Consistency Trumps Intensity

The holidays are over now and we have started a new year. For many, you find yourself even further away from your health, fitness, and body composition goals. But, you are at a point where you are really ready to start working on those goals. Your motivation has been rekindled. It is natural to seek out the most effective methods of training in your area. You don't have to go far this time of year to find bootcamps, spin classes, and personal trainers barking encouragement to their struggling client do 'one more rep!' All of these images of hard exercise infer that intensity is the key. The higher the intensity, the better. Simply push harder (or pay someone to push you harder) and you will reach your goals, right? Not so fast. While intensity is an important variable with exercise training, it is often misunderstood and misused. High intensity has its place, but the most important variable for reaching your health, fitness, and body composition goals is not intensity, but consistency. Consistency always trumps intensity.





Exercise training is a stressor which we apply to our bodies, hopefully in a systematic and logical pattern. However, it is not the stressor (exercise training), it is how we respond to the exercise training that really matters and determines our 'results'. Too little stressor (not exercising) obviously leads to a weakened and flabby body. Though, too much of a stressor (too high intensity) leads to stress, injury, and psychological maladaptation. The art is applying high enough stress to stimulate an adaptation, but not overtrain. Unfortunately, the message we get from the media, internet, and our local gym offering this high-intensity exercise is that you should leave the gym quivering, exhausted, and dripping sweat or you have wasted your time. That is because we base 'effectiveness' on calories burned and muscle soreness. Two very wrong assumptions. We need to take a step back and look at our adaption over a period of time (weeks, months, and years). One training session won't make you, but one training session can break you.

High intensity exercise must be used appropriately. It has its place, but often it is used too early in the training process, too frequently, too long, or without consideration of other life events. The intensity of your training must be managed, that is cycled up and down to ensure continual positive adaptation. You can't keep the pedal to the floor or you will break down.

More importantly, adaptation takes time. You can't force it. But, it will happen if you apply the stimulus in an appropriate manner, a regular manner, a consistent manner. Consistency is paramount for any health, fitness, or body composition goal. When I work with a client during a training session, I am thinking to myself "how is this training session going to affect them tomorrow, next week, next month, next year?" I look at it as a stepping stone for future gains. Sort of a deposit in a savings account, not a withdrawal.

If you made it this far in this article, then you obviously are interested in training intelligently and not just 'killing' yourself in the gym. The most important advice I can give is to find ways to make your training as consistent as possible. Remove barriers to that consistency. Shorten sessions, err on the slightly more conservative side with how much and how hard you are training. Remember, intensity and volume accumulate. Go by your numbers and how you feel versus how it 'should' work. And most importantly, don't follow what others are doing in the gym. The majority have no idea what idea they are doing, and are just copying others.

Think about 'working' on your movements (whatever type of training you do) regularly, not 'conqering' them. You should feel good (even if you are working at a higher intensity) when you finish your session, not like you've been run over by a bus! The effects of exercise training can be evident after only a few sessions, but many other effects or adaptations take months and years.

Consistency always trumps intensity when it comes to exercise training. We are always adapting to our training (or lack of it). In order to keep the adaption positive focus on consistency. It is appropriate to vary the intensity, but this needs to be done logically, and in the context of a longer time frame (months and years). Ignore the high-intensity pundits, they are simply preying on the assumption that exhaustion and soreness are indicators of effective training. There will be many 'casualties' to this 'harder is better' mentality. And, unfortunately, these individuals will either keep getting injured, go back to only very low intensity exercise, or give up on exercise training altogether.

Adaption Is Good and You Should Pursue It

After training myself for 17 years and others for almost that long, a few things stand out. One of the most glaring is the idea of specificity of adaption. Actually, it is a very well-supported principle of human physiology. However, in popular fitness circles, aka your local commercial gym or the "fitness" section at your local bookstore (which is not Borders anymore, unfortunately is now out of business) you'd think it was a four-letter word. Terms like "muscle confusion" and "muscle blasting" are vogue.


"I can barely walk today, what a great workout I had yesterday!" is commonly heard. Delayed onset muscle-soreness is often viewed as the barometer for the effectiveness of a training session. On the contrary, no muscle soreness is frequently interpreted as an ineffective workout. This translation is erroneous and misleading. Muscle soreness is simply a by-product of performing a level of muscle work to which your body is unacquainted, not the indicator of a single workout's effectiveness of improving your strength or fitness.


High-level strength and fitness is not the result of one workout. Quite the opposite, high-level strength and fitness are the precipitate of consistent training, time, and physiological adaptation. You see, physical adaptation is what you are striving to achieve. Physical adaptation is increased: strength, muscle mass, endurance, etc.

Muscle soreness goes away as adaption occurs. This is evident if you follow a training program for a few weeks. You are no longer sore. People view this as a negative, when rationally it is positive. You can now do the program without developing muscle soreness. You have taken a step closer to where you want to be without the negative side-effects. When you do progress the program, your body can respond favorably to it because of the adaptation that has occurred.

"The journey of a thousand miles starts with ones step."

Everyone should follow a training program. As I tell my clients, variety is not a bad thing, but when it interferes with adaption and progression it is counter-productive. You can't progress beyond a beginner-level if you keep changing things up. Additionally, you place yourself at greater risk of injury when your body is not adapted. Plus, it just feels good and is motivating when you can see your strength and fitness improve from week to week.


There are times when you can or should change your training program. But, that time frame is in weeks and months. This is an adequate amount of time to give your body for adaptation to that specific program. When you decide to change programs, it should be a subtle changes in variables that are still in-line with your long-term goals! The complete abandonment of your past training is misguided. If you are a runner, you need to still run similar distances/paces. You may make a few slight changes to the variables in your program. But, as a runner, you wouldn't abandon running, use the elliptical trainer, and expect yourself to improve or even maintain the level of running at which you had been. That is cross-training and is counter-productive! Remember specificity of movement.


