Coach W12D3 - Atlas (Standard)

 Atlas (S), 00:31:52 

Last training session of Week 12, and it's a workout I've never done before: ATLAS. In Greek mythology, Atlas was one of the Titans that rebelled and fought against the Olympians. After loosing the battle, Zeus punished Atlas by having him stand on the western edge of the Earth (Gaia) and hold up the heavens over his shoulders for eternity. That way he was kept apart from his brother Menoetius who was condemned to the tartarus. Atlas has been long time misrepresented as holding Gaia over his shoulders, when the myth clearly states that he is holding the heavens... The thing is, how do you represent the heavens? It's certainly easier to make a painting or a statue of Atlas holding the Earth!

Did Atlas, the workout, feel like I had to carry the weight of the heavens over my shoulders? Not really, but it is certainly was a complex workout, involving 6 different exercises which pretty much had me doing a bit of everything.

The workout starts off with a 2 km run. On Sundays the large avenue in front of my apartment is closed from 9 AM to 2 PM and everybody goes out to run, ride their bikes, roller skate, walk their dogs etc. I measured the distance online and I managed to run up 1 km and down 1 km the closed street, and finish in around 12 minutes.  I hate running so I think it's a decent time, but it can most certainly be improved. After that, I got back into the apartment and went on with Squats, Burpees, Climbers, Leg Levers (which are supposed to be straight but I had to do Hand Helped so, no star) and finally Jumps. Overall it went smoothly, up until the Leg Levers which put me a bit in a bad mood because I see and feel the limitation of still not being able to do them straight. I'm working on it though, that's what's most important I guess... My psoas suffers tremendously during the Leg Levers  so,  having to jump afterward is a BIG challenge.

Coach W12D2 - 3x Metis (Standard)

     3x  Metis (S), *:00:32:15 PB!!! 

Second training day of the week, second day of training in a row. Wednesday is Metis day, again! Except this time it's the standard version, three times. After doing the strength version yesterday, standard Metis seems much more friendly. It's just Burpees, Climbers (although Froggers seem more easy to me for some reason), and Jumps - knees at least at hip level, I'm not confused anymore -. I find it amazing to see how mental perception changes completely the way I approach and engage the workout. I was excited and sure I'd perform great. Quite different from what I was feeling the prior week!

I went at it full power. As I always say, when you know well what you're up against, everything seems easier. I guess in a way it's like the saying "practice makes perfect". Having done roughly the same movements the day before helped tremendously. I knew exactly how to tackle Metis. I took short breaks when I absolutely needed them. I pushed hard, both physically and mentally. Again I had some trouble breathing although it seemed a bit less than the day before. I think that's because strength workouts in general are way more metabolic than the standard workouts, so It's only natural I'd have to breathe heavier on a strength workout than on a standard one. My having EIB (Exercise-Induced Bronchospasm) theory is gaining evidence rapidly, so a few more times and I guess I'll have to check with a MD. EIB or no EIB, I had done this exact workout about a month ago, and I improved my time by almost 12,5 minutes! I'm really pleased to have made such a big time jump. Maybe I don't have a sixpack yet, but I'm definitely fitter -numbers don't lie-. I also feel there's plenty of room to improve even more, so my next goal with this one is going to be dropping the time below the 30 min mark. Totally doable, don't you think?

Coach W12D1 - 2x Metis (Strength)

 2x Metis (X), 00:35:57  

I decided to pull the plug on W11 without completing all the workouts the Coach had assigned for me, and move on to W12. I left pending some loose exercises: 2x 100 burpees, 2x 25 High Jumps and 50 Squats, and also a whole WOD; Apollon. I trained on Sunday, Monday and Wednesday, so I had the whole weekend to complete the missing exercises. The thing is, I went again (see here for the first trip story) on a weekend trip to the countryside, this time with both my parents and my GF. I asked permission from my boss to miss Friday and she said I just had to pay back the missing hours by staying late all week, so that was cool. We left on Friday morning and I drove around 4,5 hours to get to the countryside. We had lunch at my dad's cousin's farm and then went on a quest to buy local honey, which took another couple of hours. My parents stayed at the countryside while me and my GF drove another hour or so to Pichilemu (the beach). I was not going to miss the chance to take my third surfing lesson, being that close, right?! On Friday night I was extremely tired from the trip and all the hours driving, so I was not about to begin training. 

