The Prerequisites of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)

I’ve heard so many clients of mine, Princeton locals, and physicians call this place Redcord. We’ve even had people call and insist they weren’t sure if they should come here because they were afraid of all the red ropes. Well, I’m here to set the record straight...

Someone asked me this question the other day and I immediately wrote it down. That's because it was probably the 800th time I’ve been asked about inversion tables. And while I have answered this question many times, I've never done any formal research on it.

In the first article of this blog series, I talked about what I aim to accomplish during a client's first visit. I also described my education which enables me to practice physical therapy, with or without a prescription from a physician. I am now going to lay the groundwork to then build the rest of this blog series, detailing common treatment techniques I use and why.

Many people walk into our physical therapy office with injuries from sports or exercise classes where they participate in activities that are too advanced for them. A main example of this is when people participate in High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) exercises. Now, don’t get me wrong, I think that HIIT is a great form of exercise. There’s actually very few forms of exercise I don’t approve of. The exercise isn’t the problem, it’s the individual’s preparedness for it. Do they have the prerequisite strength and motor control for those fast paced movements.

When you’re in physical therapy school, the professors fill you with pride. “You’re a Doctor of Physical Therapy,” they said. They encourage continuing education and research so you can deliver the most innovative, evidence-based care possible. “Never tell your patients to do 3 sets of 10,” they instructed. A physical therapist should appropriately dose each exercise to maximize strength gains and minimize recovery time.

I am a physical therapist who works in a physical therapy clinic that doesn’t participate in any insurance plans. So what does that really mean? What happens when a physical therapist is out-of-network? Many insurance companies deter people from going outside of the insurance network because of the higher expense.

Pain is often caused by an inflammatory process of some type causing an irritation in a tissue like a bone, muscle, tendon, or ligament. When seeing a PT, you’re usually assigned exercises to address your goals. Typically these goals are oriented around reducing inflammation and optimizing movement function. But exercises aren’t the only thing that can assist with achieving your goals.