This week, a post from WOD Science led me to a 2014 study on training intensity.
The researchers randomized 48 well-trained endurance athletes into four groups for nine weeks: high volume, threshold, high-intensity intervals, and polarized training.
The polarized group combined a large amount of low-intensity work with a deliberate dose of very hard work and very little threshold work. That group produced the largest improvements in VO2 peak, time to exhaustion, and peak speed or power.
It was an endurance study, not a CrossFit study. It lasted nine weeks, not nine years. The training volume was not equal between groups. So I would never claim it proves the Bolder Athlete method.
But the intent was familiar.
I have been programming around a similar principle for years: intensity only works when it has contrast.
For a long time, I watched athletes make every training day feel roughly the same. Hard enough to be draining. Not focused enough to create a clear adaptation. Easy days became contests. Hard days arrived on tired legs. The week looked tough, but the athlete stayed stuck.
That matters even more as we get older.
Masters athletes still need volume. We need enough work to build strength, skill, and capacity. But that volume only works when the intensity is dosed correctly. Otherwise, it becomes expensive fatigue.
The Bolder Athlete Intensity Spectrum
A couple of years ago, we built that principle into Bolder Athlete. Every piece of a training session gets its own color tag:
BLUE · RECOVERY GREEN · AEROBIC BASE YELLOW · SUSTAINABLE ORANGE · COMPETITION PACE RED · MAX EFFORT
The color tells the athlete how the work should feel—not just what movements and reps to complete. If a Green piece turns Orange, the workout has changed. So has the cost.
That recipe is central to the Bolder Athlete methodology. It is how we use the volume Masters athletes need while keeping them healthy enough to adapt, recover, and keep improving. More work is not the answer by itself. Every piece needs an intensity prescription.
Bolder is not a copy of a polarized endurance plan. Threshold work has a place. Competition pace has a place. Max effort has a place. The point is not to avoid the middle forever.
The point is to stop living there every day.
I still believe effort matters. I have built much of my life around it. But effort without direction is just chaos—and frankly, it’s not training.
The goal is not to win Wednesday. The goal is to keep adapting, keep competing, and still be capable of getting better years from now.
That is the long game. It is also why Bolder Athlete was built the way it was.
See how Bolder Athlete programs intensity →
— Jason Grubb
6x CrossFit Games Masters Champion
Founder, Bolder Athlete