Eccentric Strength For Mountaineers

In this episode, we discuss the concept of eccentric strength and why putting some extra attention into this can be incredibly beneficial for mountaineers.

​Episode Transcript:

[0:00] All right, hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen. So in today's episode, we're going to be talking through a really simple adjustment that you can make with your strength training, which can have some dramatic changes to your long-term

[0:13] results and your long-term strength improvement. And this particular adjustment is known as what's called eccentric training. Now, this whole topic kind of comes under the umbrella of what's known as tempo training.

[0:29] Now, tempo basically means manipulating speed. Many mountaineers out there who do have a background in endurance training may already be familiar with this when it comes down to cardio. You know, there's certain type of workouts where you may call tempo runs or tempo cycles where we manipulate our speed during certain workouts. You know, the same sort of term can also be applied to our strength training, and it involves manipulating the speed of your repetitions. And some slight adjustments and slight tweaks to the normal approach of strength training, which many mountaineers take, can be really, really, really useful.

[1:05] Now, to explain this in detail, we've got to start with a quick little sport science lesson, and we've got to talk about muscle contractions and the different ways that our muscles will actually contract during movements. So essentially, in our body, there are three different ways that our muscles will contract. Now, as I go through each of these three examples, I'm going to be using the example of a bicep curl. So keep this in your mind, a bicep curl where you've got a weight, you're just lifting it up with your arm and getting a good squeeze on the biceps.

[1:37] Now, the first type of muscle contraction that we want to be aware of is what's called a concentric muscle contraction. This is essentially where the muscle contracts and at the same time, it is shortening. So the muscle gets shorter as it contracts. In the bicep curl example, this is really, really, really simple. This is essentially where we, starting from the bottom, we bring the weight up from the bottom to the top. As the weight comes up, our bicep contracts. We can feel it in the bicep and that muscle gets shorter and shorter and shorter and shorter. That is a concentric muscle contraction.

[2:11] Now on the flip side of this, the second type of muscle contraction is what's called an eccentric muscle contraction. This is the opposite of the other one we were talking about before. And this is essentially where the muscle contracts while it lengthens, while it's actually getting longer. So using this bicep curl example, this is the lowering portion of the movement. As we're bringing the bicep curl down and back to the starting position, that bicep, it is still contracting. It is still working. It's still getting force applied to it, but it's getting longer and longer and longer. That's what's called an eccentric muscle contraction. And the third type of contraction is what's called an isometric muscle contraction. This is essentially where the muscle contracts and generates force without a change in length. So when it's just staying in the same position. So in the bicep curl example, this will be if you went up on a bicep curl and say you got to halfway and you just stopped and you just held that there for five or 10 or 20 seconds or whatever may be. Now in that type of situation, the bicep is still contracting, but it's not getting longer or shorter, it's staying the same, an isometric muscle contraction. So we've got concentric, eccentric, and isometric.

[3:26] Now, when we're looking at everyday movements, when we're looking at everyday training, the body is constantly going through all three of these. And there is a dynamic interplay between the way muscles will use these different type of contractions in different movements and yada, yada, yada. And without even thinking about it, we are getting exposure to all of this. However, when we are looking at our strength training.

[3:49] So dialing into this a little bit more and being a little bit more specific

[3:53] around how we're approaching things can be very, very, very interesting. And specifically what we're doing today and talking about today is dialing into these eccentric muscle contractions. Because ultimately in the world of strength training, whether we're talking about general population just going out and training, or whether we're talking about mountaineers specifically, most people out there will predominantly focus on those concentric muscle contractions.

[4:21] Cure for the fact that this is what we tend to feel the most in our training. This is kind of what the hard part of the movement is. When we're in a squat and we're pushing up to the top, or we're in a deadlift and we're lifting up from the floor, or when we're in a push-up and we're pushing up to the top, or whatever it is. This is the bit that feels like a struggle this is the bit that really feels like we're working and this is the bit where most of us put most of our attention into and it obviously makes sense because you know this is kind of what we judge as the harder bit of the movement this kind of feels naturally like we're moving forward and this is how we judge how much weight we can lift because if we can lift a weight off the floor in one of these concentric muscle contractions yeah you're getting stronger and a lot of people will just put a lot of focus on them Now, a lot on top of that, you know, a lot of people out there will have a bit of a background when it comes down to maybe HIIT training or circuit training or CrossFit or all of these things that are very, very popular in the world of training where people tend to just bang out repetitions as quickly as they can. They do rep and rep and rep and rep and rep and just try to get really, really quickly either to get their heart rate up, which might be in the HIIT example where they're using that just to get a cardiovascular response. In CrossFit, where We're literally racing against time and trying to get through things out as quickly as possible. But in these situations, people be very, very quick. And that makes sense in those contexts.

