W17, Community Partner, Sickness, Free Training and Pain

I'm not dead!!! (yet). I've just not been writing about my training... This past month I've been having a lot of trouble finding time to fit in 24 hours everything I need to do during a single day, 7 days a week, week after week after week. The blog has been one of the biggest casualties of this crazy period, and that does not make me happy. I actually apologize, to anybody who reads this, and also to myself for not stepping up. I'm doing my best to regain control of my life (that sounds sooo dramatic). This past Friday was a holiday so during the weekend we finally managed to clean and sort out the apartment, which was long due. I take this new order as a sign of better times coming.

About a month and a half ago, I was contacted by the guys of Freeletics Headquarters (in Germany) and was offered to step up my role as an affiliate, and become a Community Partner. It took very little thought for me: I said yes right away. Being a Community Partner means that I somehow "represent" Freeletics here in Chile, and one of my tasks is to set up public group training sessions so that we can reach more people and turn them into Free Athletes. I've set up a Facebook Group where I publish as an event where and when we will get together and train. At first I started training with colleagues and friends, but slowly I'm reaching out to more people. The group will be listed in the "Community / Groups" tab of the Freeletics page and I hope that will draw more people to our training sessions. So far it has been an interesting experience for me, going from training completely on my own to training with 2 to 6 more people (for now), explaining to others how to do exercises correctly and so on.

I'm currently in week 17 of my Coach, and I've been stuck in W17 for about twenty days. Everything was going great at the beginning; I actually got a PB on Aphrodite, which made me hyper mega happy!!! It has been a very long time goal of mine to lower that time. Aphrodite is and will remain my "key" workout, and I was aiming to get below the 27 minute mark I had established more than a year ago, back when I was training harder.

That night I even got some of the guys of my group to come and train with me in a public square near my house... But then I had to pause midway through the week because I got sick. I got a sinusitis which then turned into bronchitis. I had to take antibiotics for ten days, and it took me a little over two weeks to feel completely normal again. The first week I was feeling so bad that training was the last thing in my mind, but then the second week, as I was 50 - 70% recovered, I just wanted to do something! Once your body gets used to exercising a certain amount of hours per week, you really feel the urge to move when you have been standing still for too long. During those days I red this interesting post on the Freeletics Knowledge Center called "Exercising and illness: when excuses are allowed" that talked about sickness and exercise and how it was recommended that if you had taken antibiotics for X days you should wait another X days after finishing the therapy before resuming your training...

I was not going to stand still another ten days, but I was very cautious and waited until I felt really recovered before I re-started training. The problem is that the Coach said I had to do Atlas, and getting off of a bronchitis I was not feeling well enough to run those 2 kms in the autumn cold. I decided to keep the Coach on standby and do some free workouts with a little less cardio involved. With my crew being composed of guys who are trying out Freeletics and still haven't purchased their coaches, I only make them do exercises that are for free en in Freeletics App... so two weekends ago we did Venus, and I actually got a PB which surprised me tremendously,  coming out of my illness!!! After that, during the week I did Dione which felt harder and made me feel like a turtle. Hopefully I will regain my speed fast.

This Saturday I changed the usual training spot of my group for a park that I had seen that had a cool set of bars so that we could start incorporating Pull-Ups and such into our training. I'm not strong enough to do strict nor kipping Pull-Ups, but I can do some negatives (jumping P.Ups) and I'm convinced that the only way to get better at any particular exercise is practicing over and over again, each time with a little more difficulty added. That being said, we did Zeus, and it was brutal. One of the guys turned all white after round one and had to lay down for more than 5 minutes to recover... He only finished two of the four rounds. I was the only one doing jumping Pull-Ups (I had to lead by example, right?) and it was absolutely way too much.

With Freeletics I've learned to push myself, and three times I've pushed beyond my limits. Back in 2013, when I first started training, I remember I could not walk for three days after doing some Leg Levers, and then I also had an incident with my first Pull-Ups (see this post). The third time I've pushed too far was this Saturday. Finishing Zeus was hard, with all the Pikes, Pull-Ups and Push-Ups (Situps and Squats were my happy resting time). Afterwards I felt my arms extremely tired and tingly, so I knew muscle pain was coming my way. I ate protein and stretched well. On Sunday I had some pain, but it was manageable... But yesterday and today have been excruciating. I can't take off my T-shirt or put on a coat without help. Carrying my backpack and putting it over my shoulder has been awful. I feel that my biceps are "swollen", I can't bend or extend my arms all the way... At some point, I even started to worry about Rhabdomyolysis, but as I am very well informed about it (you should be too, and if you are not, please read this) I know I don't have any of the systemic signs. I'm keeping well hydrated and keeping an eye for any indicator of kidney damage...

That being said. It was too much. I am a T-Rex. I'll re-start doing Pull Ups but I think I'll take it down a notch :D.

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!

Cardio&Strength - W2D4

 Sit Up MAX: *119 (in 300 sec) 

 Sit Up MAX: *110 (in 300 sec) 

So, today I had a nice an easy workout to do. I went out for a light run first and then did two Sit Up Maxes in a row. In general I don't like it when I have to do two times the same kind of exercise, only because I know by the second time I'll be tired and I'll perform less well... And who wants to perform poorly?! Today was no exception,  but I think it's quite decent to only have done 9 repetitions less the second time around! 10 minutes of sit ups... sounds like a lot but it really isn't! I did stretch and "rested" for about two minutes in between Maxes. I'm absolutely convinced that the stretching helped me tremendously because I didn't feel particularly tight, sore or tired when I started the second round. For me, the best way to stretch the abs is the cobra position (taken from Yoga). I do that for about 30 seconds a couple of times and it's amazing how you can feel the muscles loosing up right away.

