The phrase
"eccentric strength" refers to the strength and control of a muscle while it is lengthening or stretched. This type of strength is important for movements like lowering a weight or coming down from a jump.
Full definition
Then I suggest some eccentric loading exercises because skiing and downhill hiking or running require quite a bit
of eccentric strength and endurance.
So does that mean if you already have
high eccentric strength, you have a lower risk of suffering from a muscle strain?
So if strength (
even eccentric strength) is not a perfectly reliable risk factor, but eccentric training reduces the risk of incurring a muscle strain injury, what it going on?
Concentric strength training just as effective as
eccentric strength training When you're doing strength training, the eccentric and the concentric parts of your reps are equally important, according to a meta - study published by The Brad Schoenfeld.
In this phase we would have the athlete jump over a six - inch or smaller hurdle, which will add more gravity and decelerative forces to overcome,
improving eccentric strength.
Eccentric training is, therefore, a necessary component in the development of stronger, more powerful athletes
as eccentric strength provides enough structural integrity to store elastic energy during plyometric - like activities such as throwing, jumping and sprinting.
In addition, the increases in EMG amplitudes after eccentric training seem to be greater when tested in
eccentric strength tests, which is a promising sign for explaining eccentric - specific strength (Hortobágyi et al. 1996).
Figure skaters often have the concentric strength to jump high enough to complete a complex jump like the double axle but do not have
enough eccentric strength to control the landing.
This is because there is actually only a very small difference in force production between fiber types (Evangelidis et al. 2016), so fiber type shifts probably do not contribute much to the changes in either concentric or
eccentric strength after training.
Since the braking phase seems so important in COD maneuvers, and
since eccentric strength is what determines braking ability, it seems likely that COD ability will benefit from increasing eccentric - specific strength.
The importance of
eccentric strength for sprinting and change of direction is why eccentric training with flywheels is suddenly so popular.
Trainers lower the bar for female athletes resulting in
bad eccentric strength, which in turn makes them bad decelerators and greatly increases potential for an ACL injury.
Eccentric strength represents the amount of force produced when a muscle lengthens, while concentric strength stands for the amount of force produced when a muscle shortens.
The use of
heavy eccentric strength training exercise together with more explosive, plyometric - like movements, therefore, seems to provide the ideal combination of mechanical load and neuromuscular recruitment needed to improve the rate of force development.
Enhancing eccentric strength improves an athlete's ability to absorb force (while decelerating), whereas isometrics will improve an athletes ability to overcome inertia.
Nordic curls have been shown to increase
eccentric strength at all velocities and even help decrease hamstring strains.
Since
low eccentric strength has been identified as a risk factor for adductor - related groin injuries (see review by Hrysomallis, 2009), eccentric adduction strength is often a particular focus of such programs.
Importantly, eccentric training seems to increase EMG amplitudes to a greater extent than concentric training, in both isometric and
eccentric strength tests (Komi & Buskirk, 1972; Hortobágyi et al. 1997; Aagaard et al. 2000), but this is by no means a uniform finding (Higbie et al. 1996).
Moreover, since there is evidence of specificity in strength gains with regard to muscle action, eccentric training is often (but not always) used to
improve eccentric strength.
Gains
in eccentric strength are greater after eccentric training, compared to after concentric training (Komi & Buskirk, 1972; Higbie et al. 1996; Hortobágyi et al. 1996; 2000; Miller et al. 2006; Vikne et al. 2006; Nickols - Richardson et al. 2007).
Best results can be achieved by performing slow eccentric - only strength training protocols or heavy and slow concentric /
eccentric strength training protocols.
This can be prevented by training your hams with exercises that focus on building the most neglected part of leg strength —
eccentric strength — and there's no better way to do that than with eccentric glute hamstring raises.
A study in the Journal of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery found that six weeks of eccentric exercise improved strength and reduced pain and disability in people with chronic elbow tendonitis better than traditional treatments such as icing, stretching and massage, while another study found that
eccentric strength training significantly reduced the symptoms of Achilles tendonitis and tendonopathy of the knee.
Since concentric strength potential is lower than
the eccentric strength potential, any individual looking to create maximum fiber damage should emphasize eccentric overload in his training.
First you should strive to improve
your eccentric strength.
Eccentric strength can also improve exercise technique.
Athletes embarking on
an eccentric strength training cycle are bound to be exposed to increased connective tissue and myofibrillar damage.
Eccentric strength is also important in sports that require exceptional jumping ability.
«Dynamically stretching the hip flexors prior to loaded squats is key to achieving depth and
eccentric strength,» Crockford says.
Other reasons have been given to me about shoulder stability,
eccentric strength, teaching relaxation etc. but frankly I think these are BS and just an effort by advocates of the Olympic lifts to reinforce their argument.
Unlike sprinting,
this eccentric strength is likely necessary for the hip extensors and knee extensors, as the COD maneuver usually involves combined hip flexion and knee flexion.
Test of transfer (cross-sectional): some cross-sectional studies have found that
eccentric strength is more closely related to COD ability than concentric strength.
Thus, the neural mechanisms underpinning the adaptations to
eccentric strength gains may in fact transfer well from strength training exercises to athletic movements, although exactly why remains to be established.
There should also be a heavy emphasis on the development of
eccentric strength as the research is fairly unequivocal here - if you lack eccentric strength, you are far more likely to suffer from hamstring injuries.
Eccentric training is very effective for increasing
eccentric strength, for increasing muscle fascicle length, and also for increasing the ability of muscles to absorb energy while lengthening.
In other words, after a long period of time carrying out
eccentric strength training, you tend to increase eccentric strength by more than concentric strength.
This means that the concentric phase is trained comparatively harder, and concentric strength increases by more than
eccentric strength.