Mastering the pullup and Hell Week

Photo by James Lee on Unsplash

Freeletics were offering their Master the Pullup e-book for free the other week, and if you’ve read this blog before you’ll know that I am far from mastering it. So I downloaded the book and am working the programme into my coach routines. I’m only on Day 2 of Week 1, which is

30 seconds passive hang
3 x 10 shoulder pullups
5 x 5 jumping pullups

So far so good. It’s nice to be working those muscles properly and I’m hopeful that if I properly follow the plan I’ll be much better at pullups by the end.

In other news, it’s Hell Week. I’m at the end of my current coach journey, so it’s seven days of God workouts.

Maybe it’s the algorithm and my feedback, but it doesn’t feel much like hell. Today’s workout was 1/3 Mania, which is

6 x Clapping Pushups
6 x Squat Jumps
12 x Spiderman Pushups
12 x Lunges
18 x Pushups
18 x Squats

And while Spiderman Pushups are pretty difficult, it was all over in 02:09.

I remember *looks whistfully into the middle distance*, when Hell Week was exactly that. Hell. Full on workouts every day for at least 30 minutes.

It feels good to be doing Freeletics every day, but I’m not sure I’d say I was feeling particularly knackered.

Anyway, I’m pleased that this journey is finishing. It means I can fit one more 12-week journey in before Christmas and hopefully a last push to stay in shape before all the gluttony begins.

I’m slightly wondering what journey to choose. I’m still using the Freeletics Running app, which feels like they’ve lost interest in – hasn’t been updated for ages and it feels really basic compared to the Freeletics app. I’m quite enjoying mixing bodyweight and running, but I did the hybrid journey before the journey I’m currently in. So maybe I’ll choose another bodyweight course and stick with the running app for the time being.

First go at the HS Pushup

Well, I kind of kept up the good work. I trained four times this week, which has been unheard of recently. And I did three days with no alcohol whatsoever and two with only a glass or two of wine. And when I did drink, I didn’t drink beer (liquid bread as someone called it recently). However, on Wednesday I had a work party where there was loads of free wine. One of those events where someone is always filling up your glass so you’re never quite sure how much you’ve had to drink. I pretty much had the recommended units of alcohol in one evening. Oops.

Training this week went like this:

Sunday

I blogged about this at the time. I did Ares in the park with an inquisitive child looking on. Did it in 10:23 and replaced actual pullups with jumping pullups.

Monday

Drill
8x Hanging Knee Raises
1x HS Pushups

Interval – 4 rounds of:
8x Incline Rows
8x Negative Pushups
8x Squat Jumps
60s Rest

1/4 Venus

50 High Knees

Most of that was absolutely fine.  But the HS Pushup? There was just absolutely no way that I could do that. I got up against the wall okay, but actually being able to lift my head off the floor was impossible. My arms just aren’t strong enough. Definitely one to work on.

Wednesday

Drill
15x Burpee Squat Jumps
10x Strict Pullups

Interval – 4 rounds of:
5s Pullup Hold
10x Situps
5x Plank Switches
60s Rest

1/2 Amazona

I took my time on the pullups and made sure I did them properly.

Amazona is one of the new workouts. I quite enjoyed it. Definitely works out your legs (it’s all lunges and squat jumps and plank leg lifts). It was over quite quickly (05:32) and I definitely felt like I’d had to work hard enough

Friday

2x Hebe

Half way through this I had a short break and came out of the app momentarily to look at Twitter (!). My phone took this moment to update the Freeletics app, so I lost the workout and had to start again. So I had a 7minute break in the middle of 2x Hebe. To be honest this was very welcome. It’s a tough workout I think, even though Freeletics marks it as easy and quick. This worked out my legs more than Amazona. Squat jumps, Squats, Sprawls and pushups. I was very sweaty at the end.

Next week brings my first Adonis and my first Kerberos. Bring it on.

 

Getting back into the swing of things

Something weird happened to me when I finished Week 15 of Freeletics. I’d got through that initial programme and had noticed a fair bit of difference in my body shape, and so for some reason the discipline and routine slipped. 

I’d set my workouts to 3 or 4 a week, but take two weeks to complete each week. I was back drinking too much and not exercising. Even though I still do jumping pull-ups every day to try and build my strength.

I’ve been pleased with the results of Freeletics. I’ve felt more confident; I’ve been comfortable being topless and wearing vests when I’ve been out and about at festivals or in the park. And so I need to keep going to get even better results.

So – I’m writing this very brief post on a train late on Sunday night, in the hope that this will spur me on to get back into the swing tomorrow. 

I’ve also been a bit lax on the old blog posts, so I’m going to try and post more regularly too.

Here’s to the future. #noexcuses.