[5:43] However, even though the general approach to strength training is really focusing on these concentric muscle contractions, in the mountaineering context, there is a lot of value of putting some extra attention into the eccentric side of things. And if you can just slow things down and get away from these really quick repetitions where we're just banging out rep after rep after rep and really focusing on that concentric side of things. But if we can pull back the speed, put attention into the eccentric component of these exercises and really, really emphasize this, it can be super, super, super useful for mountaineers. And I would argue there's a lot of benefits out there, which many mountaineers would just absolutely love to unlock. So I'm going to talk you through these exact benefits and why I particularly like this emphasis. And then I'll explain actually how you can apply this and how and you can actually put this into your training. So first and foremost, focusing on the eccentric side of things can be a simple option to push your strength forward. Because when it comes to strength development, eccentric strength is just as valuable as concentric strength. And if you are skipping over this in your training and you're not really putting a huge amount of emphasis into this eccentric side of things.

[7:01] You are ultimately missing out on a lot of potential from your training. And you are probably getting some benefits and some good benefits, but you're leaving a lot on the table. And I cannot tell you the amount of people I've worked with over the years who already have a history in strength training, who feel like they're coming in quite strong. But if we slow things down, put a bit more emphasis into this slower lowering, after a couple of boxer training, they are amazed at their progress. Not only their progress in the gym with their normal exercises,

[7:34] but actually how they actually feel out on their adventures. And that is what we're aiming for as a mountaineer. So first and foremost, you can get some more strength development in a realistic situation.

[7:47] If we focus on this. Number two, second benefit here is specificity. Now, before I get into this, just to be very, very, very clear, strength training is always going to be classified as general training in nature. And we do not want to go down the rabbit hole of trying to make every single strength exercise specific to the mountains, because that's not what we're doing with strength training. We are trying to build up general qualities of strength, and our specific stuff is actually being out on the trail or in the mountains.

[8:22] However, there are certain tweaks you can make to your strength exercises which can make them a little bit more specific without sort of compromising the main goal of strength development. And focusing on the eccentric is very worthwhile here. Now, where this comes into play is in the world of mountaineering, one of the biggest struggles for a lot of people are steep descents. Once we hit the top of the mountain, we have to come down. And a lot of people really do struggle on the descent side of things. And specifically, it does tend to grind up people's knees very, very much.

[8:56] And the amount of mountaineers out there who struggle with knee pain, so many out there. And if we look at this type of movement, when we are stepping down, we're going down a steep descent, we're going down a steep incline, our quadriceps are doing a lot of these eccentric contractions to help stabilize the legs, to help support everything. A lot of our body is going through these eccentric movements to make sure our legs aren't sliding out from under us.

[9:22] So if we can train this in our strength training and put a bit of emphasis into it, it can be really, really beneficial. To put this in really, really, really simple and practical terms, I want you to imagine a step-up. Step-up, one of mountaineers' most favorite strength exercises. Typically for a step up, we just push up to the top and then come back down and push up to the top, come back down. Most of the emphasis is just pushing straight up to the top, which can be great. However, if we flip this around and if we put a bit more emphasis onto the lowering portion, so we change this step up into a step down where you're still pushing up, but you're slowly lowering it for four or five seconds. This can be incredibly specific for what we need as a.

[10:05] So, using this eccentric lowering and concentrating on this a little bit more can be very specific in certain situations.

[10:12] Now, the third benefit to this is form. In the sense that when it comes down to strength training, we kind of want our exercises having good form in quotation marks. Now, it doesn't have to be perfect. You don't have to be doing things absolutely picture perfect, 100% correct or whatever it may be. You know, we don't have to get that extreme. but essentially we want to have the correct form of an exercise to ensure that we are training the right muscles so we're actually getting the benefits out of this particular exercise and the right muscles are working in the right ways and also reduce the risk of things going wrong in the sense if we do certain exercises and like we're just doing in quotation marks bad form there's certain risks where things can go wrong get uncomfortable or whatever may be depending on the exercise now one thing that can happen is if we are doing fast repetitions and we're just doing rep after rep after rep and just banging things out, it can be very, very, very easy for form to not be so good.

