The concentric gets all the drama, but the eccentric work happens on the descent.

What Is an Eccentric Movement?

A movement where muscles:

• Shorten – is concentric
• Lengthen – is eccentric
• Stay the same – is isometric

In a barbell curl, the muscle gets shorter when you curl the bar toward you (the concentric portion of the movement). As you let the bar go down, you are doing the eccentric movement as the muscles lengthen. Eccentric movements are also known as “negatives.”

“An eccentric movement can be up to 1.75 times the weight of a concentric movement.”

Depending on what you want to get out of your eccentric training, you may execute them at different speeds and use different weights. Let’s go through a few different movements and how to apply them for your specific goals.

The Benefits of Eccentric Movement

Builds Strength

An eccentric movement can be up to 1.75 times the weight of a concentric movement. Having a heavier load allows your neurologic system to get used to the heavier weight. Because of this, eccentric training can build both greater concentric strength and power (speed of movement).

Practical Application – Pull Ups: Slow eccentrics are a great tool for getting past sticky points. Many athletes have gotten their first strict pull up by focusing on the eccentric movement. I have athletes do an “elevator” drill on eccentric pull ups – as they reach the “floors” where they have the most difficulty, they go even slower through the movement.

Practical Application – Explosive Jumping: Fast eccentrics are a great way to build speed and to increase jumping ability. An overspeed eccentric kettlebell swing builds vertical leaping ability. An experienced kettlebell athlete can eccentrically throw a 53lb (24kg) kettlebell on the downswing to generate 500lbs (225kg) of force. Then having to change the direction of that force builds powerful jumping mechanics.

You can accomplish the overspeed kettlebell swing in three ways:

1. Actively throw the kettlebell down after it reaches the top
2. Have a partner throw it down for you
3. Use a band to force it back down. This movement is not recommended unless you are very proficient with the hard-style swing.

Builds Muscle

Many people are interested in hypertrophy (typically not as important for athletes and tactical operators). Eccentric movements cause muscle damage. This damage leads to the production of factors that stimulate protein synthesis and muscle growth. Research in animals indicates that eccentric training leads to hormone changes conducive to muscle growth (less myostatin, more IGF-I).

Practical Application – Bench Press: Heavy and slow eccentric movements will help build the most muscle. This activity preferentially recruits type-II muscle fibers. Use a spotter or have safety bars in place when doing these movements. Start with adding a load that is 10 to 20% greater than your 1RM. Control the eccentric movement for about 4 to 6 seconds. You will want to imagine that you can stop and reverse direction at any moment. These movements are not recommended for beginners. Being able to control a heavy weight is important and experience is needed.

Builds Flexibility and Stronger Joints

Eccentric training for flexibility is more effective than static stretching. In fact, researchers have found the eccentric squat had a greater effect on flexibility than static stretching. The eccentric motion increases the sarcomeres in series within a muscle, making the muscle longer. That is, it organizes the muscle fibers so they are not knotted up.

Researchers have also found that eccentric movements might protect against injuries. Specifically, soccer players were able to reduce common hamstring injuries by adding in eccentric movements.

Practical Application – Front Squats: I see many beginning (and some advanced) athletes having difficulty with the front squat. Front squats are difficult for many people as the torso must stay upright. Light to medium slow eccentrics can pry the hips open. Dan John’s goblet squat is good for this, and five sets of five reps with a five-second eccentric works quite well. Spending thirty seconds while you’re in the down part of the goblet squats would also be quite helpful.

As another option, you could try the sunset dance, as described by Pavel Tsatsouline. According to Pavel, the famous Soviet dancer Mahmoud Esambayev would take one and a half minutes to get to the bottom of the squat.

How Often to Use Eccentric Movements

Eccentric movement breaks down muscle more than concentric movements, so it takes more to recover from these movements. Thus, you will want to use them sparingly. But if you are using eccentrics for stretching, then you can do them every day.

“According to Pavel, the famous Soviet dancer Mahmoud Esambayev would take one and a half minutes to get to the bottom of the squat.”

You could do a greasing-the-groove type of pull-up program and do 3 to 5 negatives a day. Do intense eccentric skill sessions much less often (maybe once a week). Make sure you give yourself time to recover after these movements.

Summary

Eccentric movements can help you build strength, more muscle, and greater flexibility, but depending on your goals, you will change the speed of the eccentric movements. There have been many reports of huge gains in strength from overspeed kettlebell eccentrics. Personally, I recommend eccentrics mostly for mobility gains and for getting past sticking points in movements (e.g., the pull up).

