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Back to Study: Eccentric exercise per se does not affect muscle d...
causal
Analysis v1
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Pro
58
Against

The first time you do hard eccentric exercises—like slowly lowering a heavy weight—your muscles get way more sore and damaged than if you just push the weight up.

Scientific Claim

In untrained men, a single bout of high-intensity eccentric exercise causes significantly greater acute muscle damage biomarkers (creatine kinase elevation, DOMS, reduced range of motion, and torque loss) than an equivalent bout of concentric exercise.

Original Statement

“After the first bout, eccentric exercise induced greater muscle damage compared to concentric exercise;”

From study:Eccentric exercise per se does not affect muscle damage biomarkers: early and late phase adaptations

Evidence Quality Assessment

Claim Status

appropriately stated

Study Design Support

Design supports claim

Appropriate Language Strength

definitive

Can make definitive causal claims

Assessment Explanation

The RCT design with pre-post measurements and control group supports definitive causal language for the acute first-bout effect, which is clearly observed and quantified.

Evidence from Studies

Supporting (0)

0
No supporting evidence found

Contradicting (1)

58
58

Eccentric exercise per se does not affect muscle damage biomarkers: early and late phase adaptations

Randomized Controlled Trial
Human
2021 Feb

The study found that eccentric exercise only hurts more at first because your muscles aren’t used to it — after training a few times, it doesn’t hurt more than other exercises anymore.

Source Study

Eccentric exercise per se does not affect muscle damage biomarkers: early and late phase adaptations

Score: 58
DOI: 10.1007/s00421-020-04528-w

Similar Assertions

If you do hard eccentric exercises like lowering weights slowly once a week for 10 weeks, your muscles stop getting sore and damaged—even though the exercise is tough—because they get used to it.

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83%

It’s not the slow lowering that hurts—it’s that your muscles have never done it before. Once they’ve done it a few times, even doing it hard doesn’t hurt anymore.

58
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81%

It’s not that slow lowering of weights damages muscles—it’s that your muscles aren’t used to it. Once they get used to it, no damage happens, even if you do the same move hard.

58
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81%

You don’t need to tear your muscles to make them stronger—your nervous system and muscle fibers can adapt and grow without damage.

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79%

Just because your muscles aren’t sore or your blood doesn’t show damage markers doesn’t mean you’re not getting stronger—your body can adapt without those signs.

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76%