The Positives about Negatives

Want to add variety to your resistance training program, increase results and protect against injury?

Try eccentric (negative) weight training.


Description:
Resistance is applied primarily to your muscles during the lengthening phase of a repetition.  Eccentric muscle movements act a brake against the concentric (shortening / contraction) action to protect joints from damage.

Examples:
With the Back Row, the eccentric movement occurs after pulling the weight to your torso (the concentric phase) while resisting against the weight as your arms straighten back to your starting position.

Walking down hill is also an eccentric action.

Technique:

• Perform the concentric movement in one second and the eccentric movement over 3-5 seconds.

• As you approach the end of the set and start to fatigue, you may need help lifting in the concentric phase.

• To progress, increase the amount of time you spend on the eccentric phase.

Interesting Facts:

• Because eccentric training uses little energy while producing markedly high force, “muscles respond to eccentric training with meaningful changes in strength, size and power,” according researchers.
• Total body eccentric training will burn more fat by increasing your resting metabolic rate 9%, with the highest fat burn occurring during the first two hours.
• Adding periods of eccentric training to your conditioning program helps protect against injury and/or re-injury.
• Most people can use heavier weight with an eccentric exercise.
• Eccentric training is a good post rehabilitation program for lower-body injuries
• Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) often presents as tenderness rather than soreness

Source:   IDEA Fitness Journal, October 2010

Keep in Mind:   When starting eccentric training, regardless of fitness level, I strongly recommend consulting a certified personal trainer for instruction on proper technique! -- Jeanie

How to Weight Train to Increase Metabolism

How to take advantage of weight training's fat burning benefits?

• Avoid non-active rest periods between each set of repetitions.
• The idea is to work one muscle group while allowing the another muscle group to rest.  By removing the inactive rest periods, you boost the intensity of the workout.
• You also shorten your workout time!

Here are a few ways to accomplish this: 

Perform your exercises in a circuit. 

• A circuit is a group of exercises performed in a row one set at a time.  A set should consist of 8-15 reps.  Typically, when you complete the circuit once, you will go back to the beginning and repeat the sequence one or two more times.

• For example, an upper body circuit might include the following exercises:  chest press, back row, shoulder press, bicep curl and triceps extension.  You perform one set of the chest press, one set of the back row, one set of shoulder press and so on.

Alternate between upper and lower body exercises.

• You can alternate between upper and lower body muscle groups in a circuit like this:  leg press, chest press, squats, back row, leg extension, shoulder press and hamstring curl.  Do one set of each and then repeat the sequence.
• Or you can alternate sets between two exercises:  leg press with chest press; leg extension with back row; and hamstring curl with shoulder press, and so on.

Perform supersets.

• With supersets, you alternate between two opposing muscle groups for two or three sets.
• For example, you perform one set of the chest press followed immediately by one set of the back row.  Then go back to the chest press for one set, followed again by the back row. 
• When you finish this pair, you move on to two other opposing muscle groups like the quadriceps leg extension and the hamstring curl.

These suggestions are just snippets--they are not complete workout plans.

Don't forget to warm up first and stretch at the end! -- Jeanie

Metabolism & Weight Loss

I recently attended a seminar on metabolism and weight loss and gathered some great information.  Here are some highlights:

Eating breakfast increases metabolic rate by 5% while skipping meals slows down metabolic rate.

Eating too little (=deprivation) triggers your body's survival mechanism, dropping your metabolic rate by an average of 15%. With consistent deprivation over time, the body becomes very efficient at storing body fat, i.e. a larger percentage of the food you eat is stored as fat.

Eighty to ninety percent of weight loss is due to how and what you eat; the remaining 10-20% is exercise.

Exercise is crucial to maintaining weight/weight loss.

The more fit you become, the more efficient you become at burning calories and fat; a fit person will enter the fat burning stage sooner in her or his workout than a non-fit person.

Trained v. untrained individuals use more fat at rest (saving glucose stores), burn more fat at any level of intensity, and mobilize fat sooner and more efficiently while exercising.

Weight training, when performed correctly, prevails as the higher intensity exercise over moderate aerobic exercise.  Studies show that more calories are spent during weight training, and more fat is burned during the recovery period.

An effective workout schedule (for those who have time): Five to six days a week for about 45 minutes; weight training three of those days and aerobic exercise the other three days.

The best combined workout: Research now shows that weight training first followed by aerobic exercise will give the best results. Yes--it's better to have a stronger weight training session and a weaker aerobic session than the other way around.  I suggest 30 minutes of weight training followed by 30 minutes of aerobic exercise.

Please remember that maintaining or increasing lean muscle mass increases your metabolic rate!

The thyroid controls metabolic rate by releasing the hormone thyroxin. For as many as 20% of women, thyroxin may be too low, reducing metabolic rate. This may cause weight gain as well as depression and high cholesterol. When the thyroxin count falls into the normal range, but is approaching outside of normal, doctors have started to prescribe medication with positive results. You need to keep track of your numbers; don't expect your doctor to do this.

Exercising for an hour a day with no other activity (sitting the rest of the day) will burn less calories than not exercising for an hour and spending the rest of your day actively. Bottom line: everyone should increase their activities of daily living.

Happy fat burning! -- Jeanie