For some people exercising is difficult. Perhaps they are elderly or suffering from a condition such as osteoarthritis or cardiovascular disease. Building muscle strength is beneficial for everyone, particularly in later life, lowering the risk of falls and fractures, aiding metabolic and brain health, and helping maintain mobility and independence.
But for those less able to participate, the solution may be eccentric exercise. First of all, it is easier – you don’t even have to break a sweat – it takes less time and, although it doesn’t burn as many calories, studies have shown it stimulates muscle growth, improves balance and co-ordination, strengthens bones and helps with insulin sensitivity.
Eccentric exercise is so called because contracting the muscles to lift weights or climb stairs is known as “concentric” exercise – therefore, stretching or elongating them as you go downstairs or lower weights is “eccentric”. Much of the research showing its benefits has come from Edith Cowan University in Perth, with a recent study showing just five minutes a day of this type of resistance workout gives sedentary people improvements in strength, flexibility, endurance and mental health.
At Auckland University of Technology, sport and exercise scientist Matt Brughelli has been developing innovative eccentric exercise equipment he hopes to see used in gyms, physiotherapy clinics, aged-care facilities and, eventually, even people’s homes.
Brughelli tested the equipment himself while recovering from two surgeries and radiation therapy for breast cancer (relatively rare in men, with only about 25 diagnosed in New Zealand each year).
“After the surgery, I could barely move my arm, it was so tight,” he recalls. “I couldn’t swim, I was too tired even to have the energy for a walk, but I had the eccentric exercise equipment at home so was able to use that to do strength training. I started with two minutes upper body and two minutes lower body and slowly built up. It felt like I got a really good workout and I was able to get full function again in my shoulder.”
Brughelli has designed two versions of the equipment. For the lower body there is a recumbent exercycle. It has a mechanism that turns the pedals backwards while the user works to resist them. There is a similar system for the upper body that can be used in several ways.
“For athletes, they are useful to warm up or rehab from injuries. But they’re also very effective for older people. We have a study going on in a rest home. The average age is 80 and they tend to be very weak. One interesting finding is when they start, they can’t pick up the co-ordination the first time like a younger person would. But by the third session, they’re starting to get it and by the four or fifth, they’re perfect. Now they’re pushing further and harder.” He expects to see significant strength gains and says the equipment is proving to be especially useful for older adults with shoulder pain.
Though there are other companies producing different versions of eccentric exercise equipment, it is important that users are supervised.
“If the pedals are moving and your foot comes off then it’s extremely dangerous,” says Brughelli. “So those machines have a big red button and a second person who can press it to stop the pedals if necessary.”
What’s different about Brughelli’s design is a safety feature. “What we’ve done is put sensors in the pedals themselves, so if the foot slips off, then the pedal stops.
“The other big difference is cost. As well as making this equipment safer, we’re trying to get that way down.”
A physiotherapist is trying out the equipment to rehabilitate knee injuries and Brughelli is also looking at how it might be adapted for wheelchair users, who can experience shoulder problems.
For him, this is the fruition of many years of research. “I’ve been interested in eccentric exercise since 2005, when I read the first paper on it. Until now, I’ve worked mainly with high-performance athletes but my interests are shifting more towards general health and medical. This is something I’ve been wanting to do for a very long time, and now it’s happening, it’s exciting.”
