A couple of points. Strength athletes are interested in getting a weight from point a to point b. They also need to fine tune the neuromuscular skill involved in each lift. Also excessive emphasis on the negative eliminates the stretch reflex. While this is good for building muscle it produces a weaker end result. While Jones and others use strength as a measure of progress, hypertrophy is the main goal for most. I dont think Casey viator or Sergio oliva cared how much they lifted except as a means to an end. That being said I would like to see more info on the negative studies as well.
Sprinters have been taxing the stretch reflex for years with plyometrics with great success. Plyometrics are dynamically loaded eccentrics.
Regarding the value of eccentric vs concentric training, there is another point to consider: what happens as you get older. The research that has been done on sarcopenia and dynopenia suggests that eccentric strength is better retained that concentric strength with age. In other words, you tend to lose concentric strength more rapidly than eccentric strength as your muscles age.
So if concentric strength is lost more easily than eccentric strength, is it the right strategy to emphasize the eccentric, particularly as you age? Maybe you should put more emphasis on concentric work, to preserve that which you are more at risk of losing? Worth thinking aboutā¦
== Scott==
Yes, that is thought provoking !
So in practical terms as you get older you are more capable of taking a box off the table and setting it on the floor than picking one up from the floor and setting it on the table .
Scott
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An interesting discussion re conc/ecc!
Personally, I believe in proper form as the principal factor for strength development and hypertrophy in bodybuilding.
The cadence may be of importance. This no matter if your applying conc or ecc focused repetitions. Are there any studies/reviews on form or cadence? Must be nearly impossible to investigateā¦
Taking cost-benefit into account, I tend to rely on eccentrics as more time-efficient. In my case itās interesting to note both more rapid development of strength, and hypertrophy, during 10 months of Darden regimes - than anything Iāve tried before (including 5 years of concentric focused training, in good form as a young man).
Would I get the same results on a two days a week regimen with concentric focused training? I seriously doubt it.
This polarization seems to be a question of what we/you/I believe in. There are probably more or less significant studies that can be thrown in favor of both directions.
For me at this stage its about what I enjoy doing as much as which produces more results. I donāt particularity enjoy long negative descents. Even if negative only brought better gains I wouldnāt enjoy that kind of workout so I probably wouldnāt do it. This new 30 10 30 has both which is more fun so I can stick with something like that!
Scott
As long as you do some of both, you are probably going to be ok.
Maybe it matters more if you are old? Iām 68, so Iām starting to pay more attention to concerns like this. Dr. Darden is 77, and as he has gotten older, he seems to be tweaking his approach. Are these things connected?
Just curious: how old are you?
Iām 68 and this morning I did my 30 10 30 workout. Mostly all upper body as my leg machines have Christmas boxes on top of them, ha ha but I donāt do much legs anyway. Iām getting better at it so the workout felt pretty good. It still feels like the 30 portions are too light but what the heck? Iām guessing itās because Iām older and my body is much weaker on the concentric and stronger on the eccentric ? If I could switch it mid set Iād make the eccentric heavier like an x force machine.
Scott
Hi AA (and entsminger),
Itās true that 30-10-30 seem to be the best of both worlds. The explosiveness in a good-felt concentric is a force to be reckoned with! You canāt simply do without the other.
As for age I am 46 years old, and now in better shape/health than the past 15 years. Used to be a hardgainer ectomorph. Age does something with your metabolism (slows it down) which makes it easier for me to gain weight (and muscle), though never able to be really fat (thanks to my parents). I do recognize a prolonged need for recovery after training, as time gone by.
Maybe age and experience is the reason why HIT comes alive? You start thinking about why you are doing things in a certain way. When I was younger in 1990, when introduced to bodybuilding, everyone was into Arnold. It was, simply put, the harder (more) you excercise - the more you grow.
As it turned out, this is one of the biggest lies I have believed in. And - the counterreaction against all that - is perhaps why so many HIT devotees (like me) are considered to be following a āchurchā of sorts. Some people in the forum seem almost scared about the appearance of Dr Darden, and what this will bring forth. LOL
== Scott==
Maybe the new HIT. I think the old HIT of the Casey Viator days was just a bit too intense for all but a few , especially us older guys. I thrived on pushing it to the limit but at the same time I think I over extended myself always going to failure and beyond and was constantly in a state of poor recovery. I just finished todayās workout and already Iām chomping at the bit to do the next one.
