds in over 1h 15 mins!!! Now I'm doing it all, with a star, in under 45 mins... WOoooHOW!!!

The second day I did standard Venus alongside my GF. It was the first time she did the exact same WOD as me, at the same time, and it was a great. I still have a huge lack of upper-body strength (I definitely need to work on that) and therefore I'm still unable to do all the push-ups strict. I also got a PB here, which is nice, but no star. I think I still have a long way to get to the strict push ups. It discourages me sometimes not to be able to do strict pistols or push ups or pull ups, but I see the small improvements after every workout and I have to keep reminding myself things don't happen overnight and to get results, I just have to keep on working hard, consistently.



The third and last day of training we went to a lovely beach that is not suitable for swimming and where, therefore, there's just a few people here and there. It was a nice sunny morning and I did 2x Metis. Let me tell you, doing burpees and high jumps in the sand is NOT easy. Besides the added resistance, the ground is uneven and when you are constantly landing on the same spots you start digging holes that only make things worse. Also the sand sticks to your sweat so... You can imagine. It was a nice challenge and a good change of scenario though #TheWorldIsMyGym. After Metis I had to do two 100 m sprints. This was my first time running with the new coach, and I was worried about how to measure the distance. It turns out, the Coach can use GPS and measure it for you. I just had to sprint holding my phone and I would get an alert when I passed the 100 meters. It is pretty accurate, so I'm very pleased about that. Also, I improved my time by a second from the first to the second repetition, and all this in the sand so I think I'll certainly get a PB when I do this again, on a more even surface. Overall it was a great experience and a nice training day, perfect to end my fitness summer vacation.

Monday, February 16, 2015

Coach W8D2 - Metis (Strength) + loose exercises

 Metis (X), *00:18:48 (PB) 
Loose Exercises (PBs)

The second and last day of training of week #8 was a special feature. Good old Metis –but the strength version, which I’m doing for the first time- plus some loose exercises: 10 pushups, 25 squats, 50 situps and 10 Froggers (also the first time I have to do loose exercises to complement a WOD… if I recall correctly).

I could “hear” the Coach saying: “You’ve got Burpees under control? That’s cute; let’s try Burpee Squat Jumps (BSJs) then!” The strength version of Metis has BSJs instead of regular Burpees, Froggers instead of Climbers and High Jumps instead of Jumps; all nice little changes to push you a bit further –and you can feel those little things add up and matter a ton!  BSJs start like regular burpees but when you go from the ground forward and up you have to first get in a squatting position with the hips below the knees and from there perform a high jump (knees above hip line) instead of the usual small jump forward and up. It was a bit challenging to modify the movement pattern I’m already used to, but once I did a few reps and got the hang of it was good.  I got tired a lot faster than with regular burpees though because, let’s face it, during regular burpees I jump just high enough to make both feet lift the ground but not any higher to save as much energy as possible.  I liked the strength version of Metis. Doing Froggers is easier for me than Climbers. I always struggle with the Climbers, keeping the hips below the knees and the shoulders, hips and knees aligned while moving one feet forzard, then the other…  I think the problem there is that I’m still short on strength in my upper body and core so I can’t keep everything tight. Jumping forward with both feet made things simpler. Also I was already doing pretty high jumps during standard Metis, so nothing much changed there. The only thing I can point out is that I think I performed particularly slowly. The adjustment to the BSJs was very noticeable and I stopped to catch my breath probably more often and for longer periods of time than I really needed to. Lately I’ve been feeling this a lot, like I’m giving in to what my mind says more than what my body says. I felt it during Aphrodite (the previous WOD) too, like physically I could have gone faster but for some (mental) reason I just didn’t. I’m going to pay more attention to that in the next WODs, to make sure I’m pushing myself into giving my all at every rep.



