There are four main areas of exercise which are endurance, flexibility, strength and balance. Isometric workouts address all four areas very well. No matter your sport, weight training alone is not enough to prepare you for performance. I learned that lesson through experience. Now, as a skier and hiker, I continue to lift weights, but for the past several years I have added infrared (IR) isometrics to my training routine and it has literally changed my life. It has transformed my fitness for athletics. My skiing has elevated and my hiking has graduated to new heights as well.
When you go beyond strength training with IR isometrics to address endurance, flexibility and balance, you will see a marked improvement in movement performance!
Infrared Isometrics improves all of the four areas of fitness mentioned above. I’ve noticed my performance improvement most prominently in the balance and flexibility areas. This is good because it has allowed me to enjoy my two sporting endeavors with greater mobility and less susceptibility to injuries. I remember a time during football training when I pulled a hamstring, the same muscle, twice. I pulled it the second time on the exact same sprint drill after I thought that I had fully recovered. Perhaps, if I had been into a steady practice of hot yoga back then, I could have avoided that injury.
Greater flexibility prevents injury!
Infrared isometrics is especially effective for stretching. The heat primes your muscles for added flexibility, and, so long as the subject is no further than three feet from the IR heaters, the heat generated from IR is absorbed within the body due to deep penetration from the waves of infrared energy.
The use of heat as a “good” stressor is one of the reasons for the popularization of hot yoga throughout the world. And now there is IR hot yoga. Infrared hot yoga in a sauna was first introduced by HOTWORX. The HOTWORX franchise, through the use of a patented infrared sauna, actually offers multiple types of hot isometric based workouts, beyond just yoga, that incorporate stretching and foam rolling to elevate flexibility.
Greater flexibility reduces the risks for injury. And, science backs the idea that heat from an external source is needed to improve flexibility for certain parts of the body. See the quote below from the Medical Science Monitor:
Light exercise raises the blood flow to muscle and the temperature of muscle rises toward that of the core. But other tissues such as the knee and its ligaments can only be heated effectively externally. This is also true for the ankle. Here, external heat may be of great benefit. (1)
Heat can certainly help to increase muscle and ligament flexibility. I would argue that IR heat, with its deep penetration through the skin, can work even more effectively for flexibility than that of traditional convection heat.
No matter what your sport is, or if you simply want better mobility and general fitness, infrared isometrics should be a part of your fitness regime.
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(1) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3747018
