Aphrodite strikes again…

I’ve cut myself some slack after that last post. I’m so busy with work that training is taking a back seat.

Last week I trained once. This was my work out:

10 x Side Lunges
8 x HH Standups
Interval (Legs, Lower Back), 3 sets of:
— 8 Cossack Squats
— 10 Single Leg Hip Raises Right and Left
— 10 Squat Jumps
— Rest (60 Secs)
2/3 Persephone

Wasn’t too bad. Although I’m out of practice on Burpees, so Persephone took a little longer than I wanted it too.

Also this week, I’ve been trying to do 10 Assisted Pull-ups a day to try and build strength in my arms and shoulders. Still hoping to be able to do Strict Pull-ups one day.

Today I went for a swim; a Sunday tradition these days. I’m not a particularly strong swimmer – always in the medium lane – but it’s a great head-clearer for me and it makes me feel good if I’ve been out drinking on Saturday night; it’s a kind of low intensity exercise that gets the blood flowing again.

My Coach week next week is Hell Days (if they’re still called that). I’ve chosen three work out days instead of the usual four, with the hope of being able to easily do that by Saturday. My week looks like this:

Venus (Standard)
Aphrodite (Endurance)
Aphrodite (Standard)

I quite like Venus (no burpees!), but always feel it in my legs after all those squats. And then there’s Aphrodite, which I really hate. And Coach has given it to me TWICE this week. How kind.

See you on the other side…

The Sunday Reset

Image from getthegloss.com

As I’ve got older, Sundays have stopped being about crippling hangovers, fry-ups and anxiety and have become more about exercise, reflection, planning and relaxation. Feels good.

Last night I came back from London late, didn’t go and meet friends (and felt no FOMO) and got an early night. Woke up this morning, feeling refreshed after 10.5 hours sleep (also the clocks went back here in the UK last night, so there was a bonus hour of sleep).

As I’ve mentioned before, I use coach.me to help me build habits. For each habit you’re trying to build (write a blog post, go running etc etc) you can set the number of times each week you want to try and carry out that particular activity. Sunday is the day that the whole lot reset, so I always feel like I’ve got a bit of a clean slate, regardless of what’s gone before during the week.

So my first activity of the new week was NEMESIS. I haven’t done Nemesis for ages. The first time I did it was way back in Week 2. The last time I wrote about was here (with the catchy title “JackKnives: like, wtf…”). Incidentally it’s nice to see how much my PB has improved on this one. In that earlier post I say I did it in less than 20 minutes and now I’m doing it in nearly half that time! Anyway, it’s a relatively simple Freeletics workout, with only two exercises. I like it because the number of reps for each exercise swap as you progress. So you start with 50 Jackknives and 10 Froggers, then 40/20, 30/30 etc.

Performing Jack-Knives really makes me notice how inflexible I am. I’m sure that not many people doing freeletics can perform them as accurately as the woman in the instruction video, but still, I can barely lift my shoulders off the floor, however hard I try. More evidence that I should be doing yoga to help with flexibility.

The Jack-Knives really work on your abs – you can feel them burning while you do the exercise, and particularly for me, the ab muscles higher up your torso.

Froggers meanwhile really get me out of breath. I’m also not able to get my feet right next to my hands as in the video, but as close as damn it (I gave myself a star for this workout, despite it not being completely accurately).

And then it’s over. I beat my PB by about 2 minutes, finishing in 16:51.

Then I did some bonus Jumping Pull-ups with correct form.

And then I made Joe Wick’s delicious Lean in 15 Protein Pancakes. Here they are (along with 9 other “banging breakfasts”

Last week I didn’t manage to do my three hell days in three days. I did work out 4 times during the week, so I’m carrying over my final day into next week. And I’m determined to get out running this week.

Have a good one everybody!

Kronos, Hell Days, Pull-ups and thoughts on frequency of training

Always trying to beat that PB!

The clocks go back in the UK next week, which means it’ll be darker earlier. Winter is coming. Time to really get stuck into training, so I can be ready for spring when it finally arrives!

Coach has given me Hell Days this week. I selected three work-out days, and this is what he gave me:

Day 1: Kronos, Uranos

Day 2: Kronos, Nemesis

Day 3: Kentauros, 3x Metis

He (and yes, I’ve decided my coach is a man) has selected a smorgasbord of my worst workouts. You can read about the last time I did Kronos here.

I still feel like I need a kick up the bum with Freeletics at the moment, I’m seeing results, but not the ‘insane’ results the app promises when you first sat up (this is mostly about diet though rather than workouts). So actually I was kind of grateful for Hell Days. Means I really have to push myself again.

I started the week yesterday and fully intended to do Kronos and Uranos. Ha. I’d forgotten the pain the Kronos puts you through. I have knocked a full 13 minutes off my first time trying it though, which is progress.

Before I was half way through I knew that there was no way I would be able to Uranos after this. Mainly because the 300 squats mean that I can hardly move my legs, let alone jump while doing burpees.

Today I ache all over and can hardly walk. It’s a good kind of ache, and I felt AMAZING after I had finished the workout. But I know I will struggle this week to do both workouts on the same day. Might have to split them across every day this week instead.

Which brings me on to a thought I had yesterday about frequency of training. I currently select three days each week. I think this leads me to eating badly and drinking alcohol, as there are more days in the week when I’m not working out than when I am.

So I’m going to up it to five days from now and on and see how that goes. Might also see how that changes what Coach assigns me.

Pull-ups

A quick note on what my regular readers will know is my nemesis – the pull-up. I re-watched the video for the jumping pull-up and realised that my 0:15 PB wasn’t quite true. I haven’t really been doing them properly. Seems that the trick is to fully extend and then let yourself fall. I hadn’t really been doing that, and so I don’t think I’ve been building up enough strength.

 

The Calm Before the Storm

Today was the final day of Week 6, which I’ve spread over two weeks. It was 2/3 Metis Strength followed by two 400m sprints and two 200m sprints. And do you know what, I quite enjoyed it.

Coach seems to have been giving me lots of leg workouts over the past couple of weeks. So actually, it was pleasing that I didn’t find the Burpee Squat Jumps, Froggers and High Jumps particularly taxing. I feel a lot stronger and seem to have more stamina.

And I enjoyed the runs too. I did them in the gym on the treadmill. I should have really gone outside as it was such a beautiful day, but I couldn’t think of the right space to do the sprints (everywhere is pretty hilly around Bristol and there isn’t a running track nearby).

When I started I kind of thought maybe this would be a fad, that I’d stop after a while, but I’ve found myself getting quite addicted. Of course, shelling out money for the coach means you’re kind of invested, but there’s something about seeing what Coach has in store each week that I look forward to finding out. I like it that it’s not all planned out at the beginning.

I stopped Dry January the day before yesterday. We had a three-hour board meeting at work and so I kind of needed a drink after that. I did feel really disappointed in myself afterwards though. I’ve really enjoyed not drinking, feeling more alert, getting more done, feeling more healthy. I don’t want to slip back into bad habits.

I’m off to Vancouver on Monday for a week with work. So as I sat on one of the mats at the gym stretching after today’s workout and completed the week on the app, I was THRILLED to see that next week is Hell Days. This is going to HURT:

Day 1

Hades
2x Persephone

Day 2

Prometheus
Hermes

Day 3

Thanatos
3x Athena

3xAthena looks horrible.

But the hotel I’m staying in has a gym, so I reckon I can really focus and do one workout in the morning and one in the evening. Ouchy.