I did this WOD at 8 AM on a Monday, during my holidays, while my GF went to her CrossFit class because we were leaving –just the two of us- for 7 days to the beach afterwards. A lot of people train early in the morning on empty stomachs and I think that’s a terrible idea. I’m in the process of writing a post about nutrition on morning  training sessions, so there will be more explanations on why I think it’s a bad idea there. I’ve been wanting to try one of the recipes of the Nutrition Guide to make high protein snacks for these type of situations, because if you eat a whole breakfast you’d have to wait a couple of hours to digest before dropping to the floor.  In the meaning time, we bought commercial protein bars that provide 15 g of protein a piece. We ate those (they tasted a bit funny so we do not think on eating these regularly) with a small cup of coffee and then trained about a half an hour later. The coffee decided to pay me a little visit during the first round of burpees, but other than that it was all good. I didn’t feel hungry or fatigued, so it was a good call to eat that prior to the workout. After training my GF came back to the apartment and we ate a proper breakfast with fruits, a bit of bread with turkey breast and tea with milk.  Then OFF TO THE BEACH we were!

Saturday, February 14, 2015

Coach W8D1 - Aphrodite (Standard)

 Aphrodite (S), *00:36:23 


As I’ve told you on previous posts, I’m on summer holidays these weeks, so besides training and painting the apartment (which finally looks awesome), I’m also taking two short trips to the beach. Knowing I’d be away, I only programmed two training sessions for week #8 of my Cardio&Strength Coach. I did my last session of week #7 on Monday, had a soccer match on Tuesday night, went away from Wednesday morning until Friday night and trained on Saturday and Monday morning (I rested on Sunday, although I swam a bit in my parent’s pool that day…)

Along with my older sister and my girlfriend we accompanied my father for three days to Pichilemu and surroundings (about 210 kms South from Santiago).  By “surroundings” I mean the country side around 50 km inland, where the family of my father is originally from and where he likes going a few times a year, to visit some of the relatives he still has in the area and to buy locally harvested beans, lentils, honey and organic olive oil for the year. The thing is, given the reasonable distance to the beach we (or I) took the chance stay at Pichilemu, which is one of the best beaches in Chile to surf. If you’ve read some of my older posts, I took my first surfing lesson in October 2013 while on a trip to Ecuador with my sister, right around when I was starting Freeletics (click here). I had been wanting to surf again, but never did something about it. Thanks to my sister who pushed me on taking this little trip, I took my second lesson on Thursday (with a thicker wetsuit, ad hoc for these latitudes). I was expecting to be cold and/or to have forgotten what I had learned, but everything went smoothly, like riding a bike. It felt amazing to take this opportunity and surf again. It turns out I’m quite good at it and it makes me very happy to be able to catch a wave and stand on that board. I’m really thinking to maybe get into it a bit more seriously… we’ll see what the future holds.

When I got back to the city I quickly left the water behind and traded it for my dear friend Aphrodite.  I feel like I’ve been doing Aphrodite every week... well, #CoachKnows. We all came back quite tired from the trip, but I was expecting to improve my time. I felt right during the first 50 burpees that it was not going to be that easy. Maybe it was all the driving, or the sun and heat, or the surf lesson, but my arms felt heavy and lacking strength to push me up during the burpees. It actually took me 1 min 5 sec more to finish Aphrodite than during Hell Week… I know it’s not that much of a difference, but still it bothers me a bit. This made me think again about my PB of 27+ minutes. I accomplished that time when the Coach was not around and I had to keep track of what series I was doing and how many reps were there etc. Considering I feel similarly fit (if not fitter) than last year, I find it hard to believe that now it takes me more than 8 minutes more to finish Aphrodite compared to that PB. I think it’s very probable that I miscounted the reps or skipped a whole series that day… There’s no way to knowing for sure, so we’ll have to see if I can go down to 27 minutes any time soon to figure this mystery out. Other than the heavy arms, Aphrodite went smoothly. I feel my technique on the burpees is much better; I can jump back and forward with both feet much more lightly than before. I also have a good knowledge on where to break my series of squats to maximize my time. I think one of the weaknesses I should probably work on are situps because no matter how hard I try to speed up, they keep taking way longer than they should…