Scott
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Scott,
Your feelings today are what Iām now pushing for. Letās see if we can can explain it to the younger trainees.
My protocol seems to draw some interest from younger trainees at the gym. They react to someone doing things differently. I often try to explain the new HIT, and am actually met by honest compliments. But - we all know what it means to break habits and leave the safe path. I am not even sure if younger trainees bother about results these days. It seems like itās more important to be at the gym - than actually achieve something. Ok, here Iām going all cynic again, soon to become a grumpy old man.
When I was in my 20s and 30s the prevailing thought on doing HIT was pushing to failure or even beyond. It became a psychological thing in that if I failed to push it to the limit I was wimping out so I always did so. I was much younger so I could push it harder and dig a deeper inroad than now but even then my recovery was limited so more than not I was over trained and was not recovering adequately unless I took a week or more to recover and of course I never wanted to do that. Iām thinking with this new HIT 30 10 30 or something in that ball park, I am digging as deep an inroad as ever with the old HIT but not exhausting my recovery ability as the old way did so I recover much quicker and donāt feel wiped out at the end of a workout as compared to the old days. Iām much more fresh after a workout! I see this as an advantage to young or old!! Iām feeling it in my muscles today doing 30 10 30 as much as I did doing a ball busting set or two of 10 reps to failure and beyond. I know that seems hard to believe but Iām just telling you how I feel! Itās quite amazing!
Scott
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So today I did another 30 10 30 workout with about 7 exercises. This time just to see how many reps I could do in the 10 portion I kept going to see if the weight I chose was close at all to being the weight where I stopped two short of failure. On almost each exercise I went almost to 15 reps before I failed then I did the 30 second negative. It was a little bit harder than when I stopped at 10 but at the end of the workout I felt much less drained than had I done my usual routine of 10 to 15 reps to failure.I could really feel it in the muscles being worked today and I was using much less weight! I think thats pretty impressive statement for 30 10 30!
Scott
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Itās a great system thatās for sure, I love it
Dr. Darden, This study is interestingā¦
Skeletal muscle hypertrophy in response to isometric, lengthening, and shortening training bouts of equivalent duration.
Adams GR, Cheng DC, Haddad F, Baldwin KM.
Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697-4560, USA. GRAdams@uci.edu
Movements generated by muscle contraction generally include periods of muscle shortening and lengthening as well as force development in the absence of external length changes (isometric). However, in the specific case of resistance exercise training, exercises are often intentionally designed to emphasize one of these modes. The purpose of the present study was to objectively evaluate the relative effectiveness of each training mode for inducing compensatory hypertrophy. With the use of a rat model with electrically stimulated (sciatic nerve) contractions, groups of rats completed 10 training sessions in 20 days. Within each training session, the duration of the stimulation was equal across the three modes. Although this protocol provided equivalent durations of duty cycle, the torque integral for the individual contractions varied markedly with training mode such that lengthening > isometric > shortening. The results indicate that the hypertrophy response did not track the torque integral with mass increases of isometric by 14%, shortening by 12%, and lengthening by 11%. All three modes of training resulted in similar increases in total muscle DNA and RNA. Isometric and shortening but not lengthening mode training resulted in increased muscle insulin-like growth factor I mRNA levels. These results indicate that relatively pure movement mode exercises result in similar levels of compensatory hypertrophy that do not necessarily track with the total amount of force generated during each contraction.
Interesting that hypertrophy did not track with force.
I recently took another look at the literature on training to counteract sarcopenia. I found a number of studies where rats were used to evaluate the impact of training interventions on young and old muscles. As best I can recall, the methods seem similar to the study youāve cited. Perhaps rats are easier to study than humans???
There were some interesting general implications to the sarcopenia studies, but given it was rats, and that contractions were induced in unusual ways, I wasnāt sure how to apply those findings to real world training.
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Yeah, rats are very similar in some respects to humans, not exact, but close enough for many studies.
One thing though is external force doesnāt track ātension per fiberā and hypertrophy is at the āper fiberā level. So high effort with less loads can still induce about the same tension per fiber as heavy loads.