Try Eccentric Overload Training For Serious Gains | Path to Gains | Men’s Health Muscle - video Dailymotion

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Try Eccentric Overload Training For Serious Gains | Path to Gains | Men’s Health Muscle

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00:00The quest to build muscle and strength is not always just about lifting the heaviest weights.

00:05One of the stealthiest ways to get comfortable with bigger weights than you thought possible

00:09is something called eccentric overload. Essentially, we're going to do the exact opposite.

00:13We're going to lower heavy weights. And if you master this, it just may be the cheat code

00:18that you need to get crazy strong. So what is eccentric overload? To understand what it is,

00:23you have to first understand the two main contractions that go into every lift.

00:27The one you think of most when you're training is the concentric contraction.

00:31This is when a muscle is shortening under load and we use it to raise the weight as you do during a

00:36bench press or a biceps curl when you're lifting up. But there's also something called an eccentric

00:40contraction. This occurs when you're lowering a weight under load, muscles lengthening but still

00:46generating force. You do this as the dumbbell lowers to your hip on a biceps curl or as the

00:51bar lowers to your chest on a bench press. No matter how strong you are with your classic

00:55concentric contractions, you're almost always going to be stronger with an eccentric contraction.

01:00This means that you can lower more weight with control than you can lift that weight.

01:04Utilizing this extra strength when lowering a weight is at the heart of eccentric overload.

01:09Your goal on an eccentric overload lift, maximize your eccentric strength by lowering a heavy weight

01:14than what you might have just lifted. Here's how you'll do this. You'll lift the load just as you

01:19would during a traditional workout, albeit with a little bit of assistance that we'll show you

01:24later. Then you'll lower slowly aiming to lower for three to five seconds per rep. This sustained

01:29lowering is where you're overloading the eccentric on the lift and it's where you're going to get so

01:33much stronger. There are plenty of ways to train with eccentric overload if you're training with

01:38a partner or some extra fancy equipment like chains or even a tonal cable machine. But if

01:43you're just using basic equipment by yourself, there are two main tactics you can perform to

01:48get eccentric overload into your workouts. The first of these is the most common. You'll lift

01:53the weight with the single arm as you might during a biceps curl, but you'll let your off arm assist

01:58you in getting the weight up to your chest. Then you'll lower with just a single arm. By using two

02:03arms to lift the weight, you set yourself up to eccentrically overload the side that's lowering.

02:07Another form of eccentric overload involves combining two lifts, usually an easier lift

02:12that'll help you get the weights up, and then you'll lower slowly with a more taxing isolation

02:17lift. Take for example an eccentric overload skullcrusher. You may start each rep by slowly

02:23lowering the weights with really good skullcrusher form so we isolate our triceps. After each lower,

02:28you'll shift the weights back to the starting point, but instead of trying to do a skullcrusher

02:32upwards and get that contraction, we will just do a close grip press that way it's a little bit

02:37easier and we can get ourselves set up for another eccentric overload rep. Here we're really taxing

02:42that triceps motion as we lower, then we're skipping to the much easier motion so we can

02:46get more out of it. Both approaches can be effective depending on your training goals.

02:50Eccentric overload serves two main purposes in your training. The first is underrated. Because

02:56you're focusing on the negative portion of the rep and lowering slowly, you're letting the muscles

03:00you're training reach the stretch position and linger in that position for longer. You wind up

03:05spending more time under tension in those stretch positions and that is increasingly leading to

03:10muscle growth, so doing eccentric overload exercises potentially creates more room for

03:15muscle growth. Eccentric overload motions also can help your body and your mind acclimate to

03:20loads much heavier than the ones you think you're capable of. For example, you may only be able to

03:26curl 25 pound dumbbells with good form, but you can grab a 30 or 35 pound dumbbell, have your other

03:33arm assist to the top of the curling motion, then lower slowly. You could also cheat a barbell curl

03:38to the top position then lower slowly. Either of these is going to prime your nervous system to

03:43eventually handle heavier weights for curls. If you've hit a plateau in your training with the big

