Everything You Need to Know About Training Intensity

In the resistance training and fitness world, we generally tend to associate the term "intensity" with how hard we train. In fact, there is more nuance to the meaning of the concept of intensity than one might think. In particular, there are two distinct categories of intensity: intensity of load and intensity of effort. While the former is a key variable of resistance training, strength, and hypertrophy (together with volume), intensity of effort is what we usually talk about when judging a workout as "intense", generally speaking (i.e. high effort).

If we dig deeper into the definitions of these different types of intensity, we will first notice that *intensity of load *is the percentage of our 1 rep max lifted in any given exercise. The 1 rep max (1RM) of any resistance training movement (e.g. squat, db bench press, etc.) is the most amount of weight one can lift for one repetition, with good form and full range of motion. So, this means that intensity of load refers to how heavy the weight we use in an exercise is, relative to the most amount of weight we can handle for that exercise.

Intensity of effort is somewhat related to load, in that it can be defined as "the effort exerted during resistance training. This is generally gauged by the proximity to muscular failure" (Brad Schoenfeld, Science and Development of Muscle Hypertrophy, 2nd edition).

The two types of intensity are correlated because a high intensity of effort seems to become crucially important as the intensity of loading is reduced. So, there is an inverse correlation between intensity of load and intensity of effort. This is a key idea that we will treat more extensively later on in the article.