On another subject, today I woke up feeling a lot of pain and tightness in my hip muscles, specially the Psoas major. It hurts when I walk (lift my legs), but also in some positions lying in bed. I think it's all because of the other day's leg levers...  I can't remember exactly when it was, but one of the first times I did Freeletics, back in August 2013, I spent a whole week in excruciating pain with every step in the same muscles. This only means I still got  a long way to go, and I really really need to strengthen those babies a lot more! Looking at the glass half full, the fact that this time around I'm not dying in pain like the first times proves that I've gotten better, even if it's just a little bit....

Cardio&Strength Coach - W1D2

 Squat Max: *104 (in 300 sec) 

 Push-Up Max: 25 (in 100 sec) 

Oh dear muscle pain, believe it or not, I've missed you! You feel so good (OK, that sounded masochistic, which I'm not). You make me really feel -litteraly- that I'm back in the game, that I'm alive and more importantly, even if it's only by a little bit, that I'm making progress... Yes I'm uncomfortable lifting my arms or going down the stairs, but I know it's for the better!!!

As usual, after the other day's Pull-Ups the worst pain is in my pecs and my Latissimus dorsi, that lovely muscle that goes from my back, across my armpit and connecting with my pecs. It doesn't hurt as bad as the last time (no T-Rex), probably because I only did 12 reps, but pulling off my t-shirt is not a walk in the park either!

Today I had to keep busting my pecs with the Push-Up Max. Since I was already in pain I decided it was wiser not try and do it with a star and I just went for the knee-on-the-ground version. I was right because I barely got to 25 repetitions!!! Well, my upper-body weakness is no surprise to me and I'm guessing the coach will catch on that rather soon.

I felt really good during the Squat Max and I managed to go above the 100 repetitions, which was the threshold I had set for myself before I started. I was surprised to notice I only did one repetition less than my PB, so after two training sessions I'm seeing that, at least in some aspects, my two month (or more?) break did not have as bad an impact in my strength as I expected it.

Next session: Sit Up, Pull Up and Burpee Max. I'm fearing it a bit. I'm also looking forward to it.

A week after Kentauros...

Last Sunday I did Kentauros. I was happy to be back, proud to have completed a workout that proved to be my doom, and exhausted. I knew I would be sore but I didn't know to what extent. I had to train very late, so I ended up sleeping only 6 hours that night. I'm a big sleeper. I need around 8 hours every day to be good. With 7 hours I'm only OK (I can function), with 6 it becomes hard because I get very sleepy... with 5 hours or less I'm in no mood to be messed around with. So, training hard + only sleeping 6 hours = I had a very hard Monday. 

Then, on Monday night I met up with a friend who lives in the US and is visiting for a couple of weeks, so we had dinner and a drink and we chatted... and I ended up going to bed at 2 AM again. So that makes two nights in a row only 6 hours sleep. I woke up on Tuesday and I could barely a) keep my eyes open and b) get out of bed and go down the stairs. My quads were killing me, and were stiffer than I've ever seen them. All day long I moved around at turtle speed. Then, as usual, I had soccer that night. I thought after a good match I would loose all my stiffness... well, NOT THIS TIME! Starting to play put me through a lot of pain. My legs were barely responding. After a while it got better, but the pain never went away completely. I was considerably slower than usual, both in terms of running speed and in response to changing movement. Overall, I was nowhere near my usual soccer self. And on top of that, we ended up loosing the game. It sucked!

On Wednesday my soreness was pretty much the same than on Tuesday. Soccer didn't help at all... or maybe it did, and if I had not played, on Wednesday I would have needed a wheelchair to go to work xD. We will never know! I had every intention to train again that night since I couldn't go to Yoga. I got home late and was still so sore, and exhausted after not sleeping enough, so the wisest thing I could do was to go to bed early to recover. Remember, I had to play another soccer match on Thursday night! That morning, even with my proper 8 hours sleep I was still very sore, but less than the previous days. I could almost go up and down the stairs normally and not look like I was dying in the process.That night I got to the field, all excited about my match as usual, and it turns out the other team didn't show up so we won by WO. I wasn't to happy about that (I needed to score plenty that day to keep up with the fight of higher scorer of this league...) but at least we played a reduced-just-for-fun match between ourselves, so I did do some exercise.

Then came Friday. I haven't talked about my upcoming trip to Europe... A few months ago there was a government strike here, so everything got upside-down and the last few months have been hectic. I have tried several times to have my passport renewed and it was absolutely impossible.I couldn't wait any longer for the situation to go back to normal, because I'm all booked and I depart on February the 2nd. The only way to get my passport was to get up at dawn and go stand in line at 6:20 AM (they open at 8:30). To give you an idea of how the situation is: even by getting there 2 hours 10 minutes before their opening time, I was the 40th person in line!!! At least the system didn't collapsed that day and I went out of there at 9:45 AM. My passport is due the 21st, so I should be OK to travel. After a day like that, well, that night I couldn't go to bed soon enough so I didn't even consider training. On the brighter side, I was almost pain free and ready to take on the new training session...