Eccentric training program

Choose a weight you can easily lift for repetitions, then focus on controlling the eccentric phase of the exercise for 5 seconds. Eccentric training should be a staple in your exercise routine, whether your goal is to build muscle and strength, improve flexibility, or prevent overuse injuries. To learn more about how to program eccentric training into your exercise routine, check out my book, Built from Broken. In it , I lay out a complete training program with exercise demonstrations, set and repetition schemes, and periodization techniques that ensure you make consistent progress toward your fitness goals without causing joint dege neration and overuse injuries.

Like this article? Please share it with your friends:. Author: Scott Hogan. I created SaltWrap to bring together the most practical ideas in therapeutic sports nutrition, corrective exercise, and functional fitness — with the goal of keeping you and myself strong, mobile, and built to last. I've worked as an A. But more importantly — I've spent most of my life battling injuries, joint pain, and just being plain beat up.

So I know what it's like to struggle toward fitness goals. SaltWrap is here to push you through injuries, setbacks and perceived physical limitations.

To a place beyond what you think you're capable of. Sign up here to stay in the loop. Learn more about my best-selling injury prevention and recovery book, Built from Broken. See full author profile. Thanks for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed this article. Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Questions, opinions, and feedback are most welcome. Please log in again. The login page will open in a new tab. After logging in you can close it and return to this page. Table of Contents What is eccentric training? How does eccentric training work? Why eccentric training is important in your exercise program.

What are the benefits of eccentric training? How to use eccentric training to recover from tendonitis and tendinopathy. How to safely incorporate eccentric training into your exercise routine. How to get started with eccentric training. What is eccentric t raining? Why eccentric training is important in your exercise program There are many reasons to incorporate eccentric exercise in your exercise program, but the most research-backed, practical reason is to prevent tendonitis, tendinopathy, and other connective tissue injuries.

Here are a few of the most cited benefits of eccentric training: Strength : Compared to concentric-only training, eccentric training more effectively promotes increased motor unit recruitment and strength adaptations.

If you are at all familiar with my other work, then you probably already know how important it is to control all of the loading parameters for optimal results. As a very general rule of thumb, for optimal results, you should use an eccentric tempo between seconds on most of your exercises. That is, the lowering phase of most of your exercises should take between 1 and 5 seconds to complete.

This is in stark contrast to most trainees, where they simply drop the weight as fast as possible on every repetition even on things like bench presses! These slower eccentric tempos will place additional stress on your muscles and nervous system and improve the effectiveness of your training stimulus. Of course, a specific tempo is only as good as the time it takes for your body to adapt to it. This means that you are lowering the weight under a controlled 2-second time frame and lifting the weight as explosively as possible.

At this time you will have to change the tempo, along with other variables such as your chosen exercises etc. If you are brand new to eccentric training and have never controlled the lowering phases of your reps then I recommend you start with just a 2 second lowering phase. Over time you can build up to a five second lowering phase on most exercises. This will increase the eccentric stress on your muscles and provide a novel stimulus for strength and size gains. Just make sure that you keep varying the tempo over time as there is no single best eccentric lowering speed!

For example, if you are brand new to lowering your weights under control, then you may want to try the following upper body routine. I highly recommend you perform the vast majority of your sets with a second eccentric or lowering phase.

There are some instances where an even slower lowering phase, such as 10 seconds or more, can be justified. Powerlifting legend Matt Wenning sometimes even works 10 second lowering phases into his speed bench press workouts.

This method is a little bit different from the second eccentric phase covered in Part 2 of this article. Just like method 1 you will perform a set where every repetition includes a second lowering phase.

However, unlike method 1 you are going to take at least 10 seconds to lower the final repetition! Here are the training videos: exercise A1 , exercise A2 , exercise B1 , exercise B2. Here is what this would look like for one set of dips where you start the movement with an eccentric contraction :. Because you START with the lowering phase on dips, one final 6th eccentric rep is included where you lower your body weight under control over 10 seconds, and then terminate the set by landing your feet on the ground.

