What are Eccentrics Exercises ?

Did you ever listen to your coach, trainer, or partner tell you to slow down when you did an exercise? Have you ever done "negatives?"

Eccentrics exercises do exactly what they sound like: slow, longeing muscle contractions for a particular muscle. Imagine, for example, slowly lowering your body to sit in a chair. This is an eccentric contraction or "negative".

Scroll down to see some examples of eccentrics exercise or negatives if you have never heard of them before.

The muscle lengthens when it is under tension. This happens because an external force is greater than the force generated within the muscle. The muscle can slow down a joint through a range or control the repositioning and movement of a load. A muscle that is lengthening while contracting can create more tension than it can at its static length. Your muscles can take more force to do a negative than a hold/ Isometric, or concentric contraction.

Eccentric Focused Training: The Health and Performance Benefits

The Performance Benefits of Eccentric Learning includes

1. Lower risk of injury
2. Improvements in strength and power output
3. Greater movement efficiency
4. Mobility improvements
5. Greater Muscular Hypertrophy

Preventing injury

For a variety of injuries, Eccentric-focused exercises are often prescribed. These include Tendinopathy (chronic inflammation of the soft tissue that surrounds your joints and muscles]. Eccentrics exercises are very effective way to increase the size and quality soft-tissue, reduces pain in affected limbs, and improve return to play. Although they say the best way to heal an injury is to prevent it from happening, many people overlook this method of training as a preventative tool.

Research has shown that eccentric training is an effective way to reduce both new and recurring injuries. Most injuries sustained in sport occur eccentrically during decelerated movements. The body can't absorb the force that we try to absorb eccentrically and will then compensate, which can lead to injuries. It makes sense that we are less likely to get injured if our muscles grow longer and our connective tissues become stronger.

Sport Performance Improvement

A performance coach's primary role is to increase performance, after reducing injury risk. There are many strategies and methods to improve sports performance. Some work better than others. However, it is crucial that we focus on eccentric strength. Eccentric overload, or eccentric training, has been shown specifically to increase motor unit recruitment, particularly of fast-twitch muscles fibers, as well as force development, leading to greater mechanical tension throughout the muscle. Research on the subject shows that these neurological improvements, along with changes to the elastic properties of musculotendinous units like, contribute to increases in speed and power as well as strength and ability to change direction. An athlete's ability to absorb potential energy in the eccentric phase and then concentrate their efforts has been demonstrated to be improved by eccentric training. Athletes with higher strength, power, and movement efficiency will perform better in their sport.

Muscular Hypertrophy Increased

Three main stimuli that stimulate muscular hypertrophy include

1. Mechanical Tension
2. Muscular Damage
3. Metabolic Stress

Eccentric training is a proven method to improve muscular hypertrophy. This is because, in addition, it increases mechanical tension and causes greater muscular damage. The Z-Disks connecting sarcomeres are being pulled apart, so eccentric training can be a more effective way to increase muscular hypertrophy. Eccentric training is also less energy-intensive than traditional training methods. This is combined with the metabolic stress caused by prolonged tension and slower movement, which creates a favorable environment for muscular hypertrophy. It would also produce less energy demand, making it easier to attain a caloric surplus.

Mobility improvements

These methods are not enough to make lasting mobility improvements. The increases in range of motion and muscle flexibility seen with them tend to be temporary. Moving our bodies through this new range of motion will create a lasting change in our range of motion. We can also add weight to the movement. The movement creates neuromuscular activation in the stretched muscles, which is what essentially teaches our bodies how we can use this range of motion. Higher loads result in greater neuromuscular activation, which is necessary to maintain this change in range. Exercises that are eccentrically overloaded create muscle stretch and high levels of muscular activation, both of which contribute to long-lasting mobility changes. It has been suggested that eccentric contractions can cause sarcomerogenesis (the generation of new muscle cells), which is essentially a lengthening of the muscle.