I love intensity.
I love the feeling of sprinting all-out up a hill, lungs burning, legs firing, everything else in my brain going quiet. I love plyometrics — trying to build “hops” with explosive movement. I love hard rolls in jiu-jitsu where every second demands focus and strength and cardio all at once. There is something calming to me about intensity. It cuts through noise. It makes me feel alive.
I know I’m probably in the minority. A friend of mine who is a long-distance runner recently tried to convince me to train hard less often because it would improve my overall performance. He’s not wrong. Most training models support that idea. But the truth is, I don’t want to eliminate intensity. I need it. High output regulates me. It sharpens me. It gives me the feeling of being an athlete that slower efforts simply don’t.
That said, it would be counterproductive for me to do sprints or HIIT every single day. And I know that too.
This is the tension I think many people live in: intensity can feel great, but intensity without an actual strategy eventually works against you.
If you’re wondering how often you should do HIIT or true high-intensity training, here’s the short answer: for most people, two to three hard sessions per week is enough. That’s enough to stimulate adaptation, build power, and maintain conditioning — without overwhelming your nervous system or stalling recovery. More isn’t automatically better. In fact, beyond that point, intensity often starts to compete with progress rather than support it.
Why Intensity Feels So Good (For Some of Us!)
High-intensity training delivers immediate feedback. You know you’re working. You feel powerful. You feel capable. For certain personalities — especially driven, high-output types — intensity can quiet anxiety and overthinking. It demands total presence. It creates a clean channel between effort and result.
I like that feeling.
There’s also a neurological component. Intense efforts spike dopamine and adrenaline. They create a sense of urgency and reward. You walk away from a brutal session feeling accomplished and clear-headed. It’s not just physical; it’s psychological.
But intensity is not free.
It taxes the nervous system. It requires recovery. It pulls heavily from your body’s resources. When you stack high-intensity days on top of each other without space, performance plateaus. Fatigue builds. Motivation drops. Injuries become more likely. What once felt empowering starts to feel draining.
You feel flat. The very thing that made you feel alive begins to dull you.
Two Audiences, One Trap
I see two types of people here.
The first group genuinely loves intensity. You thrive on it. You feel dulled without it. When someone suggests dialing it back, you worry you’ll lose your edge or your spark. That’s me. I don’t want to become someone who just “moves gently” all the time. Hard efforts are part of my identity as an athlete.
The second group doesn’t necessarily love intensity, but believes they need it. You think every workout has to leave you breathless to count. You equate sweat with progress. If a session feels moderate or technical, you assume it wasn’t enough.
Both groups often end up in the same place: overreaching, stalling, or burning out.
The issue isn’t intensity itself. The issue is using intensity as your only gear.
Structure Changes Everything
Over time, I realized that I didn’t need less intensity. I needed structure. I needed to be more intentional about which days I went hard and which days I held a little back on purpose.
I still sprint. I still train hard. I still roll intensely in jiu-jitsu. But I no longer try to make every session maximal. On days when my body shouldn’t go all-out, I shift the focus rather than forcing the effort.
This is one reason I chose handstands to train years ago. Handstands are slow, technical, and humbling. They demand concentration, alignment, and patience rather than pure output. I can spend thirty minutes refining balance or shoulder positioning and walk away mentally engaged without having crushed my nervous system.
That shift was important. It gave me a way to stay invested in training even when my body needed restraint.
If you’re someone who needs engagement, skill work can bridge the gap. Instead of sprinting hard five days in a row, you might sprint twice and spend the other days refining mechanics, mobility, or a technical movement pattern. Instead of max-effort lifts every session, you can dedicate time to form, tempo, and control.
Your brain stays stimulated. Your body gets room to recover.
Structure for High-Output Athletes
You don’t need to eliminate intensity to build longevity. You need to place it strategically. For most athletes, that means limiting true high-intensity sessions — sprints, HIIT, max-effort lifting, hard sparring — to about two or three days per week, and surrounding those sessions with lower-intensity skill work or recovery-focused training.
When you organize training this way, something interesting happens. Hard days feel sharper because you’re recovered. Technical days feel purposeful because you’re building something. You stop chasing exhaustion and start building capacity.
Intensity becomes a tool instead of a compulsion.
Train Hard. Train Smart.
If you love intensity, you don’t need to apologize for it. You don’t need to become someone who avoids hard efforts. But you do need to respect the cost of those efforts. Hard training works best when it’s supported by skill work, structure, and recovery.
If you think you need to go hard every day to make progress, consider that your body adapts during recovery, not during the effort itself. You don’t earn results by suffering continuously. You earn them by applying stress and then allowing adaptation.
Intensity can make you feel alive. I won’t pretend otherwise.
But consistency builds you.
And sometimes the smartest way to protect your intensity is to channel it, not unleash it indiscriminately.
Train hard. Just don’t make it your only gear.
