Concentric Exercise?

[YourUniverse]

Thats my understanding, yes - NP

 

[lvysaur]

ah, i see, the weight is not pulling on the hams to elongate them. that is the difference, yes?

yup.

 

[Carrum]

@paymanz
ok. i guess i will need to read Charles Poliquin or something because i am still confused. If what you are saying is true, then i don't understand why lowering yourself down from a chinning bar wouldn't be concentric under load for triceps but eccentric without load for biceps. The biceps is lengthening, and if i understand what you are saying, the lengthening muscle is not load bearing.

You are making this far more complicated than it really is. Lifting is concentric. Lowering is eccentric. If you lift a weight or yourself and then lower the weight or yourself, you have performed concentric and eccentric exercise.
If you wanted to emphasise the concentric in an exercise. Lift or pull with one hand, lower with two. Pick up a dumbbell, drop the dumbbell. Lift arm of the knee extension machine with one leg, lower with two etc etc.

 

[shepherdgirl]

Thanks @Carrum.
If you lower with two, although it distributes the force to two triceps or two hams, since you have to do it twice (once for each arm/leg), wouldn't you end up with the same weighted lengthening as lowering with one?

 

[Carrum]

You are making this far more complicated than it really is.

 

[blizzard]

A good concentric only exercise is chin ups, pull yourself up , drop to the ground and repeat, works great!

 

[Sapien]

below i am posting my response to the thread "exercise the ray peat way?" it seems applicable here




This is a topic I have been pondering as of late, as a peaty young male looking to build muscle safely and effectively. Ray mentions that muscle mass is beneficial as it increases RMB, and also cited studies that show bodybuilders live longer. However, he has concerns with the eccentric stuff and lactic acid production.

So in summary- a good training routine is one that builds muscle, avoids eccentric movements, and minimizes muscle oxygen debt (i.e, "the pump) as it increases lactic acid.

He once said something along the lines of "brief, infrequent use of muscle is good" (probably butchered the quote but something along those line)

His advice reminded me of a famous bodybuilder in the 80's, Mike Mentzer, who postulated that all bodybuilders are overtraining, and the principals of muscle growth only required a brief and infrequent session to momentary muscular failure. Interestingly, in Synchronicity fashion, I discovered Ray's work just weeks after discovering Mentzer. I noticed great crossover between the two. Mentzer actually cited Hans Selyes "the stress of life" in one of his books about the harms of overtraining, which blew me away. Even Mikes nutritional advice was peaty, emphasizing the importance of (simple) carbohydrates and sugar, and dispelling the myth of the whey(ste product) protein industry that you needed to overload the body with protein to build muscle.

He has some great lectures on youtube on the topic of HIT, specifically, his audio tapes: The logical path to successful bodybuilding are a MUST watch for anyone interested in the topic of building muscle. He was a very intelligent man, many regarded him as a philosopher, and after watching these tapes you will realize why. His articulate speaking manner and use of logic is extremely impressive. He dispels much of the authoritarian dogma in the fitness industry, and like Peat, attempts to teach one about the science behind the topic rather than just giving a protocol. In other words, he was a proponent of "Perceive, Think, Act".

In my opinion, the theory of High Intensity Training is the most logical, science backed theory of effective exercise, and is the antithesis of the current state of bodybuilding- high volume "pump" style workouts popularized by Arnold (Mentzer's arch nemesis).

His training was based on the work of a man named Arthur jones, the inventor of Nautilus equipment proved that brief exercise to failure is the optimal way to build muscle

There is a book titled "body by science" that goes into this in more detail for anyone interested. Mentzer also has serval books of his own

As peaty as all of this sounds, minimizing the amount of stress to the organism and only doing the bare minimum required, there is still the concern of both eccentric movements and lactic acid, albeit to a DRASTICALLY lower degree.