Monday, February 9, 2015

Coach W7D3 - Aphrodite (Standard) + 2/5 Kentauros (Standard) // HELL DAY 3

 Aphrodite (S), *00:35:18 
 2/6 Kentauros (S),*00:16:00 


Hell Day #3 has its name well deserved. Monday, and I was exhausted after finishing painting the apartment. I was feeling extremely lazy and did not want to train, let alone do two workouts. I went to my parent's house in the morning to help with some chores, and I had planned doing the 2/6 of standard Kentauros there; I have measured around the house the 20 meters I need for the lunge walks and burpee frogs. Then I would "rest" during the day and do Aphrodite at night in my apartment. Things and chores got in the way and I ended up not having enough time to train in the morning. When I got back to the apartment it was late and I was hungry, so I had to eat and then wait to digest until it was even later to begin training. I must confess that I have a little bit OCD and the fact that things didn't go the way I had originally planned set me off. I had little time, so if I wanted to finish Hell Day #3 in time (during Hell Week + 1 day considering the knee impasse) I was going to have to do Aphrodite and Kentauros in a row... That's quite the mental wall to overcome, so much that it sounded better not to even try and let the training for the following day.

I struggled for around an hour with myself, and I had to kick my own butt into starting Aphrodite. I remembered my favorite motivational phrase, the one that's on the header of this blog: "every accomplishment starts with the decision to try". So I made the decision, and I tried. When I finished the round of 50 reps I was feeling unwell and had some reflux (I waited almost 2 hours after eating, but still...). I started to get anguished I would throw up and the voice inside my head started asking: WHY THE F*CK ARE YOU DOING THIS IF YOU ARE TIRED AND FEEL SICK?! I really don't know what happened in that moment. I was about to quit, but I just didn't. I kept on going, slow but steady. I started thinking of other things, shutting the anguish down. One burpee led to the next, and before I knew it I had finished the round of 40 reps. From that point on, everything started feeling simpler and I completed Aphrodite with one of the best times I've had in a while. I cannot explain what actually happened, what pushed me to continue or gave me the strength to keep those burpees coming, but I'm glad it happened.

Aphrodite was gone and I was then faced with another tough decision. I could either do Kentauros right there -which sounded crazy given the circumstances and considering my past horror history with this workout-, or I could postpone just Kentauros for the morning after, consciously failing to follow the instructions from the coach that say all workouts form a given Hell Day must be performed during the course of one day. I was feeling so bad at the beginning of Aphrodite that the thought of Kentauros was horrifying, but then I felt good, and did a great time so I decided to stretch my luck and give Kentauros a try. I measured the hallway that goes in a straight line from the kitchen to the bedroom in the apartment, and it was 10 meters. I decided I'd do Kentauros right there, 4 x 10 meters instead of 2 x 20 meters. It was AMAZING. I've never felt better doing the burpee frogs. I think that having all the muscles warmed up and already worked out was actually in my favor. I didn't have to stop for rest or breath much, and by the end I was pouring sweat like crazy -I think the most sweat I've had in training ever-. Proportionally (2/6) it was also one of the best times I've ever done in Kentauros.

Overall, HELL DAY 3 had a bit of everything; tons of sweat, tears (not really, but almost), reflux, anguish, mental battles, strength, joy, pride... It turned out to be one of my best training sessions, and it ended up making me very proud and happy to finish both workouts with good times.  I consider this day definitely as an accomplishment, and it all started with the decision to try.

