Saturday, September 13, 2014

Freeletics: C&S Coach Week 2

Aside from the two sets of 50 Push Ups that started things off, the Coach only assigned me cardio workouts for my second week. Hera, which consists of alternating jumps and sprints, was a workout that I had never done before, but it quickly became one of my favorites. It's such a simple workout, but the intensity is ideal and the two exercises are a perfect compliment to each other for developing the fast twitch muscle fibers in the legs. I was actually kind of bummed that the Coach only had me do two of the five rounds. As much as I've now come to love Hera though, I unfortunately can't speak as highly of Metis.

Metis is short, and brutal, and I absolutely hate it. You would think that there wouldn't be much to complain about with a workout that literally takes less than five minutes, but the combination of burpees, climbers, and jumps just leaves me doubled over and panting. Plus, once you earn yourself a decent time, it becomes extremely difficult to make improvements since the workout is already so short; seconds become harder and harder to whittle away, and an already tough workout just hurts exponentially more each time you try to push passed your limits and set a new PB. There's also apparently no shortage of irony in the universe, because as much as I loathe the Metis workout, I have it on the schedule again twice next week, one of them a full standard workout and the other just the first round of the strength variation.

Overall though, the week as a whole wasn't too bad. In fact, just like with the first week, I ended up feeling like it was a little too easy for me. I still decided to tell the Coach that the difficulty was right on target though; I'd rather just add in extra workouts and sessions on my own than get assigned something way too strenuous or time consuming to complete. From what I hear, the difficulty increases after the fifth week anyway and I like having the freedom to choose which supplemental workouts to include, so at least for now, I'll stick with what I've been doing for as long as it seems to be working.

Session 1: 50 Push Ups (2:15) (*) (PB) | 50 Push Ups (3:27) (*) | 50 Sit Ups (1:44) (*) (PB)
Session 2: Metis (4:38) (*) (PB) | Poseidon [1/4] (2:30) (PB) | 50 Sit Ups (2:05) (*)
Session 3: Metis (4:31) (*) (PB)
Session 4: Hera [2/5] (7:06) (*) (PB) | Poseidon (6:33) (PB)
Session 5: 50 Sit Ups (1:49) (*) | 50 Squats (0:43) (*) (PB) | 100 Jumping Jacks (1:09) (*) (PB)
   * blue text denotes additional workouts unassigned by the Coach

2 comments:

  1. Hey mate good job on week2 . I am also on week 4 . I was wondering if the coach dint give any runs or you skipped them . .

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    Replies
    1. Thanks! Congrats to you as well for making it to week 4! I haven't skipped a single workout; I just didn't have any runs assigned in week 2. So far I've had an 8K in week 1, a 5K in week 3, and on Monday I'll be starting week 4 with 2x 200m sprints and 2x 400m sprints.

      I'm actually a run streaker (it'll be 300 days in a row on Tuesday), so I'm running every day whether the Coach assigns a run or not. As a runner though, I can honestly say that following the Freeletics running program is a terrible plan if you don't already have experience with running. The runs are too infrequent and some of the assigned distances are just way too long for a new runner. Your options are basically to skip the runs, use plenty of walking breaks to complete them, or add more running into your routine to gradually build your base mileage. I personally recommend doing a combination of the three; don't push yourself to complete the long runs if you feel you might be risking injury, but running is super beneficial to overall fitness, so it's worth improving at.

      Good luck! Thanks again for stopping by to read!

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