[11:08] One example of this is if people have points of a movement where they're a little bit unstable or they're a little bit weak. Let's use the example of a lunge. Typically, people for a lunge, they're pretty strong at the top, they're pretty strong halfway down, and at the bottom of the movement, that's when things begin to fall apart and where people get real wobbly, they sort of struggle to move the exercise or whatever it may be. Now, if we, a lot of people, natural tendency, if they have an exercise where they realize there's certain things they struggle with, they'll do the repetitions quite quickly. And what they'll do is they'll use momentum just to get through those weak spots, to get through those unstable spots, which can help you in the short term. It can help you get through these exercises, maybe do more repetitions or do more weight. But as a long-term, it's not very good because we skip over these weak spots, we skip over these unstable spots, and we just use momentum to kind to push through.

[12:00] Alternatively, if we slow things down, if we take the speed away and take that momentum away, it is an incredibly simple way of ensuring we don't skip over those weak spots. We don't skip over those unstable spots and everything's getting worked. So we're working with good form through the whole range of motion. Now, on top of that, you know, some people, when they're doing exercises, particularly if we love lifting heavy weights, sometimes we just get a little bit carried away. And we just want to lift more and more and more and more. And this is good to a point if we want to challenge ourself, but if we get to the stage where, again, we're just using momentum to push through things and our form begins to fall apart and we're just doing weird movements, you know, this is where aches and pains often creep up. So again, slowing things down is just a simple way of eliminating that momentum or reducing that momentum at the very least and clearing up your form. And when I used to train people face-to-face and when I spent my time in the gym, this was the most simple way of making an exercise better. If someone was struggling with something and they were wobbling all over the place or the movement wasn't super pretty or whatever it may be, I would just ask them to slow things down. 95% of the time without a huge amount of extra coaching, that would sort things out because it just forces you to properly stabilize. It forces you to train through weak spots and it does put a natural limiter on how much you lift. So it's not great for the ego, but it is really, really good for form.

[13:26] The next benefit of this particular approach to training, putting more emphasis in the eccentric, is it can be a good what's called plateau buster. In the sense that sometimes with our strength training, if we've been doing an exercise for a while, we kind of just, all progress begins to slow down. We kind of get stuck. For example, a typical approach to a strength training program is you may start with a series of exercises, and you start lifting. The first four to six weeks, typically, whenever you're on a new program, our strength explodes. We increase we increase we increase we feel really good everything is bumping up here and there.

[13:59] After that you know after four to six weeks things kind of begin to slow down the next three or four weeks if you're doing the same exercises progress will still be there but it begins to slow down a bit and then after that it can get really really really really slow when we hit what's called a plateau very very very very common um this will happen for beginner lifters if you're experienced lifters and you're stronger or whatever may be you know these improvements can be slower and slower and slower. Now, overcoming these plateaus and overcoming these slow periods, there are a million and one different ways of going about this, and this is kind of the art of coaching. But as a general rule of thumb, giving the body exposure to a slightly different demand, even if you're doing the same exercise, if you're squatting for 12 weeks, but if you just tweak it very, very slightly, give it a new demand, give it a new challenge, that can force it to move forward and keep your strength moving forward. Now, in this situation, we can use the eccentric here. And if we've been squatting for eight weeks, for example, at a normal pace and progress was beginning to slow down, we could say, you know what, the next four weeks, we're going to focus on a five or six second lower on every single repetition. Do that for four weeks, go back to your normal squats afterwards, probably going to increase and that progress will move forward again. Very, very simple.

[15:10] And then finally, eccentric training can be a great way to access difficult exercises and bridge the gap you need in strength between being able to do an exercise and not being able to do an exercise. What I mean by this is our eccentric strength. So that strength of the muscle contracting as it gets longer tends to be much, much, much stronger than the concentric side of things, meaning we can lift a lot more weight, a lot more resistance or whatever it may be, eccentrically. And sometimes there are certain movements that we cannot do concentrically and we really, really struggle on that. That's a limiting factor. But if we can train it exclusively, eccentrically, it can build strength and

[15:53] allow us to kind of build up and up to that full movement. So the typical example here is like a chin-up in the world of mountaineering. A lot of mountaineers love chin-ups, great exercise.

[16:02] However, getting that first chin-up or that first pull-up can be a real struggle. And if you can't do a full chin-up, you can start just doing eccentric only, where you basically get a chair or get a box, you just jump up to the top, so you skip that concentric motion, and then you slowly lower yourself down. Then you put your feet down, you jump back up to the top, and slowly lower yourself down. And you might do that for four weeks, and then give the full chin-up a go. If you still can't do it, then you go back to the eccentric, but now you do weighted ones. You put a bit of weight on, five or 10 or 15 kilos, and again, you jump up to the top and slowly lower down. This is a really, really good way of bridging that gap and building yourself up. Another example here is push-ups. Like if someone can't do a full push-up, you can do the same thing. You can start at the top, slowly lower down, get to the bottom position, put your knees down, pop up to the top, and then go again. And then slowly and surely add weight.

