The result: simultaneously lengthened and strengthened muscles. Just as in the physics maxim, “The longer the lever, the heavier the load,” eccentric exercise allows your “lever” (muscle) to easily bear more resistance while in its lengthened position.
#Aging backwards full
In fact, your body is actually doing eccentric exercises as you reach into a high cupboard or get out of a car: You bend a knee and stretch out your quadriceps while these are still bearing the full weight of your body as you stand up.
That concentric motion is typically where we focus all of our workout attention-we don’t give as much attention to lengthening our muscles.īut by ignoring this, we’re giving short shrift to a very critical aspect of the development of healthy, strong muscles-eccentric exercise.Įccentric exercise simultaneously lengthens and strengthens, and is just as critical as concentric exercise, but is often overlooked as “wasted” time. You see concentric strengthening every day in the gym when people tense up and shorten their quadriceps muscles as they attempt to straighten a leg on the leg extension machine, for example, or pull a hand weight toward a shoulder in a biceps curl, or “crunch” their abdominal muscles during a sit-up. Most other fitness programs focus on concentric strengthening.
Concentric exercises strengthen the muscle by shortening it eccentric exercise strengthens the muscle by lengthening it. According to sports science, you can strengthen your muscles in one of two ways: eccentrically or concentrically.
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