Its been a while since I wanted to write about intensity training and when I mean intensity I mean the high intensity type which has been advocated and taken up by so many people in CrossFit, bootcamps and a lot of combat sports especially MMA where fighters and coaches dedicate their time somewhat blindly to pure high intensity exercise. There are so many articles out there which point to the fact that high intensity exercise has so many benefits we all want to believe that the secret to maximum results is high intensity. This is a get rich quick scheme and we all know that anything that promises results in such a short space of time and results that are so sustainable are rarely ever true. The reason I feel that most people have become hooked on high intensity programs is simply because they do not understand the big picture about training nor do they have the faintest idea of developing their energy systems which is paramount for success. Without this knowledge you are basically training blind as what the majority of athletes are doing.
The best place to start this discussion on intensity is with a brief discussion on what training is all about in the first place. Getting caught up in all the details of training, it can be easy to lose sight of the big picture and forget that your body does not care if you have big or small muscles, a low or high body fat percentage or how many kettle bell swings or pull-ups you can do, the only thing your body cares about is keeping alive.
On the most fundamental level, it is the innate drive of the body to stay alive and maintain equilibrium within all of its systems that creates the opportunity for performance or physique improvements to be made. Adaptations to various training stimuli is nothing more than the bodys defence mechanism working to protect itself and keep you alive.
When you lift weights you place a stress on the body or doing some form of cardiovascular activity and the body in turn responds to this stress by adapting to it is better suited to reacting to the same stress again the next time around. THe adaptations that occur will very much depend on the type of training stress that you put your body under, but the end result will be the same. The next time you train, the body will be better equipped to handle the stress that you put it through. Because of the bodes increased capability to handle the same level of stress, the same level of stress now has a lower level of physical stress which he body perceives that you are placing on it. Therefore in order to continue to see results, you inevitably have to place a greater stress on it so to force the body to have a reactive response and adapt to that change. This process of repetitive stress and adaptation is the foundation for improved performance.
WHAT IS INTENSITY?
Intensity is generally accepted as a relative gauge of how hard you are working. Regardless of the specific exercise or activity you are doing, higher intensities are closer to your maximum effort and lower intensities are a lower percentage of your capabilities. Running long distances at a slow pace for example is considered a low intensity effort, while interval sprints are high intensity because yo are running at speeds much closer to your maximum effort. While this definition of intensity is generally well accepted and understood, I think it does not paint the whole picture accurately. A more accurate way to think of intensity is not just as a gauge of relative effort, but rather as a gauge of the amount of stress imposed on the body.
Higher intensities represent a larger stress placed on the body. The higher the level of stress, the greater the disruption of the bodes equilibrium and thus the more marked the bodes adaptive response. In other words, the body perceives a greater stress as more of a threat t its survival and will therefore adapt to it faster. In a nutshell this simple principle is the reason why everyone has been jumping on the high intensity bandwagon for so long. Higher intensity does lead to faster results.
THE INTENSITY THRESHOLD
So the more intense we train, the quicker the results come however the downside now comes in that it is not always so easy to see results changing so quickly and it is also not possible to train hard all the time as it is physically demanding and you would probably end upon hospital overtrained and overworked. Yes the results have come quicker but at what price and inevitably the results which you saw increase immensely at the beginning will have probably stopped and the intensity that you will need to get the body to adapt you will not reach. This is commonly known as a training plateau. Obviously the longer you can keep this from happening, the longer you wil continue to see results from your training efforts. This principle of how the body works is the most important piece of training advice you have probably never been given: always use the lowest intensity necessary to stimulate adaptations to training. Contrary to what the experts in the field are telling you, I am advocating the use of the lowest intensities that you can use that will get the job done. Use intensities higher than necessary and you are sacrificing your long term development for short term gains.
This is what is happening in most gyms all over the world who are following the latest articles from the latest fitness magazines who are advocating high intensity exercise all the time. So what we are getting are beginners who are doing 1-3 rep maxes ad fighters who are foregoing age old roadwork for sprints and Tabata intervals.
This approach is shortsighted and based on marketing hype and selling products and programs.
THE RESEARCH
If you look at the Tabata research that everyone looks to as the holygrail of high intensity training. Joel Jamieson rightly pointed out hat the higher intensity interval group did in fact see the majority of their improvements within the first three weeks of the study and then their improvements reduced significantly. According to the study itself, "after 3 weeks of training the VO2 max had increased significantly. It also tended to increase in the last part of the training period, but no significant changes were noted."
This meant that they spent the second half of the training without seeing any significant improvements in VO2 max from their high intensity intervals, not to mention that the subjects who took part in the study were almost all untrained athletes so it would have been easy to see big gains in VO2 max from such a group.
The lower intensity group saw improvements as well but not as significant, the difference was that their gains were shown throughout the whole 6 week period. It is also important to note that at the end of the study the low intensity group still had a high VO2 max, higher than the high intensity group. It is also worth noting that the high intensity group also included 30 minutes of low intensity exercise every week which was never mentioned in articles. You see that the flaw in this article at the same time is that the good athletes train year round and not only for 6 weeks at at time. As you can see it is always important to go over the facts yourself and not just take someones word for what they feel works.
RECOMMENDATIONS
High intensity work does have a place and yes it does work but at the expense of long term gains.The truth is that day after day working at high intensity will almost drive you into the ground and into the well known territory of OVERTRAINING which is highly advisable zone not to get into as it can take days or even weeks to get out of. High intensity work provides its benefits at the beginning but who wants to train hard all the time, just to end the motivation to do that is hard enough and will ultimately lead you to despise training in the end. So whether you are an explosive athlete who likes his speed and high intensity work it is better to mix things up with high and low intensity days. The same applies to endurance athletes who say lack strength and explosive peer it would be good for them to mix in the high and low intensity as both have their place. Look back at the athletes in the 70s and 80's who often used slow tempo runs aka Charlie Francis it was never just hard, hard hard, they did the log road runs as well. Indeed, training myself in the gym I have felt the difference of training with the low intensity work has helped me greatly in my progress and development. However when I say do mix up some low intensity work, please do not take this to the extremes by running slow for 2 hours and then writing to me telling me your knees are hurting. Do things in moderation and have a plan. In my next post I will be posting some articles in regard benefits of long, slow distance runs and provide you with the overriding evidence to support the fact that when performing in explosive activities or sports your aerobic capacity plays a major role.
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