Effects of adding a weekly eccentric‐overload training session on strength and athletic performance in team‐handball players

Abstract

To investigate the influence of adding a weekly eccentric-overload training (EOT) session in several athletic performance's tests, 18 team-handball players were assigned either to an EOT (n = 11) or a Control (n = 7) group. Both groups continued to perform the same habitual strength training, but the EOT group added one session/week during a 7-week training programme consisting of four sets of eight repetitions for the bilateral half-squat and unilateral lunge exercises. The test battery included handball throwing velocity, maximum dynamic strength (1RM), countermovement jump (CMJ), 20 m sprint, triple hop for distance, and eccentric/concentric power in both the half-squat and lunge exercises. Data were analysed using magnitude-based inferences. Both groups improved their 1RM in the half squat, 20 m sprint time, and CMJ performance to a similar extent, but the EOT group showed a beneficial effect for both right [(42/58/0), possibly positive] and left [(99/1/0), very likely positive] triple hop for distance performance. In addition, the EOT group showed greater power output improvements in both eccentric and concentric phases of the half-squat (difference in percent of change ranging from 6.5% to 22.0%) and lunge exercises (difference in per cent of change ranging from 13.1% to 24.9%). Nevertheless, no group showed changes in handball throwing velocity. Selected variables related to team-handball performance (i.e. functional jumping performance, power output) can be improved by adding a single EOT session per week, highlighting the usefulness of this low-volume/high-intensity training when aiming at optimizing dynamic athletic performance.

Resistance Training and Handball Players’ Isokinetic, Isometric and Maximal Strength, Muscle Power and Throwing Ball Velocity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…Elite handball players achieve significantly higher throwing ball velocities than their lower level counterparts [28,29]-with an 8-9% advantage in elite men [15] and 10-11% advantage in elite females [26]. Hermassi et al [7] and Gorostiaga et al [15] noted an increase in all types of throw ball velocities (standing throw, three-step running throw and jump-throw) following 8 weeks of heavy RT.…”

“…However, existing studies are mainly focused on concentric exercises [28,29], even though most actions required during handball imply a combination of eccentric and concentric muscular contractions, involving, for example, both concentric and eccentric phases of squat jumps [28,29].…”

“…A combination of muscle strength, handball techniques, and competitive skills training can significantly enhance maximal and specific explosive strength of the upper limb over an 8-to 10-week training program [6][7][8]12,13,17,28]. This increase should confer players an advantage in sustaining the muscle contractions required during ball throwing, hitting, blocking, pushing, and holding [6,7,15,17].…”

Eccentric Resistance Training in Youth: Perspectives for Long-Term Athletic Development

“…FIT offers additional resistance throughout the entire ROM via the use of the inertia of a rotating flywheel to provide a greater overall load during coupled concentric and eccentric muscle actions [292]. The use of FIT in adult populations has been reported to provide many benefits including improvements in physiological, physical and performance factors, such as running economy [293], body composition [294], muscle activation [295,296], acute power enhancement [297][298][299][300], muscle architecture [35,[301][302][303][304], change of direction [35,48,305] as well as force-and power-related qualities [25,[305][306][307][308].…”

“…In addition, it has been demonstrated that the use of higher flywheel inertias can concomitantly provide eccentric overload via increases of kinetic variables such as negative impulse during the descent phase of a movement [292,327,328]. Therefore, the introduction of low intensity flywheel inertia wheels may represent an appropriate starting point for training progressions along with lower training volumes prior to gradually increasing the load, volume and frequency to that which has been currently reported for FIT in adult populations [25,35,292,302,305] and which reflects current youth resistance training guidelines [17]. Such an approach is provided in Figure 3.…”