Lifting weights for just three seconds a day can have a positive impact on muscle strength.
Did you know that you can gain muscle strength just by spending a few seconds a day? yes yes, as you read, Edith Cowa University in collaboration with researchers at Niigata Health and Welfare University, has shown that people do not need to spend a lot of time exercising to improve their muscle strength.
To do this, they subjected 39 healthy university students to perform a muscle contraction at a maximum effort of three seconds a day, five days a week, for four weeks.
Participants performed an isometric, concentric, or eccentric biceps curl at maximal effort, while the researchers measured the maximal voluntary contraction force of the muscles before and after the stipulated period. For their part, another 13 students did not perform any exercise during the same period and the before and after were also measured.
Muscle strength increased by more than 10% in the eccentric biceps curl group after four weeks, whereas the increase in muscle strength was less in the other two groups, and the group that did no exercise did not experience any increase.
Lead researcher Professor Ken Nosaka, from the ECU School of Health and Medical Sciences, stresses that these findings show that people did not need to spend a lot of time exercising to improve their muscle strength. “A lot of people think you have to spend a lot of time exercising, but you don’t. Short, good-quality exercise can still be good for the body, and every muscle contraction counts.”
people did not need to spend a lot of time exercising to improve their muscle strength
The study shows that all three lifting methods (concentric, isometric, and eccentric) have some benefits for muscle strength, however, the eccentric contraction produced the best results. “Although the mechanisms underpinning the potent effects of eccentric contraction remain unclear, the fact that just a maximum eccentric contraction of three seconds per day improves muscle strength in a relatively short period is important for health and fitness. “, emphasizes Professor Nosaka.
The results are interesting for promoting health and fitness, such as the prevention of sarcopenia and muscle strength with aging.
Later they will investigate other muscles to be able to apply it to the whole body, “if we discover that the three-second rule also applies to other muscles, then a whole-body exercise could be done in less than 30 seconds.”
