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Professor Ken Nosaka at Edith Cowan University (ECU<\/a>) highlighted a practical message: simple lowering movements, such as chair descents, heel drops, wall push-ups, and stair steps, can build strength with less effort.<\/p>\n Nosaka found that muscles generate more force while lengthening than while lifting, yet this type of work requires less oxygen and causes a smaller increase in heart rate.<\/p>\n That mismatch explains why a modest routine can still ask muscle tissue to adapt before fatigue takes over.<\/p>\n Why lowering works<\/p>\n Eccentric exercise<\/a>, a muscle action that controls movement as the muscle lengthens, happens when someone slowly sits, descends stairs, or lowers a weight.<\/p>\n During that lowering phase, muscle fibers resist the load while stretched, so force rises without the same breathing demand.<\/p>\n By contrast, concentric exercise<\/a>, a muscle action that shortens muscle during lifting, usually costs more energy for the same outside work.<\/p>\n That difference does not make lifting useless, but it makes lowering work a smart entry point for people who quit hard routines.<\/p>\n Soreness is optional<\/p>\n Unfamiliar lowering can still leave delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS<\/a>), the ache that builds hours after exercise and peaks later.<\/p>\n Soreness often reflects irritated connective tissue, supportive material around muscle fibers, rather than torn fibers alone.<\/p>\n After one careful exposure, the repeated bout effect, protection created by prior effort, can reduce damage from later sessions.<\/p>\n \u201cThe idea that exercise must be exhausting or painful is holding people back,\u201d said Nosaka.<\/p>\n The role of everyday movement <\/p>\n Everyday movements give this approach its practical edge because many people already lower themselves into chairs and down steps.<\/p>\n A slow descent makes the thigh and calf muscles brake body weight<\/a>, which adds load without adding equipment.<\/p>\n Small routines can use chair squats, heel drops, wall push-ups, and chair reclines while keeping the motion controlled.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen exercise feels achievable, people keep doing it,\u201d said Nosaka.<\/p>\n Just a few minutes counted<\/p>\n ECU\u2019s 4-week home-based eccentric exercise program<\/a>, a daily routine built around slow lowering, tested 22 inactive adults ages 32 to 69.<\/p>\n Participants did 10 repetitions each of chair squats, chair reclines, wall push-ups, and heel drops, with harder versions added gradually.<\/p>\n After four weeks, participants completed 91% of sessions, increased strength by 13%, performed 66.1% more push-ups, and improved flexibility by 9.1 percent.<\/p>\n A later 8-week extension<\/a> found 90% reported ongoing activity after 12 months, but routine blood measures still did not change.<\/p>\n Stairs tested hearts<\/p>\n That ECU logic met a harder test in a stair trial<\/a> that followed 30 older women with obesity for 12 weeks.<\/p>\n One group walked downstairs while an elevator removed the climb, making the training mostly lowering work.<\/p>\n Average exercise heart rate was 88.6 beats per minute during descent, versus 113.7 during stair climbing.<\/p>\n Descending also cut resting heart rate 10% and systolic blood pressure<\/a>, the top blood pressure number, 9%, while knee strength rose 34%.<\/p>\n Results from enhanced walking<\/p>\n Regular walking improves endurance, but it may not give leg muscles enough load to build useful strength.<\/p>\n An eight-week eccentric walking program<\/a>, \u2013 walking with controlled lunge steps \u2013 added body-weight braking to ordinary walks.<\/p>\n Eleven regular walkers ages 54 to 88 improved leg strength, physical function, and thinking skills after adding those steps.<\/p>\n Because the sample was small, the idea looks promising as a starter strategy rather than a settled prescription.<\/p>\n Recovery time after sports <\/p>\n Athletes also use lowering strength because sprinting, landing, cutting, and slowing down all demand controlled braking.<\/p>\n A sports review<\/a> found recovery can take longer after soccer and rugby than after several other sports.<\/p>\n Short match gaps may leave players carrying soreness and reduced force into the next contest, raising injury concerns.<\/p>\n For elite teams, eccentric training helps performance only when coaches also protect recovery time after heavy competition.<\/p>\n High muscle force, low energy demand<\/p>\n Safe use begins with preconditioning<\/a>, gentle preparation that lowers damage risk before harder lowering work.<\/p>\n People can start by sitting slowly, lowering heels from a step, or bending arms during wall push-ups.<\/p>\n Progress should add range, repetitions, or load one piece at a time, while breathing stays steady.<\/p>\n Sharp pain, dizziness, chest discomfort, or unstable joints should prompt medical guidance before the routine continues.<\/p>\n Eccentric exercise turns ordinary lowering into training by matching high muscle force with lower energy demand and manageable effort.<\/p>\n Its best use is not heroic gym pain, but gradual practice that builds strength while respecting soreness, health limits, and recovery.<\/p>\n The study is published in the Journal of Sport and Health Science<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n Like what you read? Subscribe to our newsletter<\/a> for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.<\/p>\n Check us out on EarthSnap<\/a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls<\/a> and Earth.com.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Muscles can grow stronger during slow lowering movements without exhausting workouts or next-day soreness, according to new research.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":641495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[49,48,407,84],"class_list":["post-641494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fitness","tag-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=641494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/641495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}