Here is what this would look like for preacher ez-bar curls where you start the movement with a concentric contraction :. After the final 10 second lowering phase, you are done. I mean this both literally and figuratively. Your biceps will feel like they are ready to fall of the bone if you did this right! So why does the last slow eccentric rep method work so well? What we are doing here is first exhausting our concentric strength levels.

Completing the concentric portion of the fifth and final rep should be extremely demanding, but you will get it. Normally this is where a set ends. Of course, this is no ordinary set. With the last slow eccentric rep method we then proceed to further exhaust our eccentric strength levels. After the last 10 second negative, not only would you struggle to LIFT the weight another time, but you would struggle to be able to LOWER it under control another time!

Exhausting eccentric strength levels is the name of the game when it comes to eccentric training. If you are paying attention, then you might be asking yourself the following question:.

I thought we were talking about eccentric training! Have you gone off your rocker!? The truth is I probably went off my rocker a long time ago, but not for the reasons you might think. Yes, this is an article on eccentric training. In fact, yielding isometrics are really another form of eccentric training! With yielding isometrics, you are trying to hold a load in place by preventing it from lowering to the ground.

Perhaps one of the best examples of a yielding isometric is the crucifix hold in the sport of professional strongman. Competitors are tasked with holding extremely heavy weights at shoulder-height with their arms fully extended for as long as they can bear.

For example:. The act of resisting the weight from dropping down heavily taxes eccentric strength! Even though the load is not moving, you are still getting all the usual benefits of eccentric training with yielding isometrics. Instead, a very simple technique is to insert second isometric pauses during the lowering phase of your exercises.

I recommend you use 3 separate second pauses during each isometric hold during the eccentric range. These could be at the shortened, mid-range, and lengthened positions of the strength curve or at the top, middle, and bottom of your lifts.

Here is an excellent video demonstration of yielding isometrics for preacher curls and dips:. Because the eccentric phase of each rep could easily last seconds, the rep ranges with this method will be rather low.

For example, here is a lower body accumulation-style routine you may want to try. Here are the training videos: exercise A1 , exercise B1 , exercise B2 , exercise C1. This is an absolutely brutal workout and is not recommended unless you have an above-average pain tolerance.

However, in my experience, yielding isometrics performed on the deficit snatch grip deadlift are one of the very best ways to rapidly boost lower back strength. If you have been neglecting your posterior chain in your training then this may be just what you need to kick-start the strength and size gains. However, instead of performing yielding isometrics on every repetition, you ONLY perform them on the final repetition of your set.

Like most high-intensity bodybuilding techniques , this method is far more effective for building muscle than it is for getting stronger. This does not mean that you cannot get stronger training this way! Rather, it is normally best reserved for accumulation methods where increases in muscle mass are desired.

You have to be very careful with your exercise selection when using the last yielding isometric rep method. After all, we we are training beyond technical failure here! This method can also work well on movements like bench presses etc. The isometric pauses are only performed on the final repetition of the first 2 exercises in this routine.

They are far more demanding in real life than they appear on paper. This is just your body struggling to recruit dormant motor units. After all, your body can recruit more motor units during isometric contractions than either concentric or eccentric ones.

Most people lift with such atrocious form that almost all of their reps can be considered cheating rips! All kidding aside, cheating reps are easily one of the most abused training methods the world over.

The classic example of this is people cheating during standing barbell curls. Again, this is an example of what NOT to do!

The lifter just drops the weight down to the starting position without bothering to control it. What a monumental waste of time! In reality cheating reps can be quite effective if you use them properly. After all they are just another form of eccentric training. There are many ways to take advantage of this training concept. They are one of the very best rowing exercises for overloading the entire backside.

For example, here is Brian Shaw performing a picture-perfect set of dead stop rows with pounds:. Instead, Brain is treating the beginning portion of the movement like a deadlift to get some momentum going.

Once the weight gets to just below his knees he begins to row the barbell into his stomach, and then return it to the ground.

The real benefit is that he is lowering pounds under control and maximally overloading his upper back musculature! Here is a short non-inclusive list:. As you can see, cheating reps tend to work best for rowing exercises and isolation exercises for the arms.

Cheating reps are in fact more taxing than regular reps due to the increased eccentric stress they create. It would therefore be smart to perform fewer overall sets on any workout employing cheating reps to reduce the overall stress on your recovery reserves.