Saturday, February 7, 2015

Coach - W7D2 - Dione (Standard) + 1/5 Hyperion (Endurance) // HELL DAY 2

 Dione (S), 00:44:51 
 1/5 Hyperion (E), 00:03:44 

In my previous post I talked about how I had planned my training during Hell Week, taking into consideration I had soccer on Tuesday and Thursday. Hell Day #2 was supposed to be Friday but I had to postpone it until Saturday. The reason: during the first five minutes of my Thursday soccer match I stomped on the ball in an awkward play and bend my knee. It hurt but I kept playing because a) the game was just starting and b) I needed to test drive the knee. I managed to score 3 times in the following 15 minutes (to be fair, the other team was not good at all, we ended up wining 13 - 0) but since the pain wasn't going away I asked to be substituted. The league has a kinesiologist on the pitch who checked me out, ruled out a ligament injury -which was my main concern at that point- and "diagnosed" either a pulled calf muscle or tendon. Either way, he recommended rest and to apply heat if I was too tight or sore. I woke up on Friday and my knee was still hurting when I did some lateral movements and strength tests, so I decided it was wiser not to train. I took an over the counter anti inflammatory and got to work. With all the wall fixing and painting we're doing at the apartment I didn't rest per se, but the walking here and there, bending over, and standing on tip toes to reach the ceiling ended up being for the best because I woke up on Saturday with no pain and ready for freeletics.  

I had two workouts to do throughout this Hell Day. I started off with Dione (standard) which was still a bit hard but much better than on Monday. It actually took me 3 minutes less to finish so I was pleased to see such an improvement within the same week. I still had to do the Leg Levers Hand Helped, so no star. I think it will take me a couple hundred more HH Leg Levers before I can move on to the strict version. I guess it would be a good idea to practice that skill a bit on my free time...
The second workout of the day was 1/5 Hyperion (endurance). I had tried the standard version of Hyperion once just "for fun", so I did not record my time. Since doing only 1 out of 5 series of PikesHand Helped Squats and High Knees seemed like a short workout, I decided it was best if I did it at once, right after Dione with just a couple of minutes of rest. As you can see by my time, it was actually a very short workout, but don't be fooled, that does not make it easy AT ALL.

The Pikes are what set you up to failure here. They are the escalated version of Hand Stand Push Ups and since they are already escalated, seem very friendly and easy to do. Believe me, those things are way harder than they look, specially if you don't have any shoulder strength -like me-. The idea of the Pike is to start with your hands and feet touching the floor, with your butt up in the air and the knees and torso straight, at a 90° angle. Then you have to bend your arms while keeping the knees straight and the torso as straight as you can, and get your head to touch the floor. From that position, you have to push up to resume the starting position. Something like this:


I got to do two Pikes right, and felt confident about them, but from the third on I hit an unbreakable (for now) physical wall. If I got my head to touch the floor, I would just "fall" and get locked in that position and simply could not get my body up... unless I bend my knees a bit and sort of did a kipping-like movement to give me some momentum to get up. It felt really weird to see myself really unable to perform the movement at all. I still need developing more strength to get to do these harder movements right. Thanks to that improvisation, no star on Hyperion either! I did finish fast because I thought it was absolutely pointless to keep trying to do the pikes the right way after a couple of tries, so I ditched the star and moved on while "kipping". Overall it was a not-so-hellish Hell Day,

Monday, February 2, 2015

Coach W7D1 - Dione (Standard) - HELL DAY 1

 Dione, 00:47:29 

It's the beginning of a new week of training and I was thinking I'd ask the Coach for only two workouts this week (after I'd told him last week's intensity was a bit high). I have been invited to play a mini soccer league during the summer holidays (February) and I have matches on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so 2 days of soccer + 2 days of Freeletics seems about right. Well, SURPRISE! The Coach informs me I get HELL DAYS this week. That means I don't get to choose anything; I have to do 5 workouts in 3 training days, and with a smile. AWESOME!

