What is an eccentric exercise?
Eccentric exercises (or negatives) are slow, lengthening of the muscle whilst under tension due to an outside force being greater than the force generated by your muscle. In terms of this exercise, this requires jumping up to the top of the bar, then slowly lowering yourself down.
Why do we prescirbe this exercise?
Eccentric chin ups can be used to develop upper-body strength, to assit athletes who are not able to complete concentric chin ups.
Familiarising an athlete with the movement of a chin up in the down phase improves recruitment of muscle group and create awareness of body control.
Coaching Tips:
The athlete should grip the bar underhand, with a slightly narrower grip than shoulder width, and jump off the box or bench so that their chin is just over the bar.
An individual should aim to maintain a stable torso / minimise swinging and slowly lower themselves downwards by extending at the elbows until their arms are almost straight