Most people make the mistake of rapidly dropping the weight down instead of deliberately controlling the eccentric phase of the exercise. If you have the discipline to control your weights on the way down then you may find cheating reps to be a fantastic training tool to boost muscular hypertrophy.

There are some exercises that literally have an eccentric loading component built-in with the exercise. These exercise variations can be an extremely effective way to increase the eccentric stress you are exposing your body to but without having to worry about dramatically increased levels of soreness.

I am so fond of these exercise variations that we are going to examine each one in detail. Exercise 1: Zottman Curls. Zottman curls are probably my single favourite exercise for building big, strong elbow flexors. Zottman curls are different from any other curling exercise you have ever done. The idea is to curl the dumbbells up with a supinated grip and then lower them back down with a pronated grip.

In order to do this you simply pronate your hands at the top position of the exercise and supinate them at the bottom position. The reason why this works so well is quite interesting.

You are far weaker curling with a pronated palms down grip vs a supinated palms up grip. This means that you are lifting the dumbbells with your stronger grip, and lowering with the weaker grip. So you are overloading the eccentric phase of the lift! In fact, the zottman curl is probably the single best exercise you can do for boosting brachialis strength! Add more weight to the belt and step to the top of the dip station to start each eccentric rep. Scott Curl: Partner assistance needed to add plates and assist through the concentric range.

Triceps Extension: No assistance needed. Grab heavier dumbbells, press the arms-extended position, perform an eccentric rep, then roll them forward and press back to the top position.

Grab heavier dumbbells and using your knees, kick them to your shoulders, as you would for an incline dumbbell press. Lateral Raise: No assistance needed. Use the opposite arm to assist the working arm through the concentric range. Row to Neck: No assistance needed. After changing the weight, simply use a cheating style for the concentric portion of the range.

Start with one set per exercise, adding another set every other microcycle:. Incline Press: A training partner is needed for quickly adding plates and assisting through the concentric range. Again, this is a demanding technique. Weight releasers, also known as eccentric hooks, are a training accessory specially made for an overloaded eccentric rep. Weight is added on each releaser and hung on the sleeve of the barbell. The length of each hook is adjusted so that at the very bottom of the range the weight releaser and the added weight detach from the bar and end up on the floor.

This makes it possible to overload the eccentric portion of the rep and complete the concentric portion of the range unassisted.

This is a great method for developing strength and has been used by many successful lifters, including Louie Simmons of Westside Barbell. It just requires two training partners and a power rack.

When bench pressing set the safety pins one inch above your chest. If squatting, set the pins just above the bottom position.

Perform the negative rep to the pins. From there, your partners quickly remove weight so that you can perform the concentric portion of the range on your own. If doing more than one rep per set, rack the bar for a few seconds between reps allowing your partners to replace the hooks or add plates. When using this technique, perform sets of reps. The eccentric portion of each rep should be anywhere from seconds.

This wide range of variables can make weight selection difficult. Start conservatively, maintain total control through the eccentric range, and explode through the concentric range. After the hooks detach, explode out of the hole, rack the bar at the top, and wait for the hooks to be added by your partners before the next rep. If squatting to safety pins, pause in the bottom position and wait for your partners to remove the necessary weight before exploding to the top. This technique can be extremely taxing for the nervous system.

Because of the supra-maximal weights, one bench pressing and one squatting session every days using this technique is enough. The rest of the workouts during the microcycle should use more traditional methods. Simply put, lowering a heavy weight for a single rep. Using a weight heavier than your one-rep max, perform one eccentric rep of seconds.

In the absence of qualified spotters, again a sturdy power rack with safety pins set just above the very bottom of the range can substitute. Strength levels and the number of seconds you choose for the rep will determine the weight.

After performing several standard sets of reps of a given exercise, do sets of negative singles. Or perform the standard version of the exercise in a morning workout, and negative singles in the evening workout. Handling supra-maximal weights is a great way to build confidence with heavy loads and can take your strength to new levels. But be cautious of using them too frequently and burning yourself out.

Most of the methods discussed here are advanced and should be reserved for seasoned lifters. Some of the techniques require more training partners and set-up time.