Coauthor of body by science, John Little (a friend and disciple of Mentzer), has a program that implements these principals of brief, infrequent maximal effort training, AND eliminates these two issues. I present to you: Max contraction training (link). He talks about how a scientist in the 50s proved great results simply by a maximal muscular contraction of just 1-6 seconds.

I have applied this routine to a degree, simply contracting a muscle as hard as possible either on its own or against an immovable object (isometric), briefly and infrequently, and I honestly have had better results doing this the past 2 months than in years of traditional bodybuilding. Each day I wake up in amazement of my progress. I will see muscles that I never knew I had; a couple days after a single pull up I noticed new muscles in my upper back that I had never seen before; after a single rep of a chest contraction I grew my stubborn upper chest more in one workout that I never seemed to build with years of bench press (
"Why I never bench press and you shouldn't either" ) .

Some examples of exercises I will do are: flexing bicep in maximal contracted position as hard as possible by using a doorknob, doing the concentric part of a pull up and maximally contracting for a few seconds at the top then dropping, contracting hamstring by lying down placing heel against the ground, holding the contracted portion of a "mountain climber" pose or sit up for abs, simply contracting my rhomboids or rear delts super hard, doing a "lateral raise" against the bottom of my work desk to provide an immovable resistance, placing my forearm against the back of my (opposite) hamstring and contracting my chest across my body, etc etc. Pretty much anything that you feel a contraction will be effective, you can play around yourself. Using weights in a manner shown in the max contraction video is probably just as if not more viable, but I have seen great results even without going to the gym. The many forms of Isometrics I mentioned, contracting against an immovable object, will provide great stimulation as it will recruit ALL of the possible muscle fibers MAXIMALLY. This is a key principal of HIT (henemens size principal), fatiguing the fast twitch muscle fibers. It can be achieved in any rep range by simply training to failure, but isometrics allow you to do so with minimal/no lactic acid as only one contraction is required.

There was a wrestler named the great gama, who is famous for going 5000-0 in his bouts (yes you read that right) , who touted the benefits of maximal isometric contractions that inspired me to use immovable objects instead of the weights shown in the max contraction video. (that and I don't have a training partner crazy enough to train this way with me lol) Essentially it is the same concept, providing maximal resistance, stimulating the fast twitch muscle fibers ( henemens size principal).

'One day after defeating an opponent much larger than he, someone asked him how he was able to get so strong.' "
“It’s really quite simple,” the Indian said good-naturedly. “In the Punjab, where I lived there was a large tree behind my house. Each morning I would rise up early, tie my belt around it, and try to throw it down.” “A tree?” the boy marveled. “For twenty years.” “And you did it?” “No, little one,” Gama smiled, “but after a tree…a man is easy.” Great gama (link) .

^ This may sound like "bro science", but it actually is an example of "Heneman's size principal" in action. When contracting against an immovable object, you are using ALL of your possible effort, thus stimulating fast twitch muscle fibers.

This all may sound unbelievable, too good to be true; is it really not only possible but OPTIMAL to train this brief and infrequently?; but when one considers the biochemistry of the subject, it makes sense. Muscles are ANEROBIC, the opposite of AEROBIC exercise. This is why sprinters have very muscular legs, while a marathon runner is almost always frail. High intensity, short duration exercise such as sprinting uses predominantly fast twitch, carbohydrate burning fibers, while jogging uses slow twitch fibers that rely on fat. It is the fast twitch muscle fibers that are a lot more prone to growth

While the principals of HIT have been demonstrated scientifically ( View: https://youtu.be/ag5YMTcAudw, View: https://youtu.be/NndeNFVf9eU , View: https://youtu.be/wVYEjFZAERw ), and shown to work in practice by the success of Mentzer and Dorian Yates, these principals have been all but forgotten. It was only through an unrelenting, thorough search for a logical approach to building muscle that I discovered HIT. I have always been unconvinced of the science of traditional bodybuilding; I would follow routines and wonder WHY 3 sets of 10 ( View: https://youtu.be/hddsfYdaZ1k ), why 2 minutes of rest, why not 53 seconds of rest? All of these arbitrary decrees never sat right with me. In science, there is no room for the arbitrary, The principals of HIT initially defined by Arthur Jones and popularized by Mike Mentzer and Dorian Yates use science and logic, rather than the arbitrary tradition based programs that are popular today.

