hi to all of you, i’m daniele, a sport science student and i write from italy.
i’d like to have an advice about the eccentric strenght.
how can i mesure it?
i mean how much time must take the lowering phase?
tnx
Look at the force time curve.
The faster the better for eccentric loading.
If you have access to a force plate you can do altitude landings with athletes at various loads and see if they land correctly and the amount of force was eccentriclly loaded, as a possibility. Just a thought.
Jeremy Layport, CA
try to explain jourself please.
whatever, i’m talking about how to calculate the eccentric stength in the classic movement such as squats, bp etc.
for example:
squat
my 1RM is 100kg
my iso max is 120kg (i can mantain it for, les’t say 1 second)
but i can decelerate very well 130kg in 4 seconds
i can decelerate 140kg in 3 seconds
i can decelerate 150 in 1,5 seconds
if i put 160kg i crash the bb on the rack
question: that was my max eccentric strength?
How do you define “max eccentric strength”? What does it mean?
unless you want to injure your athlete, I’d suggest ‘dont’ as the way to measure maximal ecentric strength
that’s what i’m trying to understand 
lyle i don’t agree with you.
simply, let’s think to a gymnast that has to cope with landings from some meters of height.
there are others example…
You should look for a constant velocity of the bar at the eccentric phase. If the bb moves with constant velocity then the force you apply is the same as the weight of the bb. Any acceleration (obviously not at the beggining of the motion for a few cm) of the bar means the weight is greater then the force you apply at the eccentric phase. Another point is that the force you apply varies by joint angles. I would say your max eccentric strength is between 140 kg and 150 kg. I agree with lylemc that is a dangerous activity to try measure it.
How do you determine their “max?” See how many meters in height they can successfully land before blowing out both of their legs?
nope, i hadn’t explain myself.
(as you can see english is not my mother tongue)
i’m trying to say that pure eccentric movements exists in a lot of sports, as in the gymnastic.
i know a coach that use to tests 2-3 seconds eccentric max to see the strength reserve that an athlete can have.
the eccentric strength is assumed like the absolute force.
You will hear different coaches/researchers say different things. In general I’d say the max eccentric strength is a weight you can lower in 4-6 seconds and control through the sticking point. There is a fine line between being able to stop the weight and having no control of it whatsoever which is why i’ts difficult to measure…and definitely more trouble than it’s worth from an injury perspective.
Those are completely different types of eccentric strength. Why would you need to test and risk quite severe injury? Lyle never said that eccentric movements don’t exist in sport (virtually every sport has eccentric movements of some kind), but why test maximal ability in something so dangerous?
i was reading fact & fallacies of fitness (by Mel Siff) and i’ve found an intresting thing.
on page 221 the prof. Verkhoshansky said the same thing:
“to ascertain whether an athlete need plyometric or heavy resistence training depends on measuring the strength deficit, or difference between the absolute strength maximum (approx. = to one’s maximum eccentric strength) and the voluntary strength max.
Without such testing, prescription of plyo training remain hit-and-miss”
You can also avoid the “hit and miss”, as in injury, scenario (i.e., maximum eccentric load testing) by considering the risk-benefit ratio. I would carefully think of the latter, before taking theory beyond this point.
Try it out with your athletes and report back to us.
As a side note, I’d like to mention that the strength staff up at UConn (american football, that is) mentioned (about 2 years ago) training with near max eccentrics as the football season approaches, as to help the body get ready for all of the blunt trauma that contact was going to cause. They even spoke of some studies they were doing in this regard, but I seem to have lost track as to what happened…
question:
do you use the depth jumps (real plyometric training)?
do you know that the forces are far greater than in the max eccentric?
They are completely different from a loading and joint position perspective.
If you don’t like the opinions here, try it and let us know what kind of results you get. Perhaps you’ll get info the rest of us can use to better our programs.
To your first question, no, I don’t.
To your second question, are you looking for your athletes’ breaking point?
Anyway, I think I am going with Davan here, let us know…
my posts woldn’t be offensive, i’m just trying to say my opinion .
i don’t think that verch and siff are only theoretical. verch trained lots of high level athletes