High Intensity vs Relative Intensity

High Intensity vs Relative Intensity

The reason I write these is because it makes me think critically about my own coaching, every now and again throwing something up that really makes me think about what I have been doing and changes I could make to my approach going forward. The below is one that, whilst writing it in its entirety, it really made me sit back and think about different ways to approach the classes I’m coaching depending on the intended stimulus.

There is a bit of a myth in CrossFit that everything has to be high intensity, flat out, all the time, all day every day and that more is always better. Now it is true, that a lot of the time we operate at a high intensity and the benefits of this are equally high but lets not forget the CrossFit charter:

Mechanics

Consistency

Intensity

Now in your average CrossFit Affiliate there will be people of all experience and capability levels. The beauty of CrossFit is that, even right up to the elite level, people will be working on something to make it better (it’s the same for coaches in the way in which we consistently strive to find new and better ways to coach things). So with that and the CrossFit charter in mind we should look at the reality. Relative or even prescribed intensity…

Lets look at a few good examples:

You are working on a movement, let’s say toes to bar, but the stimulus of that workout is to practice toes to bar under fatigue. Now there are two options, you could either scale the movement and jack up the intensity or reduce the fatigue by going slower in the other movements to allow you to perform the Toes To Bar under a level of fatigue that is relevant to your current skill level. Now it might depend on the day or the day, what else is in the programming that week and the person but on the face of it the option to reduce the intensity and preserve the movement standards (building consistency in the CrossFit Charter).

Accessory work is programmed to help you stay healthy for the long term, this is often at a lower intensity focusing on quality over intensity. For example after one of the classes I coached recently I programmed some light>moderate Turkish get ups. Good for the shoulders, good for the core, good for the grip and given that there was time at the end of the class a good way to build some co-ordination under a bit of fatigue without adding to it.

It’s a deload week. We have all been there as coaches (and lets be honest we have all done it as athletes) where we say something like ‘keep it below 75% of you 1 rep max’ or ‘this should only be like a 5 out of 10 intensity, enjoy it’ and then someone is loading up a 1 rep max or goes sprinting out the gate. What is worth saying on this point is that in an affiliate it’s a difficult one to manage, not everyone will be doing the programme consistently and therefore they may not feel like they need a de-load and potentially won’t need one.

One of the fears people have walking into a CrossFit gym is that it’s going to be to intense, that they won’t be able to keep up or that because they don’t already know how to do all the movements that there is no point going. That couldn’t be further away from the truth and in fact I would argue that you are in a better position knowing that coming in than you would be if you were coming in having years of doing a movement badly (speaking from the experience of it taking a long, long time to break bad habits from essentially self teaching Olympic Weight Lifting movements).

So when you hear the words High Intensity associated with CrossFit just remember that it High Intensity relevant to where you are on your fitness journey.

Andy