Eccentric exercise is a popular strength training modality. But just how easy are they to incorporate into your every day workout routine? This blog post looks at eccentric bicep curls, an exercise that strengthens your muscle and improves your mind-muscle connection by making the biceps work harder while lowering the weight.

Easy to perform and yield numerous benefits, eccentric bicep curls are attainable for anyone with traditional weight training equipment or an Exerfly if you want to take your results to a whole different level.

What Is An Eccentric Bicep Curl?

Accentuated eccentric exercises are a form of resistaence training where an additional external load is applied during the eccentric phase of the movement. In the case of eccentric bicep curls, this involves putting your biceps under more time under tension, positively influencing muscle growth in that area.

Slow tempo eccentrics use a mid to heavy load (60-85% of your max) to execute a slow eccentric phase while lifting the weight explosively. This type of eccentric training can be replicated easily and yield impressive muscle size and tendon strength improvements.

The key to eccentric biceps curl lies in going heavier in your weights, as the focus on the resistance on the downwards motion will help you build up your strength.

Eccentric Bicep Curl Benefits

Reduced Metabolic Cost

Metabolic cost refers to how much energy your body needs to perform specific tasks or movements. Eccentric exercises like eccentric bicep curls reduce metabolic cost, meaning your body uses less energy to perform these movements.

Increased Muscle Flexibility

Short and tight biceps are common in today’s office work world. Hours spent typing on a keyboard shortens the biceps over time. By training them eccentrically, we can increase the length of the biceps. Eccentric contractions shift the length-tension relationship up and to the right by adding sarcomeres in series. This means you can produce more torque (rotational force) at longer muscle lengths.

More Force Production

Eccentric exercises produce more force when the muscle is lengthened, directly linked to improved performance during athletic activities such as jumping, weightlifting, cycling, sprinting, and golf swings.

Type IIX Muscle Fibers Maintenance

Eccentric exercises such as eccentric bicep curls trigger protein synthesis and muscle growth. As the muscle lengthens, it stresses and strengthens tendon tissues and promotes the maintenance of fast-twitch muscle fibers.

Type IIX fibers are used for short explosive activities that require power and speed, which are essential, even for inactive people, as they need to be able to sprint or lift something in an emergency. Eccentric training strengthens the body's connective tissues and muscle fibers, which is beneficial for any fitness outcome- whether that be strength, hypertrophy, endurance, or even rehabilitation.

How To Perform The Tempo Eccentric Bicep Curl

1. Hold any implement you want to curl—Barbell, dumbbell, cable, or bands. Curl the weight by flexing the elbow.
2. Once at the top, extend your elbow slowly, roughly over 3 to 5 seconds.

Start slowly with this method, and don't overdo this exercise, especially initially. It's important to know that you will have a great deal of delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS) 24 to 48 hours following your workout when you start training eccentrically. This is something to consider when scheduling training loads.

How To Perform A Flywheel Eccentric Bicep Curl

There are two options when performing eccentric bicep curls with flywheels:

• Concentric overload
• Eccentric motor

The concentric overload involves performing the concentric action (elbow flexion) at faster speeds. You can do this by performing a cheat curl incorporating the entire body on the way up while only resisting with the biceps during the eccentric.

The second option is using the Exerfly's eccentric motor. Simply set the eccentric overload to 10%, and you'll receive 10% more force during the eccentric compared to the concentric phase.

Both of these options are accentuated eccentric training versus tempo training and lead to far greatehr eccentric specific adaptations. Flywheel training devices are great for this purpose.

Summary

Eccentric bicep curls are an exercise that can be easily incorporated into your workout routine, reaping maximum benefits for minimal cost. Easily achievable with traditional weight training equipment or flywheels, eccentric bicep curls do not require additional help or spotters. It can be taken a step further using Exerfly's motorized technology for eccentric overload, which is proven to increase force production while promoting muscle flexibility. Eccentric bicep curls are a step up for any user wanting to take their results to the next level.