The SAID principle or specific adaptation to implied demands is the primary principle that exercise training is based upon. It is ignorant to ignore the SAID principle. Then again, nearly all people buying those books, dvds, or attending an exercise class that promote "muscle confusion" are and will always be beginners. The muscular soreness they experience from those workouts gives them false sense of accomplishment. Muscular soreness (or even vomiting) can be induced with about five minutes of heavy exercise with a beginner. But, in reality they have only added one small brick in the training wall, or perhaps maybe even set themselves back if they can't train for a while because they are so sore. Adaptation to an appropriate program, followed consistently over time, with subtle changes made to it over time has and always will reap tremendous results. However, since the training adaptation process does take a time, it is easier to induce muscular soreness and declare it progress to the impatient trainee.

Sled Pushing....Gravity and Friction

Part of today's workout was 5 x 100' sled pushes with 115 pounds. Pushing the sled gives you an appreciation for friction. Which, like gravity, doesn't let up or care if you get tired.







Pushing the sled is easy and actually fun for the first 25 feet. Then your legs feel like noodles and your lungs start burning. The next 475 feet is a demonstration of muscular fatigue and sheer determination. Did I mention I love that sled?

The Dangers of a Non-Physical World

As a child born in 1977, I was lucking enough to have a lot of physical activity and physical interactions with the world. I played on metal playgrounds, climbed trees, swam in rivers, played tackle football during recess, walked to school, mountain biked, wrestled with my older brother, deadlifted 460 pounds, ran a 5:30 mile, and for the past 29 years I have played competitive basketball. Since I was a very little child , I have benefited from the physical interaction of my body with the world. It is extremely important, just ask the astronauts returning from gravity-free space travel. Unfortunately, the world is turning less and less physical. My kids have to seek out stimulating physical activity. They are not allowed to walk to school (per school administration), are told Wii Sports are a fine substitute for real sports, and have a hard time finding a physically-challenging playground.

This yahoo story, Have Playgrounds Become Too Safe For Kids? highlights these issues. Kids are not challenged and enriched with playgrounds. They don't develop their motor skills, nor do they overcome their fear of heights, or figure out how to shake off a scraped knee. Worse, schools are banning games like tag, red rover, dodgeball, and running in a few schools! This is a horrible omen for the next generation of adults. Not only will the obesity rate continue to climb for the next generation, but using exercise for fat loss will be much harder. These kids will not even have the physical ability to perform low-intensity physical activity, let alone more-effective high-intensity exercise.

Physical play, like roughhousing is also very important for social, cognitive, and intellectual development. Physical play has a strong social component, with winners and losers, just like the real world. Additionally, kids learn that it takes effort and there are some bumps and bruises along the way.

The dangers of a non-physical world are dramatic and long-lasting. While much has changed in our environment since 1977, not much has changed in our DNA over the last thousand years. We need to move and be physical; it is an integral part of our biology.

The "Core" Is Contextual

A big issue in today's fitness
training is the idea of training your "core." Your "core" is an enigma. You can't control a specific muscle or its precise activation patterns. Muscle activation patterns are a more complex, highly-regulated neural function. The only thing you can try to control are joint movements, and that comes with practice over time.

I am so tired of seeing fitness book after fitness book talk about "core" exercise because you are on the floor or on an unstable surface device. They may be hard to do or you may feel your torso muscles fatigue, but that is very specific to the task you are performing. Performing a plank exercise will not carry over necessarily improve your front squat or pull-up. Some torso, single-leg, or shoulder stability exercises may be a helpful to start with to "learn" how to stabilize or supplement, but you need to develop joint (and spine) stability in the specific pattern you are trying to improve.

Your "core" stability will improve as you execute specific movement patterns properly. You cannot train your "core" in isolation; it is in context of a specific posture or movement.

The Art of Roughhousing

Physical activity or the lack of physical activity in children is a foremost concern in our current society. Immediately, we think of childhood obesity and early-onset metabolic syndromes, like hypertension and type 2 diabetes. Though, lack of physical activity, especially unstructured play and roughhousing can also negatively impact the cognitive, social, and psychological development in children.

I came across The Art of Roughhousing the other day and read through most of it. I was particularly interested in the role of play and roughhousing on the developmental psychology in children. The authors, Anthony DeBenedet and Lawrence Cohen not only do a good job of covering the why, but also spend the majority the chapters showing how to roughhouse...just in case we have have become such an over-protective, sheltered society that we can't figure that out for ourselves. Here are a few quotes that I like from the book:

"Many parents are more frightened by skinned knees and bruised feelings than life's real dangers: stifled creativity and listless apathy" (p12)

"Children's play-time is now dominated by adult-organized, adult-refereed, and adult-structured activities." (p13)

"Play-especially active physical play, like roughhousing- makes kids smart, emotionally intelligent, lovable and likable, ethical, physically fit, and joyful." (p14)

More tag, fort-building, creek-wading, and tree-climbing, and less soccer practice, ipods, playgroups, and sitting in the car is what kids need. Additionally, parents need to provide a good chunk of this play and roughhousing. When your kids are at the playground, get out the car, put down the phone and jump into a game of freeze tag. I believe we need unstructured play and roughhousing our whole lives, not just as kids. The most cognitively-advanced mammals play and roughhouse all the time. Ironically for humans, the most cognitively-advanced mammal, we are so far removed from unstructured play and roughhousing that we need a book to tell us how. Sad.