Dr Darden,
If you were to recommend any training strategies, accessory excercises, other physical activities alongside HIT training - in order to get better at HIT training - What would that be?
My answer would be to focus more on rest, recovery, relaxation, and sleep.
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If there is one thing not – or rarely – addressed in HIT training article and books, it’s Stretching. As I get older, this becomes more and more crucial. RCs have been an issue for me for a while and stretches have helped plenty (among other things, see below); I’ve even gone for Active Release treatments for further help. For us aging lifters, tight hips, glutes, and hammies are almost inevitable. Static Stretching, after and between workouts, is the way to go and it helps tremendously.
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I have found this to be true. When I was younger I didn’t bother but now I’m in my late fifties my daily mobility routine is a must.
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I’m finding the same thing. When I was younger, I didn’t do much stretching or mobility work. Then I started to feel like a stiff old man with achy joints, despite lifting regularly. I now feel much better and more functional when I add that kind of stuff.
The reality is that when you move against a heavy resistance (and especially go to failure), it isn’t safe or effective to put certain joints through a full range of motion. But if you never move those joints through the full range with a light load or no load, you may eventually lose the ability to do so.
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Exactly – Great Point!! This is crucial, because the ROM on many movements tends to shorten as time goes on → for safety and training longevity reasons.
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Completely agree. I know it goes against HIT dogma, but I don’t care. I stretch and I stretch a lot.
It feels good, certainly helps with aches and pains - at least in my experience.
Yoga classes, and martial arts in the past, but these days I have it boiled down to movements and routines that suit me. A bare minimum of 15 minutes a day, but it can be more if I get in a groove.
I have a few sets of bands and do several movements with them. Sort of like Dick Hartzell here at the 39 second mark
Just kidding, I don’t do them as explosively as he does, but they are extremely useful to me, and if you look through all of his videos there is some really useful stuff. At 66 I can do a full front split and that can be chalked up to bull headed consistency lol.
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I have had a dose of left shoulder impingement, due to overhead pressing.
Dr Kirsch’s instructions saved my left shoulder. It took months to heal my left shoulder, but I no longer listen when HiT aficionados disdain stretching.
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Marc! Please…Just make a statement about one thing, w/o backhanding the other thing.
I’ve dealt with impingement issues, that were postural as well as structural (from my 85% desk work job) for about 25+ yrs. About 3 yrs ago, I suffered a full-thickness tear of my left supraspinatus. I was sent for 8 weeks of PT and told that surgery would be inevitable. While in PT, I found out about Dr Kirsch’s book and never looked back.
I hang before chest and delt work on Push Day and after back and rear delt work on Pull Day. I do 1-2 PT-style RC moves every weight session. AND, I have no intention of ever getting shoulder surgery!!
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When certain ones QUIT making outlandish claims of what HiT can and can NOT accomplish! If you recall, they drew 1st blood!
1st blood was drawn way before HIT with all the falacies of bodybuilding, running and training 2 to 4 hours everyday
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Not my concern
It obviously is with your constant anti-hit rhetoric
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Dude thinks he’s Rambo.
More like Casey Jones, takes every thread and derails it. Mostly mental, I guess. Maybe Megalomania, thinks the universe revolves around him, and his words are like manna from heaven, when it is the same reruns over and over.
Could be like the Crusades, and look what happened to them…
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