Hi, I've got a question about the Freeletics coach. Two weeks ago I bought the coach and did the fit test. I did very poor on the test, I had to do knee-push ups and squats. I could manage 8 push-ups in 2 minutes, and about 60 squats in 5minutes. I also entered my profile, overweight out of shape 34 year old woman. After that the coach created a program for me and a couple of days later I started it. First up was a modified version of Zeus, instead of pull-ups I hung a couple of seconds on the bar, I did knee push ups and crunches. After I couple of days my soreness was gone, and I was ready for the next workout, although I couldn't imagine I would be able to do it. I had to do 100 burpees, 50 climbers, 25 high jumps, 50 regular push-ups, 20 sit-ups and 50 squats. Especially the burpees and the push-ups bothered me. How could the coach give me such a workout, when I could only do 8 knee push ups in the fit test?? I guess coach knows what it's doing, so I will give it a try. Friday evening I went for it, I don't think you can call them burpees, but with very bad form I did 100 "burpees", it took me 19 minutes to finish. The climbers were less hard, although I couldn't stay on my hands all the time, I did 2 or 3 climbers, rested a couple of seconds and did the next, etc. The high jumps weren't very high, but as high as I could manage. Then I had to do 50 regular push-ups. I might have been able to do 1 regular push-up, but after the burpees and the climbers, I didn't have the strength for it. So I resorted to knee push-ups, but soon those became to hard, and they turned more into box push-ups (just sitting on hands and knees and pushing my had and shoulders up and down). I made it to 50 in the end... The sit-ups and squats weren't as hard as the previous exercises, pretty hard, but manageable and with good form. I stretched a bit, felt good about myself for even trying this and walked home for a hot shower. The next day, naturally, my muscles felt sore, especially my arms and shoulders. I stretched them whenever I could, but over the day my shoulders hurt more and more. We have a 12 week old daughter, and giving her a bottle became hard, I could hardly lift my arm! When we got home at the end of the day on Saturday, I had taken Ibuprofen and Paracetamol during the day, but the pain continued to increase. Then quite suddenly in the time span of about an hour, the pain in my left shoulder went from regular muscle soreness to extreme unbearable pain. I've got quite a high pain threshold, but this was unbearable! I couldn't move, I curled up on the couch crying, I couldn't think, I couldn't call a cab to get me to the hospital, all I could do was cry in agony. My wife didn't know what to do, she called an ambulance who gave me an injection so I wouldn't feel my shoulder anymore, and gave me a prescription for pain pills. When the feeling in my shoulder came back, it wasn't as bad as before, although it was still very painful. But because of the pain pills I could manage it. On Sunday my right shoulder started to hurt, and after a couple of hours I got the same pain in my right shoulder, because I was already taking pain meds, I could manage it. But I was havily disabled, and couldn't use my arms at all. Every movement made the pain worse. Turned out, I've got a heavy case of shoulder bursitis in both shoulders. I haven't been able to work for a week, it's now over a week ago and I'm back at work. My shoulders still hurt, I still take pain meds, but a lot less then before. The healing can take up to 6 weeks, and my shoulders might stay a weak spot for the rest of my life... Never before have I had any troubles with my shoulders, I've played a lot of Volleyball in my life, and I used to swim a lot, and my shoulders never bothered me. Ankles, knees from the jumping and turning have had injuries. But my shoulders were always healthy. For me it's clear that the injury is caused by the Freeletics workout I did. And I wonder how it's possible that after a fit test where I could only manage 8 knee-push ups, my second workout is such an increase of my capabilities. How come the coach algorithm thought I was able to do such a work out and stay injury free? On the internet you see only the succes stories of Freeletics, and not the people that got injured along the way. Are there more like me? That got injured and had to quit? I don't blame Freeletics or anything, I shouldn't have been so stupid to think that my body could handle such a workout, but on the other hand this is what it says above my workouts: "INTRODUCTION WEEK Get accustomed to the high training intensity of Freeletics and give it your all!" I gave it my all, and walked away injured...
Hi irisvanbreda, I started the free 3-week freeletics try out in Aug-2014. The first two weeks were great. They were very intense but I did it with no problem at all. I am underweight for my height. I did exercised regularly before but never at the intensity of freeletics. The first training of the third week was Zeus workout. I had to do jumping pullups because I couldn't do regular pullups (I don't have very strong arms). In total the workout involved 80 pullups! It turns out it was too much for me. I finished the workout but the next day my arms were swollen and I couldn't fully straighten them. This went on for some days until I finally went to the doctor. He told me I exceeded myself doing such a workout. He made the comment that it seemed excessive the amount of reps I had to do for a beginner level. He prescribed some anti swelling medicine and rest for 21 days. After which I could start training BUT very easy and slowly. I already finished my rest and I have started working out, but not at freeletics intensity. I am working out my arms and chest on day one (easy and slow: Australian chin ups, Australians pullups, chest dips and pushups). On day two I exercise my abs (situps, leg raises or some abs routine I used to do before) and on day three my legs (squats and calf raises basically). It is a three day cycle so I do a little workout every day but not the same group muscles. I understand how you feel. At some point I was a little worried about my arms. I may still buy the coach eventually but I will be very careful about how I follow it. Someone mentioned here in the forum that it was a concern that the new coach didn't seem to discriminate between fit users and out-of-shape users while giving the workouts. I think it needs to be corrected. I hope you are feeling better and that you recover completely! Ricardo