More Like This:

• Greasing the Groove: How to Make It Work for You
• Successful Pull Ups for Beginners: Say No to Bands
• 6 Powerful Benefits of Eccentric Training
• New on Breaking Muscle Today

References:

1. Chen, Hsin-Lian, Kazunori Nosaka, and Trevor C. Chen. 2012. “Muscle Damage Protection by Low-Intensity Eccentric Contractions Remains for 2 Weeks but Not 3 Weeks.” European Journal of Applied Physiology 112 (2): 555–65.

2. Chen, Trevor C., Hsin-Lian Chen, Alan J. Pearce, and Kazunori Nosaka. 2012. “Attenuation of Eccentric Exercise-Induced Muscle Damage by Preconditioning Exercises.” Med Sci Sports Exerc 44 (11): 2090–98.

3. Heinemeier, Katja Maria, Jens Lykkegaard Olesen, Peter Schjerling, Fadia Haddad, Henning Langberg, Kenneth M. Baldwin, and Michael Kjaer. 2007. “Short-Term Strength Training and the Expression of Myostatin and IGF-I Isoforms in Rat Muscle and Tendon: Differential Effects of Specific Contraction Types.” Journal of Applied Physiology 102 (2): 573–81.

4. Isner-Horobeti, Marie-Eve, Stéphane Pascal Dufour, Philippe Vautravers, Bernard Geny, Emmanuel Coudeyre, and Ruddy Richard. 2013. “Eccentric Exercise Training: Modalities, Applications and Perspectives.” Sports Medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) 43 (6): 483–512. doi:10.1007/s40279-013-0052-y.

5. Kontrogianni-Konstantopoulos, Aikaterini, Maegen A. Ackermann, Amber L. Bowman, Solomon V. Yap, and Robert J. Bloch. 2009. “Muscle Giants: Molecular Scaffolds in Sarcomerogenesis.” Physiological Reviews 89 (4): 1217–67. doi:10.1152/physrev.00017.2009.

6. O’Sullivan, Kieran, Sean McAuliffe, and Neasa DeBurca. 2012. “The Effects of Eccentric Training on Lower Limb Flexibility: A Systematic Review.” British Journal of Sports Medicine, bjsports – 2011.

7. Petersen, Jesper, Kristian Thorborg, Michael Bachmann Nielsen, Esben Budtz-Jørgensen, and Per Hölmich. 2011. “Preventive Effect of Eccentric Training on Acute Hamstring Injuries in Men’s Soccer a Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial.” The American Journal of Sports Medicine 39 (11): 2296–2303.

8. Peterson, Magnus, Stephen Butler, Margaretha Eriksson, and Kurt Svärdsudd. 2014. “A Randomized Controlled Trial of Eccentric vs. Concentric Graded Exercise in Chronic Tennis Elbow (lateral Elbow Tendinopathy).” Clinical Rehabilitation 28 (9): 862–72.

Sheppard, Jeremy M., and Kieran Young. 2010. “Using Additional Eccentric Loads to Increase Concentric Performance in the Bench Throw.” The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 24 (10): 2853–56.

9. Sheppard, Jeremy, Rob Newton, and Mike McGuigan. 2007. “The Effect of Accentuated Eccentric Load on Jump Kinetics in High-Performance Volleyball Players.” International Journal of Sports Science and Coaching 2 (3): 267–73.

10. Van der Horst, Nick, Dirk Wouter Smits, Jesper Petersen, Edwin A. Goedhart, and Frank JG Backx. 2014. “The Preventive Effect of the Nordic Hamstring Exercise on Hamstring Injuries in Amateur Soccer Players: Study Protocol for a Randomised Controlled Trial.” Injury Prevention 20 (4): e8–e8.

Photo 1 courtesy of Recon Photography.

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Let’s think about it for a minute. Strength and power are pretty much the crux of every sport on the planet aside from darts (which isn’t a sport, but that’s a rant for another day). If you don’t have strength and power, then you’re at nothing. Make sense? Good.

Slow Reps Will Not Make You Slow

Here’s how it works: you need to get strong to have any hope of dominating your sport or event. Of course, it goes without saying for most playing positions in most sports you need some sort of explosive power, too. Do we agree on that? Of course we do.

But won’t slow, grinding reps make you slow? Not necessarily. You just have to be smart about it. 