On Saturday morning we went to a beach called Punta de Lobos, which is a 10 minute drive from Pichilemu. That beach is considered one of the best in Chile for surfing, and they often organize championships there. I decided  while I take my lessons I might as well try out different beaches, so I took a 1 h private surfing lesson there with Kotaro-san, a Japanese surfer who's living 2,5 years in Chile. He turned out to be a great teacher and we got along super well. I had a blast in the water and learned quite a bit from him! My surfing skills are improving every time I get on the board, which makes me very happy. The waves and currents at Punta de Lobos are a lot stronger than in any of the other places I've surfed before, so it was much more physically demanding than other times (also a bit scarier). I had some lunch, took a little nap and then went back in the water for another hour or so of solo practice. During my lesson in the morning we were a handful of people in the water. The day was gorgeous and when I got back to the beach around 5 or 6 PM there were surfers everywhere. It turned out to be a not-so-good first solo experience. I had to jump at least 5 times from my board to avoid collisions, mainly with some of the younger surfers out there. There was a group of 4 or 6 kids, around 14 years old, who jumped in at any wave and didn't look much in front of them until they were coming straight at you, full speed... Also the tide was very high so the waves were even bigger than in the morning and the currents stronger. Note to self: until I get really good, only surf in the mornings and avoid the crowds...

After all that time in the water I was of course exhausted, so I didn't train on Saturday either.I woke up on Sunday morning with a few bruises in my hips from the board, and with very sore biceps. We slept in a little bit, packed our bags, and drove 1 h to the countryside to have lunch and pick-up my parents. Then I drove another 4,5 hours back to the city. You can imagine the last thing I wanted to do when I finally got home was to train. Monday came along and to be honest I just didn't want to stay stuck on W11 any longer, so I told the Coach the week had been too hard, and that I just wanted 3 training sessions on W12. I'll try my best to do the missing exercises at some point during the following weeks, but for the time being, it is new week time.

The first training session was 2x Metis, strength version. That meant Burpee Squat Jumps, Froggers and High Jumps, which I did with a smile on my face on Tuesday night, well rested and ready for the action. I've been struggling a lot with my breathing and heart rate lately. I know I should be taking paced, deep breaths, but I can't physically do it for a long period of time. With the higher intensity training sessions, I've been noticing that my lungs get obstructed, just as when you have bronchitis. My airway tightens up and I have to cough several times to "loosen-up" and "make room" for the air to come in. With all the coughing and shallow breathing, my heart rate goes up the roof a that of course slows me down (and is not fun). I've never suffered from asthma, but I've been researching a condition called Exercise-Induced Bronchocospasm (EIB), which fits perfectly with all my symptoms and conditions (you can read for free a short but complete paper on the subject of the American Family Physician's here, remember I'm a Biochemist!). If things continue this way I might be paying a visit to a MD soon and ask for a pulmonary function test coupled with an appropriate exercise challenge to see if maybe I need to take some bronchodialator drug prior working out... We'll see. In the meaning time, I messed up the high jumps again, so no star for me, and I did well but not great time-wise.

Funny thing is, the Coach instructions this week were finger-on my problem: 

Week 12! This week it is time to work on your breathing. With the right breathing you can increase your performance. The higher the intensity, the shallower you will breathe. Make sure to switch smartly from shallow breathing to deep and steady breathing and the other way around depending on the intensity of the exercises. The goal of the week is to set at least one new PB using a smarter breathing technique.

Coach W11D3 - 4/6 Kentauros (Strength) + 2x 100 Squats + 100 Burpees

 4/6 Kentauros (X): 00:29:10 

 100 squats: *00:05:23 

100 burpees: *00:14:59 

100 squats : *00:04:29 (PB!)

