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…

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.

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...

#OntoTheNextOne 

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 Pikes, Hand 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,

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!

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 workout. My 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!

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.