Focus on the Eccentric Portion of the Movement for Maximum Hypertrophy

It is not uncommon to see in gyms across the country (and probably the world!) for a young man to be using the flat barbell bench press and during his range of motion he pushes the weight up with all his effort and then casually lets the weight fall rapidly to his chest before pushing it up again. Many weight trainers make the mistake of putting all their effort into the concentric or "positive" portion of the lift when in reality they are getting less than 50 percent of the benefit of the specific exercise with this cadence (or lack thereof).

In actuality, it is the eccentric or "negative" portion of the lift that incites the greatest amount of muscle fiber tears. Muscle hypertrophy occurs when the tiny muscle fibers that make up the bulk of a muscle experience "microtears" as a result of resistance training. When the microtears heal, the muscle fibers grow back bigger and stronger and over a long period of time this leads to a larger surface area of the entire muscle.

The next time you perform resistance training, try to count to 3 seconds during the negative portion of each repetition. While you may not be able to use as much weight as usual, the benefit over time will be well worth it if your goal is muscle size.