Let’s go “Intensity” for 400.
High intensity is always the aim, right? Maybe not… because can any of us really define intensity in the context of what’s done in the gym? Moving faster? Heavier weight? Feeling like you’re going to die?
I’m sure we could all take a stab at it; however after nearly 11 years of coaching, an addition to the Lumber Yard lexicon may be emerging as a more targeted, northern star to guide our efforts in the gym. As coaches, we’ve often found ourselves asking the question, “what do you want to work on today?” with Crew members after we’ve finished our workout brief. There are endless possibilities for how to attack or modify any workout; on the other hand, all of them center around a defined intent.
This brings us to the concept of intent-sity. From day one, each of our workouts have been set up with a target score to aim for as a way to better inform our decisions on strategy, or selection of movements & weights. More importantly, focusing on a specific area of improvement within each workout may serve your progress toward your goals better than simply scaling or aiming to hit our target.
Here are two examples from last week that display the practice of intent-sity perfectly. On Wednesday’s Burning Love, Steph missed the suggested target time of sub 2:00 on every round of Wallballs & Bear Hug Carries. Despite that, the OG herself opted to use a 14# Wallball and grapple with the 100# Bag.
Just two days later, Brody, our youngest & one of the newest in the Crew, tackled Thursday’s Phoebe with what some may deem a psychotic approach. He purposefully chose to keep his number of Burpees as high as possible and ditched the suggested 8 Cals per round target on the Echo Bike. Both Steph & Brody chose their hard as the saying goes… and may have gotten stronger in their weakest areas as a result.
To clarify, intent-sity is not necessarily about doing more. Yes, the focus could be on heavier weights or more demanding rep schemes; but it could just as easily be achieved through more intentional work on a specific movement. Tim Kneuss’ pursuit of improvement with his Snatch by catching every rep in a full squat any chance he can, regardless if they’re lighter than the Rx weight or even the prescribed movement, is already paying massive dividends.
Speaking of getting strong, we’ve hung on hat on lifting heavy (or on somedays sexy) nearly every day at the Yard. But the question of “how heavy?” often still remains every time we touch the bar. Granted, rep count, rest breaks, proficiency with the movement itself, and most importantly how we feel any given day can dictate what heavy is, but next week we’ll begin building a new style of strength work at the Yard.
Next Wednesday, we will test for a 1RM Clean in the Targaryen Total. Then for the 8 weeks that follow, percentage based targets will be assigned for all strength pieces where we work on Cleans. To conclude this progression & measure our improvement on the Clean, the Targaryen Total will be retested.
Just as we discussed in the paragraphs above, these percentage targets will serve as a framework to guide our efforts in gaining strength. Furthermore, these percentages will not serve as restrictions. If you’ve slept like trash, and you don’t have the juice to hit the weights we’re recommending in a given session, pull them back. On the contrary, you have complete autonomy in any session to grip & rip above the suggested percentages if you feel like lightning in a bottle. If you happen to miss test day for your 1RM Clean, don’t fret. Aiming for lifts that feel heavy or sexy in each piece will certainly render the same strength gains all of our Crew have seen over the past months & years.
We hope this new direction is seen as evidence of our commitment to continue progressing our craft, though it may not be perfect, so we may give the best we can to our Crew, who makes all of this possible.
