After a few weeks off due to illness and being away with work I had time to re-evaluate my current training. My Hip wasn't really improving, it wasn't getting worse but still felt weak. So I went back to basics in my evaluation.
People usually pull muscles because the muscle is weak, not because it isn't stretched. This is especially true of muscles that people repeatedly pull. In my case the Hip Flexor and my Leg Rotators kept getting minor pulls. All the "resting" and stretching in the world wasn't going to improve them. The Elastic Steel HFS conditioning routine, while thorough uses body weight exercises primarily and wasn't presenting my muscles with enough resistance.
I had also read some information recently by Dan Van Zandt on the Martial Arts Planet Forum and have decided to go back to incorporating exercises he and Tom Kurz recommend, the Hamstring Pulldown and Adductor Pulldown.
After incorporating these along with weighted full range of motion Squats and Deadlifts I can definitely feel an improvement.
I plan to give this conditioning phase another 1-2 weeks before trying some isometrics, so am just doing some light relaxed stretches after the workout at the moment.
Will keep you updated.
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