The benefits of HIT for Sports People

There are so many reasons why a sports person will benefit immensely with High Intensity Strength Training (HIT), especially with the methodology that HITuni teaches. Some of the main benefits that HIT will provide a sports person playing for example football are; strength, flexibility, an optimally functioning cardiovascular system, essentially you are going to provide the footballer with an exceptionally fit body to perform their best at their given sport. They will do this in a safe way without risking potential injury in something that is enhancing their fitness.

Often typical traditional strength training done with sports people puts the person at risk of injury or overtraining. From the perspective of HITuni, strength training’s role in creating a sports person is about giving the individual their best body for the job with minimal to no risk, therefore the only risk they have is when they are practicing their sport, or out on the field. HIT gives them a Ferrari (or a Monster Truck) to go and play the game with.

Muscle mass cannot be obtained through playing football alone, although the fast sprints and the running around will strengthen the muscles to a degree, it’s nowhere near as intense as HIT. The additional level of intensity in HIT provides the player with greater strength and greater muscle mass that can be used very practically in sports. It’s like turning on the power when you need to sprint to get the ball ahead of a defender, they will have a reserve of power there that they wouldn’t otherwise have.

A rugby player who needs to have thighs like tug boats and shoulders that can lift 3 people is never going to reach his potential unless he does something over and above his sports specific rugby training. Players in the scrum need those really strong thighs, arms and shoulders, a strong physique all over. These players will be people who genetically have more muscle than the majority of the population anyway. However for them to optimise their genetic potential they will need a form of training that stimulates their entire body. Conventional forms of strength training do work for some sports people to a degree, the tendency is unfortunately to train more than they need to. It would be far better for them to spend the majority of this time on practicing the specific skills of their sport. So a sports person should be doing 98% of their training on the field and 2% when you go and see their HIT trainer.

Golf can be assumed to be a relatively leisurely sport but a golfer does need to have a powerful swing. Golfers who train with HIT have been known to add 60 to 100 yards to the distance of their drive off the tee. That first swing is where you need to get really good distance and keen golfers who have great technique then add the component of HIT (and the strength and the flexibility it provides) will improve their driving distance.

So for a sports person who really wants to better their performance the combination of their sport plus HIT is the ultimate mix. Consider the time investment and the safety of HIT, a sports person would HIT only once a week for 20 minutes in some cases, during off season that might be twice a week for 20 minutes but the whole point is it doesn’t get in the way of recoverability of your chosen sport. When you go into your competitive sport say on a Saturday you will be going in with your fitness optimised. What can happen with a lot of competitive sports people is they start off the season really strong, mid season they start to tail off and their condition can get worse and often it is the strongest, fittest team and not necessarily the most skilled that can persevere at the end of the season. HIT will give a team the staying power and it doesn’t get in the way of the skill practice. Just spend 20 minutes once or twice a week on HIT and the rest of your training time spent on honing your skills.

A sports person should leave a gap of at least 5 days between their HIT training and playing their competitive game against another team so that they go into that absolutely full of energy, they may well be ready for another HIT session but you want them to express that energy in their chosen sport.

Another benefit of HIT is that increased strength protects the sports person from potential injury. In some cases where injury has already occurred HIT may be the only effective modality the injured sports person can engage in during their recovery process. There is the instance of a runner who suffered a debilitating injury and was off his sport for a long time, the only thing he was able to continue was his HIT training during rehabilitation. Six months after the injury he raced his first competitive run and he won having had no track practice at all.

All sports people and athletes can benefit from HIT.