After training two days in a row, I rested on Tuesday. Wednesday came along and with it, my third training day of week 11. I was determined to face and beat down the mental challenge this week has put me trough, and what better way to do it than with my good old friend Kentauros. I was scared when I saw the programming (Kentauros, strength version + 2x 100 Squats + 2x 100 Burpees), but having learned from the experience of the previous days, I didn't let that get into my head. I decided ahead of time I would, at the very least, do one set of Squats and one set of Burpees after the WOD, and I'd see how to go from there.

Even if it's just 4/6, it's the strength version of Kentauros I'm dealing with. I suffered miserably with the standard version until not too long ago, so I was both excited and scared to see the challenge rise, and to test myself once again. The modifications from standard to strength are subtle but meaningful; Burpee Frogs become Burpee DEEP Frogs (BDFs) and Jumps become HIGH Jumps (HJ). These seemingly little changes mean putting in tons of extra energy to be able to jump from a low squat position, landing accordingly (in case of the Burpee Deep Frogs) and higher, raising the knees to touch the shoulders and not only to hip level (in case of the High Jumps). As you can see from the picture, I was pouring buckets of sweat by the end of it.  I think  this is THE training session I have sweated the most, ever. I had never before seen drops of sweat run down my hair and fall in my shouders, back, neck, floor...

Overall I felt absolutely great. Pumped, motivated, happy to see my mind and body perform at unison. I think it helps tremendously to know the workout well. I know how and when to pace myself, when to speed up, when it's wise to rest a bit, when I can push harder. I'm extremely happy that I finished below the 30 minute mark, and I'm looking forward to repeating this WOD in the near future. I feel I have it in me to drop that time down a bit!. Just waiting for the Coach to give me that chance again. I feel much stronger; the BDFs were not that big of a challenge as I thought they would be. I actually struggled a lot more with raising the knees high enough during the High Jumps! *edition: while writing this, I realized I actually did Jumps and not High Jumps (so I removed the star I had first awarded me) because I started the workout with the confusion of how high the knees had to go in HJ. To be fair, I think if I had "known" (I did know but I was confused) I had to touch my shoulders with my knees, I probably would not have been able to do it in all reps or if I did, my time would have been significantly higher. So there it is. I was all happy about the time with a star, but hey, next time there will be no confusions and I'll hit that workout hard.

After hydrating myself and catching my breath for a little bit (about 3 min rest) I went in for the first 100 Squats. The most squats I've had to do in a row before is 50, during the first round of Aphrodite. I thought twice as many was completely doable, and it was. I had to break into series of 25-ish and rest for a couple of seconds in between sets (rest = kick the air to move around my quads and take deep breaths). I'm hoping to get soon to the point were I don't stop. I thought I'd be under 5 minutes, and I was close. One very interesting thing I noticed is, when I got around the 80th Squat, I felt some sort of smooth warmth expand in my quads, and pressure/pain release. I suddenly felt like I could keep on squatting for a long time. I think it may have been the same thing that happens when you jog; you suffer and suffer and then you reach a certain point, well into your run, when suddenly you feel like you could keep on going for hours. 

I took another break (around 5 minutes) walking around, stretching my quads a bit and drinking some water. Without thinking too much about things, I dropped to the floor to start doing the 100 burpees. If I let myself meditate long enough on what's coming ahead, that's when my mind tricks me into thinking I cannot do it. I didn't give my mind enough time, and it was a good decision. I have calculated before that my current burpee rate is 10 per minute, so I thought It would take me 10 minutes to do the 100 burpees. That calculus did not take into consideration having done 4/6 strength Kentauros and 100 squats before, so of course it took me 50% longer than anticipated to finish! The truth is, I was still thrilled. I had beaten my mind. I had done all 100 burpees, for the first time (just like with the squats, I had never done more than 50 in a row before), even when I was exhausted and pouring and pouring buckets of sweat. I WON. And it was an amazing feeling.

