What are the 3 types of muscle contractions?
Muscle contraction refers to the “firing” of the muscle fiber through neural signals from the brain. The signal travels down your spine, and in essence, the muscle is innervated or activated to generate force.
Now, there are essentially three types of muscle contractions that are used for various purposes. These 3 types are:
1) Eccentric Contraction
2) Isometric Contraction
3) Concentric Contraction
Eccentric Contraction: Refers to the lengthening of the muscle when loaded with stress. This is basically the “lowering” portion of the lift. For example, in a bench press, the eccentric contraction occurs when you’re lowering the bar to your chest.
Isometric Contraction: The muscle is actively held at a fixed length. This occurs when force is applied but nothing is moving, such as pushing your hands against an immovable wall.
Concentric Contraction: The muscle shortens to actively lift a load. This is the popular type of contraction, and it occurs during the “lifting” phase, when you are raising the bar up during a bench press.
Majority of the bodybuilding community has placed a lot of emphasis on concentric contraction, even though the eccentric and isometric counterparts are very important.
If you’re serious about building muscle, its wise to focus on all three, because each one specializes in activating different muscle fibers and each one can raise the intensity of your workouts.
Remember, intensity + volume = muscle growth, as long as the nutrition and rest is right.
Keep lifting and training hard, and think about the different contraction types during your next workout.