I’m going to talk about muscle growth a lot so remember you’re not thinking of muscle growth as the potential for bigger muscles. Rather, you’re thinking of it as the potential for huge increases in your strength and power. With that, here are six benefits of eccentric reps:

1. Strength is Important For Everything

Studies have shown that your body can tolerate up to 1.75 times more weight eccentrically than it can concentrically. Eccentrics are the downward portion of the exercise, such as lowering yourself in a squat or lowering the bar to your chest in a bench press. It only makes sense to take advantage of this, doesn’t it?

Some sports or events require more size than others, but that’s not for today’s article. If you emphasise the eccentric portion of your lifts, then you’re certain to increase muscle growth. Guess what more muscle growth is going to get you? That’s right, more strength and that means greater potential for hypertrophy (which is always a bonus) and greater potential to develop power. Again, as we talked about at the beginning of this article, power is essential to the vast majority of sports.

I’m not suggesting you do eccentric only training, though. I’m suggesting you take advantage of your body’s potential to handle more weight while still doing the full movement. We’ll get on to how you’re going to do this later, but note that combining the two has been proven to have significant effects on muscle growth.

As you know by now with eccentric training you can lift a hell of a lot more weight than you would normally. The great thing about this is it allows you to workout at a higher intensity. Higher intensity means greater stress, which means greater adaptation. Here’s the beauty of that – the anabolic response from the heavy loads forces greater recruitment of muscle fibres, which by default will allow you to move more weight on the concentric (upward) portion of the lift.

You don’t need to be told what that means, but I’m going to tell you anyway: you get much stronger than you ever would with normal lifting. It’s possible you’ll be moving weight between 20-50% heavier than your regular 1RM. Not too shabby, huh?

2. Greater Muscle Damage

This is why bodybuilders tend to take advantage of slow, grinding reps with moderate weights. It tears their muscles apart and the hope is they will repair and grow even further.

The difference is you are going to use heavy weight and you’re not going to grind out the concentric portion of the lift. In fact, more often than not the concentric portion will be easier than the heavy eccentric.

How you ask? You have two options:

1. Have a spotter (sometimes two) on hand to aid you after the heavy eccentric.
2. Use lifting aids such as elastic bands, chains or eccentric hooks.

Emphasizing the lowering portion of your lift while still doing the full lift will lead to even greater muscle growth and in turn strength, power and connective tissue development.

3. Stronger Connective Tissue

The stronger your connective tissue (ligaments and tendons), the greater your immunity to injury. Are you under heavy loads all the time in your sport? Do you get hit hard? You need to strengthen your body, not just your muscles. Taking advantage of eccentrics is a great way to do this.

4. You Use Less Energy

Heavier weight uses less energy? That’s nonsense. Again, there is beauty in training eccentric portions of the lift. Most of your energy is used when you’re pushing or lifting a weight. This becomes useful because you are going to be able to do more work, which means your body will improve, your strength will improve, your size will improve, and your power will improve.

5. Greater Flexibility

This one is hard to believe, but there has been a ton of research to show eccentric training actually increases your flexibility. No way, right?

Here’s how it works. The negative portion of the lift causes growth of your muscle fibers, which increases the length of your muscles by increasing the sarcomeres in series within the muscle. Too technical? No problem. Just take my word for it – heavy negatives have been show to promote greater flexibility.

Don’t just take my word for it though. Try it for yourself. Finally, we can dispel the myth that when you lift weights you get less flexible.

6. Greater Power

I’ve already told you that the stronger you are the more potential there is for greater power development. That just makes sense, doesn’t it?

Usually when you are training for power, you will significantly drop your weights to between 30-60% of your 1RM. With heavy negatives you’re going to increase your 1RM, right? So again, by default, you will use heavier weights during your power training, which can only lead to one thing – you being more explosive.

A great way to ensure you remain explosive is to superset your heavy negatives with something fast. Here are two examples:

1. Heavy eccentric squat with low rep box jumps.
2. Heavy eccentric bench press with low rep explosive push ups or med ball tosses.

Closing Thoughts

This type of training shouldn’t be used year round. Incorporate it into your program periodically to stimulate modest increases in your strength. I highly recommend you do it during your off season. Remember, although you save energy during eccentrics, you are still doing huge amounts of damage to your muscle fibers. Doing this in season will upset your ability to recover. Done correctly, you should expect to get stronger and faster.

Check out these related articles:

• The Expression of Strength, Part 1 – Absolute Strength
• 3 Ways to Use the Kettlebell Swing for Overspeed Eccentric Training
• An Analysis of Muscle Fiber Responses to Eccentric Exercise
• What’s New on Breaking Muscle Today

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

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