Have you ever been stuck on whether you should continue working out with an injury?
Struggling with an injury such as golfers/tennis elbow, torn bicep or strained rotator cuff?
If so, this blog is for you!
Today you’re gonna learn about a scientifically backed method that sounds strange at first. But may help you in maintaining more muscle or even gaining new muscle while recovering from an injury.
Science Daily posted an international study from Edith Cowan University (ECU) back in October of 2020.
It’s titled…"Exercising one arm has twice the benefits" that suggests training just one arm can improve strength and decrease muscle loss in the other arm.
One of the Professor’s involved in this study is “Professor Ken Nosaka”.
This is what he has this to say about the findings…
"I think this could change the way we approach rehabilitation for people who have temporarily lost the use of one arm or one leg.”
"By starting rehab and exercise in the uninjured limb right away, we can prevent muscle damage induced by exercise in the other limb and also build strength without moving it at all.”
THE STUDY
The study involved three groups with 10 participants. All of which had one arm immobilised for a minimum of eight hours a day for four weeks.
Group 1 was instructed to do no exercise.
Group 2 was told to do a mix of both eccentric and concentric exercise.
Group 3 was only allowed to do eccentric exercise only.
Just so you know, the eccentric part of the exercise is the lowering of the weight (i.e the descend of a bicep curl or a squat) This is also known as the negative of the rep.
The concentric (or positive) part of the rep is the exact opposite of the eccentric (the lifting of the weigh during a bicep curl or the rising up out of a squat).
This is the part of the rep most people are familiar with when they think of weight training.
The result of the study may surprise you. Nosaka notes that the group who used a heavy dumbbell to perform only eccentric exercise on their active arm showed an increase in strength and a decrease in muscle atrophy in their immobilised arm.
"Participants who did only eccentric exercise had the biggest increase in strength in both arms, so it has a very powerful cross-transfer effect.”
"This group also had just 2% muscle loss in their immobilised arm, compared with those who did no exercise who had a 28% loss of muscle. Meaning those people who do no exercise have to regain all that muscle and strength again.”
—Professor Ken Nosaka
CONCLUSION AND SUMMARY:
The future of rehab and muscle maintenance is eccentric training.
If you have an injured arm or leg, try exercising the non-injured limb with eccentric exercising with weights. According to the research done at ECU, this could help reduce muscle and strength loss during the recovery process.
As suggested by Professor Nosaka, eccentric training can be useful for athletes who can begin post-injury recovery sooner as well as stroke victims under going rehabilitation therapy.