[16:56] So it can be a really, really good option. So with that being said, if you're still with me, you can probably see there is definitely a few great potential benefits to this type of training. The only real drawback that we will get from this type of training is you won't be able to lift quite as much weight because it will tie you out. It will require quite a bit of focus. But as a mountaineer, because we're not training for numbers, we are training for our performance on the mountain, that doesn't really matter in all honesty.

[17:23] So with these benefits out of the way. And now you're thinking, okay, this may be cool. How do you actually apply it? How do you put this into your training? Well, it is really, really, really simple and is not complicated at all. Essentially, what you want to think about is in your strength training, when you're doing your repetitions for the majority of your exercises, it may not be practical for every single one, but let's just say the majority of your exercises during the easy part of the repetition. So the part that's the lowering or the easier, the stuff that you don't really, tend to think about too much, aim to spend about four to five seconds of the easy part of the repetition on every single repetition. So for example, if we're squatting, aim for four to five seconds on the way down, then one second up, four to five seconds on the way down every single rep. If you were doing a Romanian deadlift, four to five seconds on the way down, one second up, four to five seconds on the way down.

[18:19] Very, very simple. The only exercises just off the top of my head that I wouldn't really recommend doing this with, aside from the ones that are just impractical and just can't do it, is probably a traditional barbell deadlift. You can do it with this type of movement, but tends to be if you're lifting up and then slowly lowering, a lot of people struggle to control that and they end up taking the lower back. So I said probably don't really do it on that. Also on step-ups, it's not super realistic to do a super slow lower off a step-up. I do like step downs, but they're kind of different exercises for mountaineers. And any type of explosive movement, if you're doing like cleans or jerks or jumps or whatever it may be, you know, not that I would say many mountaineers need to be doing those things. However, explosive movements are not designed to have a slow control lower. They're designed to be explosive. There's probably a few other out there, but they're the ones off the top of my head. Now, last few points before I wrap up today, a few things you do need to be aware of here. If you're applying this training, number one, it can be tough mentally. You need to focus because the second you stop thinking about it, the second you stop focusing on it, you're just going to go back to normal speeds and you're going to forget about that slow lower or whatever it may be.

[19:32] On top of that, the second you start getting tired, you're naturally going to try and speed things up. So you need to focus. Number two, it can be hard to keep track of, particularly if you're doing higher repetition sets of 10 or 12 or 15 reps. And it can be really, really, really hard to keep track of reps and speed. So one strategy I recommend here is using what's the musician counting and how musicians use to count their beats and count their bars. I can't remember the terminology or whatever it may be, but what they do. So essentially what you would do if you're doing say a squat and you're doing a certain number of repetitions, you're aiming for four seconds on the way down, you would in your head, you'll count one, two, three, four, then two.

[20:15] Three, four, and three, two, three, four, and four, two, three, four, and so forth. So the first count is always counting the repetition you're on, and then the other ones are counting your slow lower. Simple approach to that. Number three is if you are starting to adjust things here, you will likely have to reduce your weight initially, just because it's going to be harder, just because it's going to take time. And you definitely want to do that. And then finally, you will probably get sore initially, in the sense that eccentric training or eccentric overload is a factor which leads to muscle soreness. So the first time you do this, or the first couple of times you do this, you might be like, oh my gosh, these muscles are sore. And it's purely for the fact that this eccentric stuff does lead to more muscle soreness. So just be aware about that. But all in all, for when it comes down to your strength training, for looking for something that is so simple to do and such a simple change,

[21:10] it can have some really, really good benefits. Something I use with most of my mountaineers, slide adjustments can go a really, really long way. It's definitely worthwhile something exploring for yourself as well. So if you're a mountaineer who does strength training and you're aware that, look, I do do things pretty quickly, I do zip through my reps a little bit, give this a go, and I promise you it will make a bit of a difference.

[21:29] So last thing I will sort of say before I wrap up today's episode, if you were a mountaineer who was interested in strength training, getting the most out of this type of training to help you in the mountains, and you're interested in getting a little bit of help with things, I would love to chat with you. If you want to find out a little bit more about our online personal training for mountaineers, you can go to summitstrength.com.au slash mountaineer. On that page, there's a lot of information about our programs about how we go about things what we do and if it is something you want to explore a little bit more there's a link on that page where you can book a free call with our team we can have a little bit of a chat learn about you your needs your goals your situation and your mountaineering and see if and how we may be able to help you out so if you want to check that out go to summitstrength.com.au slash mountaineer and we can take it from there, so with that being said thank you so much for listening hope you've enjoyed it today and we'll talk to you very very soon.

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