You can include eccentric knee exercises in your exercise program to prevent injuries from sporting activities as well as to improve functional activities of your daily life. Performing quadriceps, hamstring and gluteus eccentric exercises will help you to easily lower from a ladder, run downhill and catch a jumping child with less risk of injury. Incorporate eccentric exercises as a big part of your workout to produce a greater amount of force and induce a greater degree of hypertrophy.
Eccentric Contraction and the Knee
William J. Kraemer, professor of Kinesiology, Physiology and Neurobiology at the University of Connecticut, shows that eccentric contractions produce more force and hypertrophy while also inducing greater delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). Dynamic muscle strength is much higher when you include eccentric exercises in your training regimen.
To exercise, straighten your right knee into extension using your quadriceps muscle group. Bend your right knee into flexion using your hamstring muscle group. These are concentric contractions or the ability of your muscle to overcome any resistance to it shortening.
You can also stand on a flat bench and balance on your right foot while slowly lowering your left foot to the floor. This eccentric contraction occurs because the force your quadriceps muscle is exerting is less than the resistance placed on it and the muscle lengthens despite its contraction. Think of leg exercises you normally do. Each exercise has a lowering or return-to-start component. Perform that part of the movement very slowly to make your leg muscles contract eccentrically.
Eccentric Exercises of the Quadriceps
Use a spotter or training buddy as needed for exercises working both limbs at the same time. Partners are necessary for most eccentric exercises to help you get the weight back up to starting position. Employ your non-working leg for unilateral or one sided exercises. Include sport and activity specific ranges for reps, sets and resistance, according to your needs. Train for endurance with 12 to 15 reps of a light weight, six to 12 reps of moderate weight for hypertrophy, three to six reps of heavy weights for strength, and explosive or fast reps with moderate weight for power.
Examples of exercises are unilateral and bilateral squats on a machine with safety catches, step-downs from a box or bench with one leg at a time, unilateral and bilateral leg extensions on a machine, and one leg cable extensions.
Eccentric Exercises of the Hamstrings
Apply the same principles for training your hamstrings as you did with training your quads.
For a hamstring lean, place your ankles under an immobile bar on the floor and lean forward slowly. Use your arms to push back up to starting position.
To do one leg band curls, use ankle attachments to connect your ankle to a band and secure band to an immovable object. Other examples of exercises are the unilateral and bilateral leg curl on a machine and the one leg hamstring cable curl.
Member Comments