Freeletics Bodyweight Coach 4.0: Week 1 review

Today was – finally – my first day of the new Coach.

Here’s what was in store:

10 Pushups

Strength, Interval: Upper Body: 
4 Rounds of:
Commando Pullups Left x3
Commando Pullups Right x3
Straight Bar Dips x8
Clapping Pushups x8
Strict Pullups x4
Rest 60

It feels like this first week is about Coach figuring out what I can and can’t do. Almost like redoing the fitness test again.

But the first thing I notice is that whereas before, all you needed to do Freeletics Bodyweight was a pull-up bar, now it’s a bit more complicated. I don’t have an adjustable bar at home. I have a fixed pull-up bar. So Straight Bar Dips are impossible. I really want to carry on doing Freeletics at home, rather than at a gym or elsewhere, so I might have to invest in one of their portable bars. This is a bit annoying as they’re not cheap. But hey. Today I improvised by doing the Straight Bar Dips on a work surface – far from perfect form though.

So, taking each exercise one-by-one:

Push-ups

10 push-ups are no problem. Did them in 00:14, correct form. I was reminded, after not having done Freeletics for a week or so, how easy I now find push-ups. I have a much stronger upper body and find doing 10 no problem at all. Now onto the interval training.

Commando Pull-ups Left / Right

These were easier than I thought they would be, at least in the first couple of rounds. I was surprised by my strength. They got much harder in the latter half of the workout though and by the end I wasn’t really doing them correct form.

Straight Bar Dips

So yeah, I was doing these on a table basically. I started doing them between two chairs, but the chairs really hurt my hands, and actually once I used the table, I could do much better form. These were quite hard. Although I kind of think I might be able to get good at them relatively quickly.

Clapping Pushups

Ha. So I could just about do these on the first round, but the 2nd, 3rd and 4th rounds I couldn’t really do them, so just ended up doing normal pushups. Blimey these are hard!

Strict Pullups

Those of you who have read this blog before will know my struggle with the pull-up. But I have to say that not doing them against the clock and concentrating on form not speed meant that I pretty much did them perfectly on the first round. The later rounds were more tricky and I had to give myself a bit of a jump-start, but I felt like I was making progress.

Overall, I was easily as knackered and sweaty as I usually am at the end of a Freeletics workout. I’ve read elsewhere, mainly on Reddit, that some people find the new coach too easy, but I certainly found it as challenging, if not more so, than the old coach. It was hard to get my head out of wanting to do everything really quickly, as speed has been such a part of the mentality of Freeletics for so long, but once I got my head around concentrating on technique, I found it really enjoyable, and quite difficult.

Next up this week, I have:

Day 2
10 Jumps
Poseidon

Day 3
Conditioning: Interval: Core, Upper Body