Training With INTENSITY (& understanding it)

Sometimes your body is feeling ok to move but mentally you’re not ready to “push the button” today and that’s ok.

That’s called knowing your psychological tolerance and listening to it.

In order to train Intensity you need to understand the limits of intensity. By “the” limits I mean YOUR limits.

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Before we dive in let’s first quickly look at what intensity is (to us CrossFitter’s anyway). Intensity is measurable. It is defined as (Force x Distance) / Time. Bit jargon-y/geeky yes but essentially what this means is: How much work did you get done in a given time? Or: How quick did you do a given task? It is about your average power output. Simple hard facts. You did this thing (with FULL range of motion) in this amount of time and it produced this amount of force/output. The higher the output the more “intense” the work was. (FYI, this is why intensity will always trump volume). Check out this article here for more info on the matter

What it is NOT is a measure of how huffy puffy you got, your heart rate monitor reading or how much noise you made during your workout. Sweating for the sake of sweating in NOT intensity! More to come on that in a future post so let’s move on.

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The two critical variables to tolerance when it comes to intensity are the PHYSICAL tolerance, and the PSYCHOLOGICAL tolerance. That’s what makes intensity completely a relative thing to each individual. "The level of intensity at which a person works needs to be appropriate relative to their physical and psychological tolerances". - CrossFit.Com

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The physical side of things you can find & get to know (& train) easier out of the two. For example once you’ve exhausted something like a continuous max-effort set of pull-ups your muscles fatigue and you simply cannot do another rep right? Not necessarily so.

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If you went all out to failure and you actually slipped off the bar (safely of course! Don’t be “that” guy) then you physically spent yourself on those pull-ups. However, did you actually come off the bar attempting a rep or did you come off the bar after completing a rep and then thought to yourself “I’m done”. If it was the second then that was your psychological tolerance stepping in and telling you to stop.

Not your physical.

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Disclaimer: Now I am not for one minute advocating or telling you that you should start punching yourself in the face and start falling off everything every day in order to get one more rep. That would be stupid right! (Seriously, say it out load to yourself in private so I don’t have to).

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I’m merely using the above as an example of how you can train intensity and actually embrace it. Perhaps a better example, and one I think MOST, if not all CrossFitter’s have succumbed to is ‘that’ moment inside of a workout where your muscles were burning & screaming at you to stop. You are doing a big set of a typical barbell move or you are sat on the air bike. You are pushing along smashing rep after rep when that little voice taps you on the shoulder and and says “stop now, we need a break”. This is completely normal and WE ALL have that limit. BUT, could you have done just 1 single rep more before listening??

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It’s also what happens AFTER that moment that defines the level of intensity you think you are working at on that given day. How long is it (do you think), before you hit that next thruster, next toes to bar, calorie row, etc.

Is it 5 seconds? 10? 25? Whatever it is we can pretty much guarantee that 99% of the time (#sciencefacts) that it’s longer than you think! Yep “that” voice has spoken to you again and you didn’t even realise it!

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Embracing & training intensity, at all its levels & variables, requires we get to know ourselves darn well. That we listen to the “voices”. Sometimes we actually do have to stop moving to take stock (look at me sounding all contradictory and all!). Sometimes we have to ignore the voice and keep pushing on (“Fran” anyone??). It's uncomfortable to train at high intensity levels. But we, as human beings, can tolerate large amounts of discomfort and can do so for large periods of time.

Sometimes though we need to know that even if the whiteboard has said the aim is a super fast or aggressive one, etc. That is we aren’t “there” that day then it is ok to pull it back a notch and not destroy yourself (be careful this doesn’t become your “go-to” though just because you don’t like what’s on the board #devilsadvocate).

We can't do super "high" intensity every day. We would inevitably break down after some time. We need it to be undulating and have days where we actually just train or practice e pour craft.

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Training intensity (and for me, teaching/coaching it) is an art form and takes time. There’s a reason why the best at it in your gym usually are among the most experienced members. Its taken them time to learn, experiment and refine. And even then they can still get it wrong on any given day. Lol.

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I have said it many times before (and I’m stealing this one from CrossFit HQ), but the biggest adaptation of a CrossFitter occurs between the ears. Not in the muscles or physical looks. It isn’t something that you see per se, but more so you can sense it in a person because It occurring between the ears.

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The psychological change that occurs far outweighs anything physical. Your stature, self esteem & confidence raises. Your MENTAL HEALTH can most certainly improve (vitally important during these times).

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 Will post more next week on the how to’s of training for intensity. What to look for, ways to improve training it and ways in which to NOT do more harm in the process.

In the meantime do this....

The next workout you do (assuming it’s not a “heavy day”), video yourself and watch it back after. You’ll be surprised by what you see (psst: it’s what your coaches see).

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Coach K.