03:48lift or you just want to find a way to go heavier, using this technique can really help you bust

03:52through those plateaus. Either way, know that this method of training can be extra taxing, so we want

03:58to use it judiciously. Limit your use of eccentric overload techniques to a maximum of three to four

04:04sets per workout. This can take a couple forms. Maybe you apply eccentric overload techniques to

04:09the final set of every exercise in your workout. Or maybe you choose one exercise and use eccentric

04:15overload on every single set of that exercise. If you're using them to acclimate to heavier weights,

04:20no matter what, make sure you do your eccentric overloading at the beginning of your workout.

04:25There's also one final option. If you train full body workouts, say three to four times a week,

04:30take one day out of the week and focus on all eccentric overload techniques for three to four

04:35exercises. Now let's go over a couple of my favorite eccentric overload lifts for your

04:39workouts. You can do these within your regular workouts in one of the formats I just told you

04:43about, or we can combine them all together into a once a week eccentric overload session. There are

04:48a whole ton of eccentric overload exercises out there, so you have multiple options. The whole

04:54goal is just to make sure you're going super heavy during that eccentric portion of the lift,

04:58and then we're just going to get the weight back up as quickly as we can and as efficiently as we

05:03can so that we can do another eccentric grip. Either way, you're setting yourself up to build

05:07a ton of muscle, so let's go over these four lifts. The first of these is the push press to

05:10eccentric lower. Here, what we're going to do is we're going to use our hips and explosively drive

05:16into an overhead position with a standard military press. From there, once we've done that and because

05:21we had our hips involved, we were able to move that heavy weight. Now we're going to slowly lower

05:26for three to four seconds. This is a really, really great way to one, bulletproof your shoulders,

05:30and two, set yourself up to military press heavy weights in the long run. It's also a fun lift

05:34because we get to be explosive on the way up. Another move I really, really like, this is a

05:38great biceps exercise. We're going to go cheat curl. You can do this with dumbbells or you can

05:42do this with a straight bar. We're going to essentially get our hips involved, almost make

05:46this a little bit of a power clean, get the bar up to our chest, then we're going to really tighten

05:50everything up, tighten up your abs, your glutes, and you're going to slowly lower back down. This

05:54is a really awesome way to subject your biceps to a ton of stress. The best move you can do for

05:59triceps when it comes to eccentric overload is something called a close grip press into an

06:04eccentric skull crusher. So lie on the bench as if we're pressing. We're going to keep our elbows

06:08close to our body. You're going to press up powerfully, and you can be explosive during this

06:11too, and then you're going to shift your elbows back ever so slightly. Make sure they stay close

06:16to your body, and all we're going to do is bend at the elbow joint. Think of lowering the dumbbell

06:20slowly towards your shoulders. This is awesome for your triceps. You also get that nice little

06:25explosive when we're getting the close grip press, and we get a ton of eccentric work at the

06:30elbow joint to really attack our triceps. And then the fourth option here, a really good pulling

06:35exercise for you. We're going to go double arm pull down. So we're going to get on a pull down

06:39setup. You're going to pull down on a single D handle with both arms, then you're going to release

06:43with one arm. Kind of make sure you really own that position, tighten up your abs, and you're

06:47going to go up slowly. On all of these exercises, you want to make sure you're getting that three,

06:51four, even five second lower, because the goal of eccentric overload is to spend a ton of time

06:57under tension, fighting that heavy weight all the way up. It's here that you have this amazing

07:02chance to build a whole ton of strength, and again, to just really acclimate your body to

07:07moving heavier weights than you thought possible. Once you merge this tactic with your regular

07:11training, you're going to get so much stronger, and you're also going to have a ton of fun in

07:15your workouts, because this is a great way to just make sure you're going heavier than you

07:19thought possible. And when you do that, you wind up feeling great from a strength perspective,

07:23and mentally, you also know you're really strong too.

Try Eccentric Overload Training For Serious Gains | Path to Gains | Men’s Health Muscle

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