As to why it's unknown and forgotten, I don't really have a good answer other than the fact that we live in a "dark age" to some degree, with sheeple believing whatever the popular opinion is, rather than using the logical principals created by Aristotle to cultivate knowledge. It is through the use of logic and reason that I was able to discover ray peat and the community, rather than believing whatever info the dietary guidelines told me, and these same principals of logic led me to discover HIT. As a group of logic based people who Perceive, Think, Act; rather than cultivating information simply because an authority figure told you something, I know you all will really appreciate the science based approach of HIT.

The implications of this are staggering. The entire fitness industry is following the high volume approach simply out of tradition, not logic or science. I wonder how many people's lives would be changed with a proper approach to building muscle, how many more people would take up the sport if only minutes a week were necessary. Hell, a gym membership isn't even required! If anyone decided to try these principals out for themselves (after thorough evaluation of the logic of the theory, not per my advice , {Perceive Think Act!}), please update us with your results!

(P.S , I probably did a poor job explaining the exact science behind HIT, Henemens size principal, fast twitch muscles etc., I recommend reading the works of Dr Doug mcguff, Mike mentzer, Arthur jones and the content of Jay Vincent. This post was a spur of the moment thing after seeing this forum on the home page, I just did my best based on my knowledge of the topic)

 

[philalethes]

Lifting weights is concentric. Putting them down is eccentric.

Walking uphill concentric. Downhill eccentric.

Swimming is concentric.

I think you need both though. Eccentric strength protects muscles from damage too.

Help. I followed this advice, and now I'm stuck on top of a hill, afraid to walk down it because Peat says not to do eccentric exercise. What to do?

 

[philalethes]

If you contract your biceps muscle, your triceps muscle will be lengthening. If you are contracting a muscle under load, then the opposing muscle group will be lengthening under that load at the same time - so if you contract your quads under load(concentric), you are also lengthening your hamstrings under load(not concentric).

The opposing muscle group is not under load; it's lengthening, yes, but not under load. To take your example, if you contract your quads under load (such as during a squat), it's the quads that are under load, not the hamstrings. The hamstrings lengthening under load would have to entail the hamstrings being loaded in the first place, such as doing a leg curl during the phase of the movement where your legs are lengthening.

 

[shepherdgirl]

Thanks @philalethes - this makes sense to me now. What about hanging? Is hanging eccentric or partially eccentric for the biceps? Does there need to be a horizontal component to the force on the biceps for them to be considered to be under load? The biceps contraction pulls the forearm up horizontally, it does not just pull upward.

 

[Sapien]

Help. I followed this advice, and now I'm stuck on top of a hill, afraid to walk down it because Peat says not to do eccentric exercise. What to do?

Stay there! You’re at a higher altitude

 

[Sapien]

Thanks @philalethes - this makes sense to me now. What about hanging? Is hanging eccentric or partially eccentric for the biceps?

“Eccentric” movements involve “contracting”/ hanging is simply just stretching

 

[shepherdgirl]

Stay there! You’re at a higher altitude

 

[philalethes]

Thanks @philalethes - this makes sense to me now. What about hanging? Is hanging eccentric or partially eccentric for the biceps? Does there need to be a horizontal component to the force on the biceps for them to be considered to be under load? The biceps contraction pulls the forearm up horizontally, it does not just pull upward.

Hanging in and of itself is neither concentric nor eccentric for the biceps, but isometric (to varying extents based on how engaged it is; more on that further below). Whether a movement is concentric, eccentric or isometric for a given muscle is a function not just of whether the muscle is under load, but also of whether it is lengthening or shortening. When you're hanging still, any muscle that is under load is working isometrically, since it is not moving.