Just when I was doing my last 20 burpees or so, my GF arrived home from her CrossFit class. She saw me struggling a bit and cheered me on. Then, when I finished, she asked if that was my last round and I told her I was supposed to do 100 more squats and 100 more burpees, but that I thought I didn't have it in me to complete that. She said to me "I know you can do it, at least you can do the squats, so come on, I'll squat with you". Getting that support and encouragement from her was the biggest achievement of that training session. I cannot begin to describe how happy it makes me to see these changes in her, wanting to exercise, to get fitter, healthier, to the point where she'll do 100 squats after having done CrossFit, just to accompany me. She pushed me because I needed to be pushed, and it payed off. I got below the 5 minutes, as I had wanted to do in the first attempt. I set a new PB, when I thought I couldn't squat anymore. 

The only thing missing, to have had an absolutely mind blowing successful day, was the last 100 burpees. After the liters and liters of sweat, I really didn't think I could handle another 15 to 20 minutes doing burpees. In total I was already training for around 1 h, and it felt like if I kept pushing that hard, it might have been detrimental. So I made that decision, I don't know if it was 100% honest or if some mental weakness was there too but that was it. My first really real Hell Day, almost done 100%, with great achievements and even a PB. What an amazing day!

Push your limits

Coach W11D2 - Dione (Standard) // The REAL Hell Week

 Dione (S), 00:48:36 

Since this is, for me, THE REAL HELL WEEK, I figured I'd train as much as I can while I can. Therefore, my general planning of letting one rest day in between training sessions went to the freezer and I decided to attack day 2 on Monday after work. I was hoping to have a nice and "easy" workout to bounce back and regain some confidence after the previous night Gaia's mental debacle. The Coach said on day 2 I had to do standard Dione + 100 burpees + 2 x 25 High Jumps + 50 squats. Just reading that long list made me tired... It sounded like a lot, and I attacked Dione with that in the back of my mind. 

I was surprisingly only mildly sore. I thought after almost 1 h of Gaia, I'd be crushed. However no pain did not mean no tiredness. My muscles were noticeably lazy, I was slower than usual and I had to struggle with some movements. It actually took me  +12 mins than my PB to finish the WOD!!! Dione is basically tons of Jumping Jacks and Burpees + Ab exercises (Sit ups and Leg Levers). I still have a rough time with the Leg Levers because my lower back bends if I don't put my hands below my butt. So, once again, no star for me! I still need to develop more ab strength to be able to really move my legs up and down while keeping by back tight and touching the floor. #WorkForIt. I feel like my legs are super heavy and I just can't hold them in place without bending my spine (which of course, makes my lower back hurt a lot, and that's not smart!).

The other thing I noticed this time around is that I woke up the next day with very tight and sore calves, particularly the left one. About a month and a half ago I received a big kick in my left calf during a soccer match and after that I've felt like that leg is still not back to normal. I took care of it after the blow, but it seems it was not enough. It's like the muscle is much more ready to cramp when the one on my right leg is still OK. And today, after all the Jumping Jacks, I'm still noticing that difference; left calve is very tight, has knots all over and hurts when I stand on the tip of my toes, while the right one is just a bit tight. I'm massaging it and stretching thoroughly to make it go away fast.

I was sweating and feeling very tired after Dione so I didn't do any the loose exercises. I thought to myself I'd leave them for an extra training day with just loose exercises. Looking in retrospective, of course I should have done them, but its easy to say that now. In that moment, I was once again weak. I'm absolutely convinced that if I had rested 3 minute I would have been able to do the loose exercises physically. It all comes down, yet again to a mental thing. Freeletics is testing me both physically and mentally, and this particular week it's definitely more a mental challenge than a physical one. So far, I'm not doing all that well... Guess I have found my biggest weakness!

Coach W11D1 - 8/10 Gaia (Strength) // The REAL Hell Week

 8/10 Gaia (X), 00:58:39 

I had planned to do week 10 the last week of February, when I still had soccer, so I only asked for two WODs that week. I ended up postponing W10 to the following week (when soccer was over) so I trained on Monday and Wednesday and was ready for more right away. I thought I'd ask for four training days on week 11, to "compensate".

