Did you know that your body can tolerate up to 1.75x time more weight during the eccentric phase of a lift than the concentric portion?
Eccentric loading benefits
- The potential for more muscle damage, with a reduced risk of injury often associated with the concentric element.
- Increasing your efforts in the eccentric can lead to stronger connective tissue (ligaments and tendons) which is great for your joints and body in general.
- Increased flexibility and improved range of motion
What is eccentric and concentric?
In lifting terms, the concentric portion is when we shorten our muscles and act against a weighted force and/or gravity. For example, the upwards phase of a deadlift, squat, pull up or the pulling of a cable row. The eccentric portion is the loading of the muscles as they also lengthen controlling the pace you move again against a weighted force and/or gravity. For example, the downwards phase in a squat, deadlift, bench press, pull up etc.
Unfortunately, it’s not easy to access a gym that would have the equipment to do heavy eccentric loading only (you’d need lifting aids like chains, specific bands, maybe a spotter all the time, or weighted hooks), so our focus is on increasing our time under tension during the eccentric phases of the lifts.
The program will follow a 3-day format, so for extra work specific conditioning, huff and puff work (great for improving your work capacity, meaning you can tolerate more and keep on improving) I suggest you attend 2 class workouts and have 2 rest days.
Example week format
- Monday: Session 1
- Tuesday: Session 2
- Wednesday: FW class
- Thursday: Rest
- Friday: Session 3
- Saturday: FW class
- Sunday: Rest
