Eccentric contractions

[The Bat]

How important are these?

I know that they do more muscular damage than concentric contractions (which leads to muscular hypertrophy) but wouldn't it logically make sense that you can easily overtrain while doing extended eccentric contractions? You know...where you lower that bar to chest for 3 seconds slowly...

Are these recommended for ALL muscle groups? How beneficial and effective are they to larger (pectoralis, quadriceps, latissmus) compared to smaller (biceps, teres, triceps) muscle groups?

Do you do them?

To answer my own question, I do it when training large muscle groups since my goal is mass increase. I figure if I can get bigger chest/back then everything else will follow. But now I suspect that I need to be doing this for smaller muscles also.

 

[The Bat]

Nobody?

 

[Quagmire911]

What are your lifts on the big three...

 

[The Bat]

I haven't been lifting the big three for awhile. So these numbers are not my best right now.

Deadlift - 200 X 4
Bench - 155 x 3 (Pretty terrible, I know)
Squat - 195 x 4

If it makes any difference, this is all at 140 bodyweight.

 

[Quagmire911]

I wouldn't worry about time under tension or the eccentric portion of the lift. Just focus on lowering the bar as quickly as you can UNDER CONTROL (increases stretch reflex) and pressing/pulling it as fast as possible.

You need to get your numbers higher before you consider stuff like the above.

Good luck.

 

[The Bat]

Thanks man.

Any advice for getting my bench numbers close to squats/deadlifts? If I understood correctly, all three should be very similar.

I have been doing dips, triceps pushdown, skull crushers, and flyes. I plan on start doing close grip bench at some point.

My major problem with bench is stabilizing that bar. I have very skinny and very long arms which puts me at both power and mechanical disadvantages. Build up forearms, maybe?