Kentauros, the workout that nearly broke me

There’s something about having had to give up on the pull-ups the other day that made the thought of stopping Kentauros (Strength) half way through seem more acceptable. So far on my Freeletics Journey, I’ve not give up on any workout, so I’ve wanted to keep my winning streak intact. But the aborted pull-up sets have kind of broken that streak.

However, I didn’t stop the pull-ups because I was tired, more that I physically couldn’t do them. I’ve tried to think of a metaphor here, but I couldn’t. So you’ll just have to make do with the facts.

Speaking of facts. Apologies – today is a bit technical. Promise I’ll be a bit more interesting later this week.

Anyway, today, Coach gave me Kentauros (Strength), 50 burpees, 50 burpees, 50 pull-ups, 50 pull-ups. I couldn’t work out this morning before work, so was left to do the whole lot this evening. Let’s just say I didn’t make it past Kentauros.

First of all, I was doing it in my living room so I changed to 2×2. Let’s look at the difference between the normal and 2×2 versions:

Normal
2 x 20m Lunge Walk
10 High Jumps
2 x 20m Burpee Deepfrogs
10 High Jumps

2×2
40 x Split Lunges
10 High Jumps
40 Burpee Squat Jumps
10 High Jumps

All of that, six times.

When you look at the leaderboards for both of those, the results are interesting. People I follow on Freeletics largely came from the SubReddit. They’re people who are fairly advanced, and that keeps me going.

Top time in the normal version is 18:52 (congratulations Nils W), with a bottom score of 50:47 (Chris Letic).

Top time in the 2×2 version is Juan Luis (47:36), with a bottom score of 48:08 from Tore Rasmussen. This suggests to me that the 2×2 version is much harder. It certainly felt like it.

I had to stop a few times for about 3 minutes each time, and about half way through the third set of 40 Burpee Squat Jumps I had to revert to normal burpees. Later on I also stopped doing the Split Lunges and had to do normal ones.

It was very hard. The only things I could do quickly and with good form were the jumps. The whole thing took me 01:07:10. Ugh.

No way I was doing the extra 100 burpees and pull-ups after that. I almost gave up when I wasn’t even half way through. My thighs burned. My wrists hurt from lying on my mat, in position for burpees, for too long while I mustered the energy to jump.

So yeah, I didn’t really enjoy it today. I’m going to the burpees and pull-ups tomorrow.

I’m surprised that Coach gave me all of that on one day. Feels like an awful lot. And like an algorithm selected it rather than a real person. Especially as when I did the pull-ups last week I said it was ‘Maximum’… I guess this is the first time that I doubted Freeletics. But maybe that’s just because I found it hard, and I should just toughen up and get on with it.

Onwards…