Concentric Exercise?

[ste199]

Old people, who had extensively damaged mitochondrial DNA, were given a program of concentric exercise, and as their muscles adapted to the new activity, their mitochondrial DNA was found to have become normal. Ray Peat from Adaptive substance, creative regeneration: Mainstream science, repression, and creativity,

HI,i was planning to do some exercise but i don't understand which is concentric.
Weight lifting should be concentric,right? What about cycling?
Could you suggest me some activity? Thanks

 

[ecstatichamster]

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.

 

[BastiFuntasty]

I think that weight lifting is a mix of concentric and excentric phases. For example when you perform biceps curls, the phase where you move the weight up to your body is concentric, whereas you let it down it is excentric for your biceps.

Cycling should be only concentric, at least for most parts of your leg muscles, very good I guess.
Peat also mentioned somewhere that walking upstairs is good, whereas walking downstairs isn't.

 

[paymanz]

just skip Eccentric part as much as possible.

 

[Ledo]

I recommend doing a balanced body weight workout, pushups, chinups, partial squats, etc. I wouldn't get hung up on the concentric vs eccentric (negative portion of the movement) just move faster though the eccentric and slower with more emphasis of form in the concentric. Check out Mark Sisson's website for some good routines. Just don't start eating full on paleo

At some point in the future you can use some weights if you want, but a beginner should get some instruction. It really isn't necessary though.

Wanted to add i think Ray has a blind spot concerning this type of exercise and could benefit from muscle building.

 

[tca300]

Unless you have the liberty of dropping the weights, its pretty difficult and time consuming to do just concentric work.

 

[ste199]

Thank you for all your replies.
so i see all form of exercise have a concentric phase and an eccentric one.I want to build some muscle so i'll start with some bodyweight exercises.
What about stretching? beneficial or harmful for muscle?

 

[paymanz]

essentric exercise make you bulk but its from damages to muscle fibers and edema.then muscle try to repair it and makes scar tissue.it bad for rhythm , speed and precision of muscle.it also produce lactic acid.

but concentric exercise makes your body produce a lot of co2 and also is very good for your body rhythm.if you dont control speed during concentric workout it helps your body and mind to unify.it feels like a meditation.your body dont get exhausted as soon as essentric workout.
its like heart pulse you almost dont get tired of it.

its just a bit tricky to do it, be careful to not use your muscle elasticity to make torque power in beginning of a movement and
separate each rep with a sec.
dont use too heavy weights, dont try to do it at a specific speed, let your muscle to do it in its most comfort angle.
and in overall you just need some place to freely drop the weight on the ground,so you can avoid negative part of movement.

and im not sure about stretching.

 

[ste199]

Ok thanks!

 

[BingDing]

OP, with elastic bands you can do almost any kind of upper body work without an eccentric component. With the middle of the band anchored to something, just walk away from the anchor until the bands are taught, then do the concentric part. Now holding that contraction walk back toward the anchor until the bands are relaxed.

 

[DaveFoster]

OP, with elastic bands you can do almost any kind of upper body work without an eccentric component. With the middle of the band anchored to something, just walk away from the anchor until the bands are taught, then do the concentric part. Now holding that contraction walk back toward the anchor until the bands are relaxed.

Because we've all heard of those bodybuilders and their elastic bands.

 

[Carrum]

Exer-Genie and other similar isokinetic exercise devices can be used for concentric only exercie.
Isorobic,Exer-Genie,Trainer,Isokenetic Exercise: Interesting Exercise Device

Also a climbers "Figure 8 descender" and cord can be used for a much cheaper concentric exercise device.
GRUNTERGENIE in The Forum Forum

I've tried both and they were ok for a while but I didn't make any gains. I don't think you can beat weights for building muscle.

 

[Herbie]

To focus on concentric training the tempo would be 1 second spent concentric movement and 1 second in eccentric.

Charles Poliquin promotes focusing on eccentric training which is 1 second concentric and 5 seconds eccentric for example.

if you did a squat it would be 5 seconds spent lowering down and 1 second standing back up.

for a chin up it would be 1 second pulling up and 5 seconds spent lowering back down.

From Rays perspective this is not desirable.

Ray has said push the bike up the hill ride it down is good exercise for example.

 

[aquaman]

OP, with elastic bands you can do almost any kind of upper body work without an eccentric component. With the middle of the band anchored to something, just walk away from the anchor until the bands are taught, then do the concentric part. Now holding that contraction walk back toward the anchor until the bands are relaxed.

This has been SUPER useful.

With the right number of bands, a sturdy door frame and the band anchors, I can now do a great upper body workout with concentric-only movements.

Can do chest press, chest flyes, lat pull downs, bicep curls from 2 angles, tricep extensions, reverse flyes (for lats/back), lateral raises etc.

Also gave me the idea to use something like this Amazon.com : Freetoo Best Workout Rubber Band Resistance Bands Powerlifting Bands Pull-Up Band Resistance Exercise Bands : Sports & Outdoors to take the load off the eccentric part of leg exercises in the gym - eg for leg extension machine, when you return the weight, you use the band to take off some or most of the resistance so the concentric part is the majority focus. Can do this for seated leg extension and hamstring curls.

 

[mujuro]

Working with bands in a speed-rep manner is excellent for emphasizing the concentric. But they can be tedious to set up in most gyms and your exercises are limited.

 

[Bahaa El wazzan]

@paymanz interessant

 

[Herbie]

Working with bands in a speed-rep manner is excellent for emphasizing the concentric. But they can be tedious to set up in most gyms and your exercises are limited.

Bands have a different resistance curve to barbells and dumbbells so there is an advantage to incorporating them into your training regime.

 

[aquaman]

Agreed, bands can be used to get a much more intense concentric contraction than free weights if you know what you're doing.

Just need strong enough bands to give enough resistance.

 

[Herbie]

The barbell is ascending strength curve so in a dead lift the hardest part is at the bottom of the movement and gets to the easiest as you stand up. The bands have a descending curve as you lift the bar performing a deadlift it gets harder towards the top.

Yes the main downfall for bands in not being able to increase the load.

 

[aquaman]

The barbell is ascending strength curve so in a dead lift the hardest part is at the bottom of the movement and gets to the easiest as you stand up. The bands have a descending curve as you lift the bar performing a deadlift it gets harder towards the top.

Yes the main downfall for bands in not being able to increase the load.

It's east to clip on 3/4/5 of the coloured bands. Also you can play around with shortening the range to load the early part of the movement where it's easier.

Also tried today in the gym with cable machines, again worked great and you get the uniform load throughout the movement.