With that out of the way, no, there does not necessarily need to be a vertical (I assume you meant vertical rather than horizontal here) component to the load, it's just that the most common load is weight (whether free weights, machine weights, or your own body weight), and since weight is the gravitational force it is always pointing vertically downward. You could also e.g. have the load in the form of a spring: if you were to fix a somewhat rigid spring between your hand and your shoulder you could be exercising your biceps in any orientation, even weightless in space; in fact, astronauts use this principle to maintain strength in space, but with larger machines that essentially act as springs.

As for not just hanging, but the actual movement of a pull-up, to get at the core of what I believe you're really asking, it's rather simple to understand when it's concentric and when it's eccentric for the biceps: since the biceps performs elbow flexion (and a few other functions, but that is its primary function, especially during a pull-up), and elbow flexion in a pull-up acts against gravity (hence the name, "pull-up"), we can conclude that the biceps is under load, and to determine whether it is working concentrically or eccentrically it's simply a matter of asking whether or not it is shortening or lengthening; on the way up it's shortening, thus working concentrically, while on the way down it's lengthening, thus working eccentrically.

In other words, during the "pulling-up" phase you're working concentrically, and during the "letting-down" phase you're working eccentrically; note that this latter portion depends on the extent to which you engage your muscles on the way down, you could always just allow yourself to fall to the ground and e.g. land using your legs instead, which would be working eccentrically instead to cover that same load (I believe this is what Hans was getting at, i.e. that any movement to a lower point in Earth's gravity well will necessarily require some sort of eccentric muscle movement to brace for the impact, otherwise your skeletal structure would quickly fracture; my point was merely that it's generally the same muscles doing this rather than different ones).

As mentioned in the beginning of the post, if you're not moving at all, the biceps is working isometrically; during a dead hang this isn't necessarily much work since the biceps works very weakly when the elbow is fully extended, and relaxing it would allow other elbow flexors (such as the brachialis, the primary flexor of the elbow) to maintain your position, and even put more load on your tendons and ligaments, but if you maintain even so much as a slight flexion at the elbow the biceps would definitely be working isometrically to a significant extent, something you can easily feel if you e.g. pause a pull-up halfway up when the elbow is at a 90-degree angle.

 

[Sapien]

under load

Something I have been confused about is: let’s say I am performing a static contraction against an immovable object. Since there is no “load” being exerted on my muscles, even if I dynamically lengthen my muscle mid exercise, that is still isometric correct?

Also, why is eccentric exercise so bad in the first place? I understand it is linked with more muscle damage and DOMS, and peat says to avoid, but I have been wondering what exactly makes it so harmful; ie, HOW is the mechanism different

 

[philalethes]

Something I have been confused about is: let’s say I am performing a static contraction against an immovable object. Since there is no “load” being exerted on my muscles, even if I dynamically lengthen my muscle mid exercise, that is still isometric correct?

Also, why is eccentric exercise so bad in the first place? I understand it is linked with more muscle damage and DOMS, and peat says to avoid, but I have been wondering what exactly makes it so harmful; ie, HOW is the mechanism different

There's definitely still a load on your muscles, just as there's still a load on your muscles if you pause halfway through a squat, deadlift, pull-up, bench press, overhead press, or any other exercise; that you're still doesn't make the load disappear. In the case of trying to push an "immovable" object it's whatever is keeping the "immovable" object "immovable", which is typically various normal forces acting to give it way more friction than you're able to overcome. Think about it this way: if you're at the bottom of a squat and pushing all you can, but not budging even a centimeter upward, you're essentially in the same boat, working isometrically against the weight, but more clearly under load. If the muscles that are under load are lengthening it would still be an eccentric movement.

