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I propose that everyone post studies, opinions and experiences. I found a lot of studies which contradict themselves. Sometimes isometric is superior sometimes eccentric sometimes all are egal…

Here′s 1 study :

http://jap.physiology.org/cgi/content/abstract/81/5/2173

"Quadriceps cross-sectional area measured by magnetic resonance imaging (sum of 7 slices) increased more in ETG (6.6%) than in CTG (5.0%) (P < 0.05)."

I found that also :

"Isometric training for 100 days resulted in a doubling of
strength with only a 23 % increase in cross-sectional area. In the same study, the untrained limb
showed a 30 % increase in strength with no increase in cross-sectional area."

My experience : heavy eccentric contractions didn′t gave me more size nor strength than dynamic contractions.

some crazy ideas :

1) The isometric strength of a muscle beeing proportional to his cross section, we should train for maximum isometric strength. Training with isometric contractions should be superior to concentric and eccentric contractions to increase isometric strength (SAID principle).

2) Eccentric contractions are superior because they allow the use of heavier loads but partial also allow the use of heavier loads and aren′t necessarly good (Pete Sisco training).

3) all in all I believe that dynamic contractions are better because it has been shown that FAST eccentric are better than slow eccentric and when you do dynamic reps you can do FAST eccentric but when you do eccentric only training with heavier loads you cannot go as fast. Also dynamic reps are like very short isometric contractions at every angles.

Hey Vincent- I know what you went through looking at those studies. I did that a year ago also and was frustrated at how some said this while others said that….

Basically what Roger Enoka says in Neural Mechanics, is that if you review all the studies, and take into account the errors and such, ansometric(up and down) seems to win overall.
there are weird things with some of the protocols using just one method.
Here are a couple odd things…
*If a program uses tension only in the stretch position, it seems to favor slow twitch fibers and it also seems to cause FT fibers to produce ST genes.
*19 weeks of isometrics for the quads in one study, increased IIa fibers but decreased the size of IIb fibers

There are lots more in the book but I′m running low on time 🙂

Az

Hey Vincent- I know what you went through looking at those studies. I did that a year ago also and was frustrated at how some said this while others said that….

Basically what Roger Enoka says in Neural Mechanics, is that if you review all the studies, and take into account the errors and such, ansometric(up and down) seems to win overall.
there are weird things with some of the protocols using just one method.
Here are a couple odd things…
*If a program uses tension only in the stretch position, it seems to favor slow twitch fibers and it also seems to cause FT fibers to produce ST genes.
*19 weeks of isometrics for the quads in one study, increased IIa fibers but decreased the size of IIb fibers

There are lots more in the book but I′m running low on time 🙂

Az

Hey Vincent,

Yes, I agree, interpreting the various studies and their meanings are quite confusing! The training protocols that many studies use are quite different for each of the different contractions, some studies do twice the reps in the concentric contractions than they do for the eccentric contraction group, and have different TUL′s. I myself do whole body routines in eccentric/negative only style for 1 set per bodypart with only one exercise. With the results I have been recieving from this training training i.e, strength and size increases, I′ll never go back to dynamic training; as long as I can train this way I will. I myself have many studies showing the effectivness of eccentric only training over concentric contractions, and if you are interested in me posting them I will, I think the most noteable study was the Colorado Experiment in which Casey Viator gained an amazing 63.21 lbs. of lean fat free mass in one month training 3 times a week, over 2/3 rds of his workouts were in negative only or negative accentuated style. Arthur Jones also took part in the study (he trained also in eccentric only style) and gained over 13 lbs. fat free muscle in 22 days.

Later

Garrett could you tell us more about your progression ? Which exercises do you use ?