Staying consistent, but stuck in a rut

Yesterday’s workout was horrible. Took ages and just felt unsatisfying. Mainly down to this:

5 sets of…
2x 10m Bear Walk
24 Sprawls
2x 20m Crab Walk
12x left and right hip raises

All of that puts a fair bit of pressure on the wrists, and just feels a little ungainly. And then I also had to do 16x pistol squats, 50x Climbers and 20x Burpee Squat Jumps. Gross.

I’ve only been doing Freeletics twice a week for the past few weeks. I always seem to skip Fridays. But I have been running at least twice a week so I’m still exercising four out of seven days. But I think Coach might be loading a lot onto those two days. Now the days are getting brighter and the weather a bit better maybe I need to push myself to train on Fridays too. But probably in the morning rather than the evening as it just never seems to happen at the end of a working week.

I also set myself a goal at the beginning of the year to lose a bit of weight. I’m not really seeing that happen yet. A mix of lockdown (less moving about, maybe eating and drinking a little too much) and not feeling like I’m particularly pushing myself when I run or do Freeletics. It all feels a bit sluggish.

But I am pleased that I’ve been consistent. Usually at this time of year there are a couple of weeks where I don’t exercise at all, but I’ve been making sure I stick to it even if I don’t want to.

Also I noticed that since I’ve stopped practicing pull-ups I’ve pretty much lost all the ability to do them. Need to get back on that.

I am enjoying Freeletics’ new features though. Good to be using foam rollers for example as part of warm-ups and cool-downs. It feels like they’re really investing into the app. And that keeps it interesting.

There’s no stopping me…

I’ve got the day off today. As it’s Friday it was tempting to lounge around, drink coffee, maybe go to the pub late afternoon. BUT NOT ME. Now I can do pullups I feel INVINCIBLE. I’m like a new man. There’s no stopping me.

After my pullup breakthrough on Wednesday I also worked out yesterday.

5 Strict Pullups

6 Straight Bar Dips

2/3 Dione

I’m pleased to say that it wasn’t a fluke. I did the 5 strict pullups pretty easily. Well, not easily, but easily enough.

The straight bar dips though. Erm, I simply couldn’t do them. I rigged up my Freeletics bar in a door way and between worrying that it would collapse and worrying that I’d bang my head on the door frame, once I actually got onto the bar I couldn’t really do the dip – just didn’t have a strength. So maybe these need a bit of work…

And then 2/3 Dione, which was absolutely disgusting. I don’t know why I once wrote on this blog that it was FUN. It’s really not. It doesn’t help that it was pretty humid here yesterday. I don’t think I’ve sweated so much. I hate burpees. Absolutely hate them. I didn’t beat my PB and I was delighted when it was over.

Yesterday I worked out early evening, so I wasn’t sure whether I’d do my third and final workout of the week this morning or later in the day. But when I woke up this morning I actually wanted to, so I did. Today was:

5 pullups

8 Jackknives

Interval – Legs, Lower Back
4 sets of:
8 x Cossack Squats
10 x Single Leg Hip Raises Right
10 x Single Leg Hip Raises Left
10 xSquat Jumps
60 secs rest

2/5 Aphrodite (Endurance)

Sheesh. This felt like quite a lot. The whole thing took me nearly an hour. I wasn’t particularly in a rush though and was trying to concentrate on form.

But I got through it, and then after a bowl of porridge and dried fruit and a coffee, I went for a swim and did 30 lengths.

I think that’s quite enough exercise for one day.  I’m now having a little afternoon lie down…

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…

Freeletics Bodyweight Coach 4.0: Review #3

Getting into the swing of the new coach now. Yesterday was:

Conditioning
Interval: Legs, Core

3x rounds of

Squat Jumps
Bicycle Crunches
Split Lunges
Single Leg Hip Raises Left
Single Leg Hip Raises Right

2/5 Morpheus

And today I ACHE. The whole session took about 20 minutes. I was sweating and tired by the end. And today my glutes and thighs ache.

It’s quite difficult to do a whole set of new exercises when you can’t stop and re-watch the videos to make sure you’re doing it right, so I didn’t give myself a star, but things can only get easier.