Muscle Building? Don’t lift weights, lower them.

About the episode

We keep looking for it: the best way to stay healthy. Exercise and muscle strength are two important factors in this regard and new research shows that we may be able to build this muscle strength with much less effort.

Whether you train with weights at home or in the gym: Most people choose well-known basic exercises, such as lifting and lowering dumbbells, for example.

Previous research has already shown that stretching or stretching tense muscles – this is called eccentric contraction – has a positive effect on muscle growth. In this new study, they wanted to know: Is it OK that the rest isn’t necessary?

They received weight training subjects twice a week for five weeks. One group did the well-known “raise and lower” motion, another group did only the lifting portion with the weight and a final group only the bottom portion.

Lifting alone had a limited effect on muscle growth and strength. Only raising, lowering, and lowering showed a similar strong effect, while one accounted for only half of the movement.

The researchers’ conclusion: So we can achieve the same thing with half the effort. And they can do that at home. For example, by quickly raising your weight with two hands and slowly lowering it with one hand. According to the researchers, it is not even necessary to invest a lot of time: 3 seconds per day at maximum power will be enough to make an effect.

The paper can be found here: Comparison of concentric-only, eccentric-only, and concentric-eccentric resistance exercises for elbow flexors for their effect on muscle strength and hypertrophy.