Remember how the coach asks how hard was your week of training? Well, since on W10 I did one of the best times I've ever done in Aphrodite, broke my PB in Venus and wasn't sore or even tired, I had the brilliant idea to tell the coach W10 had been "Way too easy". V-E-R-Y bad idea. When I saw the programming, I knew right away this was going to be a real Hell Week. I think this is one thing the Coach could be improved on. There are three options to "the level of difficulty for this week was...": WAY too easy, Hard but OK or WAY to hard. Its either all or nothing. Sometimes its just "somewhat easy/hard" but there's no way to tell the Coach that. Sometimes you just want to step it up a bit, but you get Hell Weeks...

I was up to the challenge, feeling confident I could survive this week. Along came Friday and I had to do Apollon (Standard), a nice WOD I have done twice I think, a looong time ago, which includes 400 m runs. Since I've moved to the apartment "in the city" I no longer can do runs as easy as I did at my parents', so I decided to go to a nearby park I had set my eye on and do it there. Here's a confession: I hate having to go out to workout. One of the things I like the most about Freeletics is the fact that I can train at 11 PM in the comfort of my living room. That being said, I know I have to go out for the runs (and also to find a Pull Up bar, which I still haven't!). I used the free run feature on the app to jog my way to the park as a warm-up. Now I know the park entry is located exactly 1 km away from the apartment; it took me 6 minutes 5 seconds to get there. I got in and started to look around to find a spot were I could settle up, do my burpees and squats and measure off the 400 m I needed to run. As it was Friday afternoon-nightish youngsters were messing around, drinking beer, smoking weed, doing slackline between the trees etc. Adults were letting their dogs run around and kids were playing on the games and sand boxes. Me, I couldn't find a decent spot were I could train at ease. Everywhere I looked I would have had to avoid dogs running over me while on the ground or inhale weed smoke. Nobody was exercising in that park! I felt really uncomfortable and out of place, so I went back to the apartment and I didn't do Apollon that day. I actually didn't do anything because my plan hadn't worked out and I was feeling really frustrated...

Along came Sunday and I went to my parents'. I brought along my sport shoes and everything, but I couldn't find the time to train. When I got back to the apartment at night I was feeling pissed, starting to consider to abort W11 altogether. In an impulse I said "f**ck it, I'm training right here, right now", so I looked at the app, skipped Apollon and went straight to the last training session the Coach had planned for me: 8/10 of Gaia, Strength version. Gaia is one of the Greek Primordial Deities, and is the personification of the Earth, the "great mother of all". According to Wikipedia (great source, right?), she was the creator of the Earth and all the Universe, and gave birth to all the Heavenly Gods, the Titans and the Giants. So, why did I jump to the almighty mother of everything and not the second or third training sessions? Well, because second and third are WOD + 4 heavy loose exercises (eg. 2 x 100 burpees + 2 x 100 squats) and I thought that would be too much to start. 

This was my very first time doing Gaia, and the strength version has Jumping Jacks, High Jumps, Froggers and Standup Jumps on it. I had never even done standups before (the escalated version of standup jumps) and I quickly learned I couldn't do them. I just physically couldn't break gravity if I did not use my hands a bit... just a tiny little push, but meaningful enough to make me feel extremely disappointed. As a good strength WOD, Gaia is highly metabolic work, very intense. I was pouring buckets of sweat and breathing heavy almost right away. I had a super tough time, mentally. Every rep was a struggle. I was already coming in discouraged and low on motivation with all the hustle to begin W11, and finding out I couldn't do standups, which seem fairly easy on the videos I must say, was too much. After the 4th round, when I was halfway done, I took a bathroom break; something I had never ever done before. The clock continued to tick, and I just sat on the toilet, arguing with myself, not wanting to go back. I was training in the living room while my GF was cooking. She was cheering me on, and clicking in the app when I was done with each set. I got back after 3 or 4 minutes and I told her "that's it, this is too much, I'm done for today". She wouldn't let me. We argued for about 40 seconds and for some mysterious reason, I just started moving, doing jumping jacks again. She pulled out the strength I had inside me to finish, and I love her even more for that <3.

