INTENSITY!!!

I once heard that if you ever experience writers block, begin writing about something that pisses you off. So, I have decided to give that a try.

There are a ton of people out there who describe there workouts as intense. The problem is that they are doing the exact opposite. The term intensity revolves around how heavy of a load you will be lifting, not how quickly an exercise will make you throw up. A max repetition deadlift is intense. 100 burpees in a row is not. 

When training to high levels of intensity (ie a high % of your 1 rep max), you will not be able to complete the task for more than 1-5 reps, for maybe 2-3 sets. This also goes for speed training. A sprint is at near 100% max speed. When you run at this speed, you can only do so many runs before your speed begins to deteriorate. Once you see the speed dip below, say 90%, you are no longer running at the speed you should be. Either take a break to recover or call it a day. Doing more runs on a day where your speed has diminished due to fatigue will most likely do you no good if speed improvement is your mission. 

These issues can obviously improve with a proper training plan. Training at high intensities day after day will begin to diminish power and speed output while increasing the likelihood for injury. The body can only handle so much. When you decide to go hard, go hard and then take some time to recovery. It will be the best training decision that you will ever make!

Chris Fluck