Keep in mind Newton's third law, i.e. that each force exerted exerts an equal force back; in other words, as long as you're exerting any force at all on this "immovable" object, that force is being exerted back on you, and will either lead to you being pushed away from the object or to that force running down through your body and ending up as friction force on the ground, which is why you see people lean forward when they're trying to push really heavy objects forward (e.g. a car), since any net movement achieved would have to be generated by the friction you generate on the ground (which is also why pushing something away from you on an ice rink, or in space for an even clearer example, will lead to you being pushed backward and losing the opportunity to keep exerting force on the object).

As for why eccentric exercise is typically considered bad and why it leads to muscle damage is because uncontrolled lengthening against a load means you're exerting yourself maximally and still not being able to exert the same force as the load, so it's essentially just as going to failure in other exercises (which is pretty much exactly what you see when someone fails a lift, i.e. that they suddenly start moving in the "wrong" direction, it's typically just not particularly controlled due to the heavy weights involved). A perfectly controlled eccentric movement should not lead to all the damage associated with an uncontrolled one.

 

[Sapien]

If the muscles that are under load are lengthening it would still be an eccentric movement.

Ah okay, that clears it up for me thanks

As for why eccentric exercise is typically considered bad and why it leads to muscle damage is because uncontrolled lengthening against a load means you're exerting yourself maximally and still not being able to exert the same force as the load, so it's essentially just as going to failure in other exercises

I think there is more to the picture. It has been shown that training to failure with negative only training produces far greater muscle damage than training to failure positively (I can provide resources if you’re interested). I pretty sure there is something uniquely damaging about eccentric lengthening while contracting that is not just due to training to failure. But I don’t know the mechanism behind this that is the source of my confusion/curiosity

 

[Sapien]

Peat has said “concentric training builds mitochondria, eccentric training destroys it”

Everything I have seen from the research supports this, for example, negative only training produces far more DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) due to muscle damage while training that is primarily concentric training produces little to no muscle damage and soreness, you grow purely out of the mechanical tension factor of fatiguing the fast twitch muscle fibers

 

[Sapien]

But I haven’t been able to find any info on why exactly this lengthening under load is so damaging

 

[philalethes]

Ah okay, that clears it up for me thanks

I think there is more to the picture. It has been shown that training to failure with negative only training produces far greater muscle damage than training to failure positively (I can provide resources if you’re interested). I pretty sure there is something uniquely damaging about eccentric lengthening while contracting that is not just due to training to failure. But I don’t know the mechanism behind this that is the source of my confusion/curiosity

Well, I'm aware of a lot of that type of research, but there are many ways to explain why that happens within the framework of what I outlined. First and foremost my point was precisely that it's the uncontrolled eccentric portion that does the damage, so I wasn't really saying that you end up with the same type of "training" if you do concentric exercises until you fail and suddenly are faced with a rep of working eccentrically instead, because people cut the exercise short at that point (e.g. with spotters or safety racks and such). When, on the other hand, you do eccentric exercises to failure, you'll start to reach fatigue well before failure too, at which point some fibers will give in as you're lengthening the muscles only semi-controlled, and when you then e.g. do several reps essentially at failure (because due to the nature of eccentric training you can still "reset" the exercise and do another eccentric rep even when you've already long since "failed", which really isn't as meaningful when not talking about concentric movements). It stands to reason that the latter would be far more damaging than the former.

As for a natural explanation for why this is, it's not really that strange at all that we've evolved for tens of millions of years to have biomechanics optimized for using only muscles that are advantageously positioned at any point in time. I do a lot of tree climbing myself, and you never want to end up in a dead hang and have to muscle-up or do some toe-around-bar movement to get up above a branch, you always want to use your feet and legs to get into a position where you can easily use muscles synergistically to expend as little effort as possible while climbing. Essentially what you want to do, and that's probably true for all "exercise", is just that: have it be as effortless as possible, even preferably have it be enjoyable. Using your muscles correctly shouldn't be a chore, but should feel good.