Eccentric muscle contractions are the most effective at increasing muscle strength and size, according to a new study which says that rather than lifting weights, the emphasis should be on lowering them.

The Edith Cowan University (ECU) team, which worked with researchers from Niigata University and Nishi Kyushu University in Japan and Brazil’s Londrina State University, found subjects who only lowered weights saw the same improvements as those who raised and lowered them, despite only performing half the number of repetitions.

ECU’s professor Ken Nosaka said the results reinforce previous research indicating a focus on eccentric muscle contractions (in which muscles are lengthened) is more important when it comes to increasing the strength and size of muscles, rather than the volume.

“We already know only one eccentric muscle contraction a day can increase muscle strength if it’s performed five days a week, even if it’s only for three seconds a day,” said Nosaka, “However, concentric (lifting a weight) or isometric contractions (holding a weight) don’t provide such an effect,” he said.

“Many believe the lifting action provides the most or at least some benefit, but we found concentric muscle contractions contributed little to the training effect.

“This study shows we can be far more efficient in the time we spend exercising and still see significant results by focusing on eccentric contractions,” he concluded.

Crunching the numbers
The study tracked three groups who did dumbbell curls twice weekly for five weeks and a control group that did nothing.

One training group performed eccentric-only contractions (lowering the weight), one did concentric-only (lifting the weight) and one did both concentric and eccentric (lifting and lowering weight alternatively).

All three saw improvements in concentric strength with this being the only improvement for the concentric-only group, while the eccentric-only and concentric-eccentric groups also saw significant improvements in isometric (static) strength and eccentric strength.

Despite the eccentric-only group doing half as many reps as those lifting and lowering weights, the gains in strength were very similar and the eccentric-only group also saw a greater improvement in muscle thickness of 7.2 per cent, compared to the concentric-eccentric group’s 5.4 per cent.

• Comparison between concentric-only, eccentric-only and concentric-eccentric resistance training of the elbow flexors for their effects on muscle strength and hypertrophy, was published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology