The Study
Eccentric exercise per se does not affect muscle damage biomarkers: early and late phase adaptations
This study is like testing if pushing a swing backward (eccentric) makes your arms sore — and they found that the first time you do it, your arms hurt, but after doing it 10 times, your arms don’t hurt anymore. So it’s not the backward push itself that hurts — it’s just that your arms weren’t used to it.
Analysis score
Maximum 90 for a randomized controlled trial.
Where the score came from
When you do a new kind of exercise, your muscles get sore and damaged — but if you do it again, they get used to it and stop hurting. Even if you don’t get sore, you still get stronger.
Where does this study sit?
Reviews of RCTs (Meta-analyses)
Max 100Randomized Trials
Max 90Reviews of Cohort Studies
Max 85Cohort Studies
Max 72Reviews of Case-Control Studies
Max 63Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional & Case Series
Max 50Expert Opinion
Max 558 / 100
Quality score
Participants are randomly assigned to treatment or control groups, minimizing bias. The gold standard for testing whether an intervention causes an effect.
Key takeaways
Summary
Based on the study abstract and findings.
- 1Yes — you don’t need to be sore to build strength.
- 2Muscle damage is just a side effect of novelty, not a requirement for growth.
- 3After first eccentric workout: CK, CRP, DOMS, and soreness spiked.
- 4After 10 weeks: all markers back to normal.
- 5Both groups gained equal strength — eccentric group got stronger at eccentric moves, concentric group at concentric moves.
Score breakdown, methodology, conflicts of interest, evidence analysis & raw study data
Publication
Journal
European Journal of Applied Physiology
Year
2020
Authors
Nikos V. Margaritelis, A. Theodorou, P. Chatzinikolaou, A. Kyparos, M. Nikolaidis, V. Paschalis
Related Content
Claims (8)
When you do the same weight workout more than once, your muscles get better at handling it — so next time, you’re less sore and damaged.
When healthy young men do a tough new workout that involves lowering weights slowly (like lowering a dumbbell), their muscles get sore and some blood markers go up, but within five days, everything goes back to normal—even if they’ve never done that workout before.
If you do the same tough muscle workout (like lowering weights slowly) once a week for 10 weeks, your muscles stop getting sore and stop showing signs of damage—even compared to easier workouts—because your body gets used to it.
When you do a new, super tough workout that stretches your muscles (like lowering weights slowly), your body gets sore and inflamed—but if you do it again every week for 10 weeks, your muscles adapt and don’t get as damaged. The key isn’t the type of movement, it’s that your body wasn’t used to it.
Lifting weights slowly (eccentric) or quickly (concentric) both make your quads stronger in about 10 weeks — and you don’t need to be sore or damaged to get stronger.
When you keep working out, your muscles get used to it and don’t get as sore or damaged each time—so you can train harder and more often, which helps you build more muscle over time.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making health decisions.