Find your intensity - Wednesday, September 9th, 2026

Find your intensity

We talk a lot about intensity in CrossFit. In fact, it's right there in the definition: constantly varied, functional movements, executed at high intensity.

But what does high intensity actually mean?

Because it doesn't mean going as hard as humanly possible every single day. It doesn't mean using the heaviest weight you can manage, trying to keep up with the fastest person in class or finishing every workout feeling like you couldn't possibly do another rep.

Intensity should take you outside of your comfort zone. But it shouldn't bury you.

There's a difference.

Intensity is where adaptation happens. Your body needs a reason to change. If we want to become stronger, faster, fitter and more capable, we need to create enough of a demand that the body has to respond to it.

If everything we do feels comfortable, there's very little reason for our bodies to adapt. But that doesn't mean the answer is to push ourselves to absolute failure every time we train either.

The sweet spot lives somewhere in between.

It should be uncomfortable. Your heart rate should climb. Your breathing should get heavier. The weight should require effort. There should be moments when continuing would be easier if you just slowed down a little.

But you should still be in control.

You should still be able to move well. You should still be able to make decisions. And in most workouts, you shouldn't finish feeling like there was absolutely nothing left in the tank.

That's where finding your intensity becomes important. Because intensity is relative.

What's intense for one athlete might not be intense for another. And what's intense for you today might be completely different a year from now.

A workout might prescribe a 95 lb barbell, but if that weight forces you into singles with long breaks when the workout was designed for larger, faster sets, using 95 lb isn't necessarily creating more intensity. Reducing the weight and allowing yourself to keep moving may actually make the workout more intense.

The same thing applies to gymnastics movements, running distances, box heights, dumbbells and almost everything else we can modify in CrossFit.

Scaling isn't about making the workout easier. It's about finding the version of the workout that allows you to find the right intensity.

That’s worth reading again. Scaling isn't about making the workout easier. It's about finding the version of the workout that allows you to find the right intensity.

Sometimes that means adding weight. Sometimes it means taking weight off. The goal isn't to make the workout as difficult as possible. The goal is to create the right challenge for the athlete standing in front of us.

And learning to find that challenge takes listening to the coach during the briefing of the stimulus. As well as time. The longer you train, the better you become at understanding your own capacity. You learn what pace you can sustain. You learn what different loads feel like once you're tired. You learn when you genuinely need a break and when your brain is simply asking you to return to your comfort zone.

You start to recognize that feeling of I want to stop versus I need to stop.

Those are two very different things.

Intensity often lives in that space where you want to slow down, but you're still capable of continuing. Where the work is uncomfortable, but manageable. Where you're being challenged without completely falling apart.

And over time, something pretty incredible happens. What used to take you outside your comfort zone doesn't anymore.

The weight that once challenged you becomes manageable.
The pace you once struggled to hold becomes comfortable.
You recover faster.
You can sustain more work.
Your capacity has increased.

You've adapted.

So we adjust again.
A little more weight.
A slightly faster pace.
A more challenging movement.

And the process continues.

That's why intensity isn't about destroying yourself in today's workout. We're not chasing exhaustion for the sake of exhaustion.

We're looking for enough challenge to give your body a reason to become more capable tomorrow.

Find the place just outside your comfort zone.

Then keep showing up until that place becomes comfortable too.

That's where adaptation happens.

Wednesday, September 9th, 2026

Focus:

Back Squats
5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1

WOD:

2 Rounds for total reps

On a 2 min clock
80 DU's
20 Air Squats
ME Strict Pull Ups
Rest 1 min

On a 2 min clock
80 DU's
20 Air Squats
ME Strict HSPU
Rest 1 min

On a 2 min clock
80 DU's
20 Air Squats
ME V-ups
Rest 1 min

*Cap the DU's at 50 seconds. If DU’s are capped, take the score of both the DU's and the ME movement.

Check back each night at 8pm for the next days WOD .
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