Why Eccentric Training Deserves a Place in Your Workout

When most people think about strength training, they think about lifting the weight. Push the dumbbell overhead. Stand up from the squat. Curl the weight toward your shoulder. But there's another part of the movement that deserves just as much attention, especially as we get older: putting the weight back down.

That's the eccentric portion of an exercise, and learning to control it can be one of the most valuable additions to your strength training program. I've become increasingly interested in how we can train smarter as we age. I'm not looking for exercises that are simply harder. I'm interested in techniques that provide a meaningful training stimulus while helping us maintain the strength and physical capabilities we'll need later in life. Eccentric training fits well into that philosophy.

What Is Eccentric Training?

During the concentric portion of an exercise, the muscle shortens while producing force. During the eccentric portion, the muscle produces force while lengthening.

Think about a biceps curl. Curling the dumbbell toward your shoulder is the concentric portion. Slowly lowering it is the eccentric portion. In a squat, standing up is predominantly concentric, while controlling yourself as you descend involves eccentric muscle action.

Eccentric training simply places greater emphasis on that lowering or lengthening phase.

Why Eccentric Strength Matters

One of the interesting characteristics of skeletal muscle is that it can generally produce high levels of force during eccentric contractions. Research comparing eccentric and concentric resistance training has found that eccentric-focused training can produce substantial improvements in strength, particularly when the eccentric phase is trained with appropriately higher loads.

That doesn't mean grabbing the heaviest dumbbell you can find and trying to lower it. Quite the opposite. I want control.

If you're performing a squat and dropping quickly into the bottom position, you're missing an opportunity. If you're doing a chest press and letting the weight fall back toward your chest, you're missing part of the exercise. Slow the movement down, and suddenly the same exercise can provide a very different stimulus.

Building Strength and Maintaining Muscle

Maintaining strength becomes increasingly important as we age. Research comparing eccentric resistance training with traditional resistance training in older adults has found that both approaches can improve strength and functional capacity, with some evidence suggesting an advantage for eccentric training in certain measures of strength.

I'm not suggesting eccentric training is a secret technique that makes traditional resistance training obsolete. It doesn't. Instead, it's another tool we can use within a properly designed strength program.

You'll also sometimes hear that eccentric training is dramatically better for building muscle. The evidence is more nuanced. Both eccentric and concentric muscle actions can contribute to muscle growth, and there isn't a clear universal advantage for eccentric training.

But muscle growth isn't the only thing that matters. Strength matters. Control matters. Movement capacity matters.

You Already Use Eccentric Strength Every Day

This is where eccentric training becomes particularly relevant to fitness after 45.

You use eccentric strength when you walk downstairs and your legs control your descent. You use it when you lower yourself into a chair, walk downhill, decelerate while playing a sport, or lower something heavy onto the floor.

In many everyday situations, your muscles aren't simply creating movement. They're controlling movement.

Studies involving older adults have found that eccentric exercise can improve strength and may improve measures of mobility and physical function. That's important because my definition of fitness has changed as I've gotten older. I'm not training solely to lift more weight. I'm training to maintain capacity.

Control Before Intensity

One of the easiest ways to introduce eccentric training doesn't require any special equipment. Simply stop rushing through your repetitions.

Take a squat. Instead of dropping quickly and immediately standing back up, try taking approximately three seconds to lower yourself under control, then stand normally.

Try the same concept with a push-up. Lower yourself slowly toward the floor while maintaining your position, then push back up. During a dumbbell chest press, consciously control the weights as they return toward your chest.

You're no longer just moving from Point A to Point B. You're controlling the entire movement.

That's something I emphasize frequently in training: control before intensity.

Adding weight to an exercise you can't control isn't necessarily progress. Sometimes progress means performing the same movement better.

Start Conservatively

Eccentric exercise can produce significant muscle soreness, particularly when the stimulus is new or considerably more demanding than what your body is accustomed to. That doesn't mean eccentric training is bad for you. It means it needs to be progressed appropriately.

More soreness isn't evidence of a better workout.

If you've never deliberately trained eccentrically, start conservatively. You don't need maximal loads, extremely slow repetitions, or advanced "negative" training techniques to benefit. A controlled two- or three-second lowering phase may already dramatically change an exercise you've been performing for years.

Give your body time to adapt.

Why This Matters

When we're younger, it's tempting to judge progress almost entirely by external numbers. How much can I bench? How much can I squat? How fast can I run?

Those measurements still have value, but now I ask additional questions. Can you control the weight? Can you move through an appropriate range of motion? Can you decelerate your body? Can you get down to the floor and back up? Can you walk down a flight of stairs confidently? And can you maintain those abilities into your 60s, 70s, and 80s?

That's why I think eccentric training deserves more attention.

You also don't need an entirely separate "eccentric workout." For most people, I'd rather incorporate eccentric emphasis into exercises they're already performing: squats, lunges, push-ups, rows, pulldowns, chest presses, step-downs, Romanian deadlifts, and calf raises.

Instead of immediately increasing the weight, control the eccentric portion. Lower under control. Maintain good positioning. Feel the muscles working throughout the repetition. Then produce force in the opposite direction.

Train for Control, Not Just Strength

We need muscle. We need strength. We need cardiovascular fitness. We need mobility. And we need the ability to control our bodies as we move through the world.

The next time you're strength training, don't only think about lifting the weight. Pay attention to how you're lowering it. Don't only think about standing up from the squat. Think about how you're controlling yourself on the way down.

Don't only train to produce force. Learn how to absorb and control it too.

Because as we get older, strength isn't simply about how much weight we can move. It's about how well we can control our bodies, maintain our independence, and continue doing the things we want to do for decades to come.