At that point I thought that a long, slow WOD, using the help of my hands to stand up, was better than no WOD at all, so I kept pushing. Slow but steady, I didn't care about my time anymore (with the bathroom break it was all messed up anyways), I just cared about getting to the end. And eventually I did finished it, and it was a great victory. Maybe it was not the best physical workout I'd ever done, but it sure was one of the hardest mental workouts I've ever done.

There is no success without hard work.

~WE NEVER QUIT~

Coach W10D2 - Venus (Standard)

 Venus (S), 00:23:57 PB!!! 

Second training day of week 10. I was all pumped with the results of Aphrodite (the first WOD of this week) so I wanted to try and beat my Venus PB. I did this workout while being at the beach a week ago, so I had it fresh in my memory how it was like. I knew the push-ups were (are) my weak point so my strategy was to gain time with the squats and the situps.

I think I wasn't still fully recovered from Aphrodite because I had a bit of a hard time with the squats. My quads felt tired and sort of "lazy" right away and I had to break the first series of 50 into 5 x 10 reps (when I usually can pull a 20 - 15 -15 or a 25 - 25). The sensation got better with each round but it was never completely gone. Sit ups went by with no effort, but as I anticipated, the push ups were the killers. I can do some strict push ups, but certainly not 50 of them... 4 times. I actually suffer doing 50 knee push ups so you can imagine. I set myself the following mental schedule: do 5, take 2 breaths still in push up position, do 5 more and rest my arms (lying on the floor) for 5 breaths (10 breaths max when I'm dying). Its sort of breaking the push ups into 5 x 10 reps. When I write it and read it it sounds lazy as f**k, but its what I have to do in order to finish the WOD. Its a personal goal of mine to improve substantially my upper body strength. 

With all that strategy I did manage to lower my time and get a new PB. Still no star, but I'll #trainforit

Coach W10D1 - Aphrodite (Standard)

 Aphrodite (S): *00:31:32 

I got back from the beach to spend my last holiday week in the city. In my absence, the summer soccer team I'm playing in won and managed to get to the semi-finals, which we played and won on Tuesday 24 (February). We then played the final on Thursday 26. We knew from the start it was going to be an extremely hard game. The team we played against had 3 (semi)professional players on it. Unfortunately this particular summer amateur league allows a maximum of 3 pros per team, so it was all according to the rules... It was a tough game, and we evidently took quite a beating (can't remember the score but it was something like 8-0). We lost the game but were proud because we were the best non-pro team there. 

In other news, according to my "tradition", once I go into soccer break I try to donate blood, that way I can be well recovered once the matches start again. I did that first thing on Friday because I hadn't donated for a wile. I'm young, I'm healthy, I'm not afraid of needles; there's no reason why I shouldn't donate so I try to do it at least once a year (ideally two). You never know in life when you're going to end up needing a hand back of any sort...

With the two very important games and the blood draw I ended up not training that week at all, so I pushed off week #10. I know I shouldn't have, but it was just what I had to do; it allowed me a couple of days to recover well. I got back to work (*sad face*) on Monday, March 2nd and did my first week 10 training session that same night. It was good old Aphrodite!

I used to "hate" Aphrodite but now I cherish every time I have to do this workout because I'm very familiar with it, I know well when I can push harder, when I'm slacking off and I think it's the best workout for me to see improvements from time to time. I was feeling very good and motivated. I took very few and short breaks during the burpees. I usually "need" to lay around to catch my breath every 10 reps or so. I'm realizing more and more it's a mental thing rather than an actual physical need... This time, I flew, and it showed! In two weeks I lowered my time in about 4 minutes and I'm getting closer and closer to my old PB (the one I have my doubts about...). It took me a while, but it feels damn great to be here again!!! #trainforit