This is my third time doing the Dumbbell Journey and I normally train three times a week.
I have the following criticisms:
LITTLE VARIETY:
The training is not very varied - the same exercises are repeated over and over again, even though there are more dumbbell exercises available from the coach.
ADDITIONAL EQUIPMENT IS IGNORED
Although I have specified enough additional equipment, no exercises with the pull-up bar, low bar, box etc. are incorporated into the training. That’s a shame because that would also increase the variety.
TOO LITTLE WEIGHT ADAPTATION, TOO MANY REPETITIONS WITH VERY LITTLE WEIGHT:
As other users have already mentioned, the number of repetitions and rounds for some exercises is also far too high. 6 rounds with 24 repetitions, for example, have relatively little to do with muscle building and more to do with strength endurance. However, this is not due to the weights available to me, as I have dumbbells that I can adjust from 4 - 41 kg and I have also given the coach all the options (4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 14, 16, 18, 20, 23, 25, 27, 30, 32, 34, 36, 39, 41)
Why doesn’t the coach suggest that I win more?
Sometimes I can get around this if I adjust the session and indicate that I have little time and then the coach specifies fewer rounds and repetitions with more weight for some exercises - but that can’t be the point.
EXCLUDING BODY PARTS LEADS TO BODYWEIGHT TRAINING
If I have sore muscles in my thighs and want to adapt my training by “excluding body parts”, the alternative is always a pure bodyweight workout. This doesn’t make sense just because I can’t do any exercises for my thighs, but I can still train my upper body with dumbbells.
Alternatively, I could remove the thigh exercises from the workout but I can’t add another exercise instead.
TOO LITTLE CONSIDERATION OF DUMBBELL EXERCISES IN THE DAILY ATHLETE SCORE
In the Daily Athlete Score, only Double Dumbbell Shoulder Presses are taken into account under Performance - Strength in the categories Upper Body Push, Upper Body Pull and Lower Body for exercises with weight, otherwise only exercises with the barbell are used to assess performance. This doesn’t make sense either, because it doesn’t matter whether I do bench presses with a barbell or two dumbbells, for example, as it’s all about the total weight and repetitions.
CONCLUSIONS:
After more than 5 years of Freeletics, my conclusion is:
The Bodyweight Journeys are very good - but with the Dumbbell Journey there is still clearly room for improvement. Improvements would be useful and probably relatively easy to implement.
I don’t know if I would still be training with Freeletics if I didn’t have the lifetime subscription…
