129 The Limitations of Intensity

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In the early 2000s, perhaps similar to today, there was plenty of gatekeeping in an attempt to professionalize the fitness industry.

The gym culture in many places lacked effort and was full of unnecessary complexity.

Greg Glassman (founder of CrossFit®) came in and said, "get rid of all the equipment."

Just keep the rower, box, barbell, pull up bar. That’s all you need.

And challenge yourself. Go as hard as you can.

Greg understood that effort is the currency for results.

There’s a lot of truth in that.

For the average person exercising a few hours a week, they would benefit if their workouts were harder.

But for athletes training 8-15 hours a week, emphasizing intensity becomes problematic.

More and more fitness athletes are realizing that if they do more sub-maximal training, they can actually do more training in the long run.

A partial truth

"Intensity gets results" is partially true.

But a more complete thing to say is:

"Intensity gets results quickly, at the expense of total training load."

If you only train with intensity, you can't train enough.

In the rest of the episode, we discuss:

• training intensity distribution
• how intensity limits total training load
• perceived limitations when racing
• how training affects not just physiological but also perceived limitations
• the best practice of leaving reps in reserve, even during hard sessions