Eccentric exercise facts

Basically, eccentric exercises stand for a group of specific physical activities which involve tensing your muscles by making them strain and stretch excessively, like when you are holding one of your limbs in a certain position and someone is trying to push it out of it, making your muscles highly activated during the process. These are excellent exercises for all those who wish to boost their strength and tone their muscles since they stimulate both your muscular resistance and growth.

Who Can Benefit from Eccentric Exercises?

These exercises can be very efficient if you are recovering from an injury like, for example tennis elbow, manifesting through damage in the elbow, due to overuse. Eccentric exercises are also good for jumper's knee. The same goes for other conditions caused by performing the same movements repeatedly for a longer period of time. So, tennis players, plumbers, butchers and mechanics are all professions with such problems and people who can benefit from eccentric exercise.

Eccentric Exercises Examples

Place a rubber band below your foot, locking it there. Then, while resting your injured arm on your knee, pull the rubber band up as much as you can, holding it while bending your elbow towards your chest. Make sure you do most of this pulling with your other, healthy arm in order to avoid injury. Fifteen repetitions in about 3 sets will suffice. As an alternative to this technique, you might use a flex bar, which is a rubber bar. So, learn how to exercise with this prop and rehabilitate your wrists.

Athletes who use their knees often tend to develop knee problems by damaging the cartilage in this area, along with the tendons connected with it. This results in pain and discomfort. However, there are eccentric exercises which can prove to be of assistance.

One of the best exercises for rehabilitation in this respect involves you standing next to a wall, your back facing it. Then, by leaning onto the wall, lower your body and bend your knees until you assume a sitting position, with your thighs being parallel to the floor. Once you reach the position, hold it for about 10 seconds. Afterwards, return to the initial position and repeat 10 times in three sets.

Again, you might use rubber bands tied around your heel and the other side tied to a door or other sturdy object. Once this is done, move yourself towards the floor, bending you knee as you touch it. Five repetitions will be enough.

Finally, you might practice stepping on a single, elevated stair, interchangeably, concentrating more on engaging your healthy knee in order to help the injured one.