The instructions say:
Hell Days! That means three training sessions in one week – with maximum volume! You don’t have to do all trainings of one session in a row. You can do them throughout your whole day. Everything is fine as long as you do all of them at one day. Take at least one day off after every Hell Day. 
Don’t be frightened and don’t accept the excuse that you have no time. For most of you, even the hardest and longest Freeletics workouts do not take as long as a regular gym visit. Of course, you will get weaker from training to training. Push through it. But make sure to maintain good form and to stay hydrated. Hell Days are mainly a mental challenge. Stay strong, even as your body gets tired. Accept the challenge and give it your all!
So here I am, looking at this red screen that reminds me it's going to be HELL, still wondering how on earth am I going to pull this off. Luckily I'm on vacation so at least I don't have to go to work on top of all this exercise, and I actually can train on a morning and evening session. On the down side, we're fixing the walls and painting the apartment we moved in, so I still got very busy days and I'm end-of-work-year"extreme makeover: the home edition" tired



I planed I'd train on Monday, Friday & Sunday + go to soccer on Tuesday & Thursday, and "rest" on Wednesday & Saturday... Considering I had trained on Sunday that means I'll be exercising 3 days in a row, then 2, then 1. What a week! I do accept the challenge, which I agree, is mainly mental, and I'll certainly give it my all. Wish me luck!

Hell Day #1 is only Dione. I did it in +12 minutes of my PB which is a big time difference. I felt my legs really tired from Sunday's 3x Metis debacle so that slowed me down quite a bit. I'm still incapable of doing the Straight Leg Levers (with the hands on the sides of the body) so I had to give up on the star and do them Hand Helped, putting my hands below my butt. I still have a long way to go, but I'll get there, hopefully sooner than later... Next session is Dione + 1/5 Hyperion. I doubt Dione will be any easier!

Sunday, February 1, 2015

Coach W6D3 - 3x Metis (Standard)

 3x Metis (S): *00:44:38 


February is here! Sunday = last training session of this week! I had done a fraction of Aphrodite on Thursday and now it was time for Metis... the standard version, three times! Yep, the "nice feature" of the coach that allows you to do partial workouts, also can make you do three times the same workout!!! Not liking the nice feature so much now, are we? 


I remembered Metis as a friendly and fast workoutMy previous PB was around 9 minutes so I multiplied that by 3 + a couple of extra minutes because of the added reps, and I thought I should finish up in around 30 minutes. Well, I'm certainly still not in good shape considering how far I was from that estimate. I finished the first Metis in 12 minutes, which was decent, but from then on, I suffered big time. I think I'm not breathing properly because with all that jumping up and down during the burpees and high jumps I started feeling really dizzy, like there was not enough oxygen going to my brain, and a couple of times I really felt like fainting. I had to stop, put my head between  my legs and take deep breaths to recover. I started noticing I was holing my breath a lot during the heavier "strength parts" of the movements, so I guess I was functioning anaerobically, which totally explains my dizziness... From now on I'm making more of a conscious effort to breathe a lot better throughout the workout so that this does not happen again.



My girlfriend did some exercises next to me and then decided to coach me a little. All this time I've trained alone and I never really get to see with perspective if I'm doing the exercises right, nor do I get somebody else's input on how my form is. She corrected my climbers saying my hips were not below my shoulder line at all times. She even put her hands at shoulder height to prevent me from raising the hips. I felt the climbers become harder immediately with that pointer! And I could have sworn I was doing them right... She also had some comments on my burpees, particularly on the landing of the jump forward. With all that, plus the hell I went through during the final series, she sort of forced me to tell the coach that this week's intensity was "far too high". I guess I think it was a little high (not "far too high") but the argument that  finally sold me into accepting that it was too high is that by the end I was so exhausted that I was loosing the form of the exercises... and we all know that form is more important than time so there's that. I'll be starting a new week with adjusted intensity!


PS: Before training my girlfriend and I did her CrossFit warm up, which included some crunches that looked easy but actually really hurt! After training we stretched out real good and then we went to my parent's house were swam a bit in the pool, which was at the lovely temperature of 28°C. OK, to be honest I didn't swam as much as I floated around, and it was awesome #SUMMER IS HERE!