The Power of Concentric Muscle Contractions for Hypertrophy

Today's topic:
The concentric muscle contraction.

The concentric muscle contraction consists, during muscle contraction, in bringing the points of insertions closer together, the muscle shrinks. During a biceps curl, for example, when the arm is flexed and the hand is brought closer to the shoulder, the biceps contracts, the points of insertions are brought closer together and the muscle fibers slide to cross each other - this is the concentric phase of the movement.

This is an easy-to-implement method, used mainly on sets of classic contractions aimed at increasing muscle mass and recruiting more motor units over the course of repetitions.

Let's take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of this regime.

Advantages:

• Increased strength.
• Promotes hypertrophy.
• Motor unit recruitment.

Disadvantages:

• Reduced flexibility.
• Low force output compared with other contraction modes.
• High metabolic and nervous energy consumption.

To avoid stagnating and losing all the benefits of your efforts, you'll need to vary your movements and difficulty.

Thank you for reading.