This is the first week of using the app. I’ve selected a balanced journey and I don’t understand why I have to do squats for a whole week (5 days of exercises per week). What’s even stranger is that I am required to do only 4 pushups per day. I have all skill progressions active, no excluded exercises.
It doesn’t make sense to me to do 180 squats and 4 pushups in day 2, while focusing mostly on glutes all week + pushups are just 4 (in balanced journey). Am I missing something? What can I do to have a balanced training program?
So are you saying you’ve done 4-5 sessions already?
Mind that Freeletics is not a fixed program plan that is the same for everyone. Since Coach doesn’t know your level at the beginning, the 1st week is the assessment week. During that week, it gives you some exercises and expects your feedback, in order to learn your level and adapt the future sessions to you. Week 2 is the 1st “normal” week where sessions should be more suitable to your level. Nevertheless, the adaptation keeps happening after every session.
I am actually starting a new journey today, so I could quickly set it to Balanced Burn just now and take a look. I also got either squats or lunges on 4 days, although not 5, and I have a bunch of other exercises too (crunches, planks, dumbbell exercises, 20 pushups, etc.). I suppose for me it is different because this is not my 1st journey and Coach knows me.
I went back to the journey I actually intended to start and I have less lunges and squats there, so it might be that Balanced Burn uses more of them (?) Not sure, hard to tell. Maybe wait until you get to your 2nd week and see if it changes for you. In the future you can choose to change a journey but I’d give it a bit more time before switching.
I had a similar issue in the beginning, like too little upper body and too much lower, but it got better over the time. I added more equipment (especially pull up bar did a lot for me), and “pushed” the coach to give me more pushups and it really helped. You can also just train push ups on your own and tell the coach that and give the feedback that you did that well and he might start to give you more of that, because he knows then, that you can.
But I also never did Balanced Burn, so I can’t say much about this journey
I must agree with @unalex . I’ve been using the app for many years and my first “Balanced Burn” journey was ok. Even the assesment week was balanced. Now it’s really all about squats.
@Sofia I understand how the app works, I understand the feedback … I’m happy user of the app. But if I say in the feedback that the intensity is “Ok” and my technique was “Excellent”, it doesn’t mean I want to repeat squats the next session. Morever, it’s not healthy and you must change the muscle groups.
I remember the whole journey is ok and the excercises are variable. This looks to me like a bug in the app.
What I was suggesting is to see if the variety improves in later weeks, or to change to another journey. I didn’t have the same issues as you did. But if you think it was definitely not a one-time issue and you are facing a bug, you could report it:
Just finished the fourth week (I exercise 5 times per week). Squats are the predominant exercise by far. Followed by lounges. Exercises targeting only upper body are at most 10%.
After these 20 days of Balanced Burn, I can say that my journey is somewhat skewed towards squats and lounges.
It’s hard to say that this is a bug or not, since we don’t have a benchmark of a true Balanced Burn journey. Maybe the bug is in the naming
Did you see the Journey recap of my Balanced (Fat) Burn Journey? A lot of upper body. It don’t seem that there’s a problem in general with this Journey.
I don’t know your training history. Maybe the algorithm is stucked on a certain point. You can always spice up your coach day be throw in some pushups (via Exercises or God Workouts). The algorithm is also trained by you. On a certain point it’s like “unalex wants more upper body - here you are! Have fun doing 2x Venus”.
This begs the question: are the journeys configured well from the start? If I have to train the algorithm to do what the journey promises, than that would mean that the journey is flawed. Or, maybe, I simply don’t understand what Balanced Burn Journey really is.
Is the algorithm aware it could give you pushups or pull-ups; are these skill paths already mastered? If not, the algorithm could be stucked. In this case it would help to do some pushups and pullups beside your coach assigned training.
The Balanced (Fat) Burn Journey is balanced concerning strength and cardio.
From my point of view: yes, they are. But I’m an athlete using the app since Nov 2017 on an almost daily base. The coach knows me very well (that comes along with the mass of my training data it has). That’s why I gave you the advice you could also train the algorithm in case it seems to be stucked in a certain point. In the end, it’s not a human you can say “hey coach, I can do this, please add it to my plan!” to. Your communication is your feedback to everything you do in this app.
It seems to be in your case - not in general. Every journey is as individual as the athlete.
My screenshot of my last finished Balanced Fat Burn clearly proofs it’s not skewed towards lower body in general.
I already gave you tips on how to manipulate the algorithm towards your wishes. You can give them a try or not. That’s up to you.
I really appreciate you taking the time to answer me. I also understand that you try to defend the algorithm.
But it’s not just me. There was another guy who said the same thing.
You should accept that, maybe, the default algorithm for this journey favors lower body. And we would both be right. But it would also help others understand that a journey it’s not necessarily a well rounded training plan. And this is important since I never told the algorithm to ignore or favor specific muscles or exercises. Moreover, even the description of the journey doesn’t tell you what to expect, except cardio and muscle (without pinpointing if it’s about some muscles or all muscles).
I’m gonna stick to the algorithm without giving it any other indication. We’ll see the final report of the journey.
Hi all,
Now you have finished your Journey, right ? How was it ? What about the other ?
I started 6 weeks ago the balanced burn journey as well and it focus more or the bottom parts like you said squats, lunges and etc… But it give me more and more pushup (which I am not able to do and do on the knee pushup). I ve a lot of burpes, right now ?
In general, for my point of view, the journey is not too bad because legs are/have big muscles and train them will burn a lot of calories, and more you gain muscle more it will burn calories if I make not mistake. Having those muscles also helps for running longer and faster which also help.
It really correspond to what I was expecting for sur a bit more in the upper part.
For running, I saw already a big improvement on my speed. I am more dynamique in general and have not lost weight so far but I am sure that I’ve taken muscles.
