Many trainers recommend tracking the lift and drop times of weight lifting exercises to ensure that the client is getting the maximum muscle involvement when performing the exercise.
To understand what I mean, imagine a simple barbell curl. You grip the barbell with both palms and curl it upward toward your chest. This is the "concentric" part of the exercise. If you take a moment to hold the contraction at the top of the movement, you are performing a static, or isometric muscular action. When the bar is lowered toward its starting point, you are performing the "eccentric" phase of the exercise. (For some odd reason, in weight training the word is often pronounced ee-sentric, not ek-sentric).
The theory goes that during the concentric phase of the movement, there is internal friction in your muscles from cells sliding over each other as they shorten. This friction is not as much of an issue during the eccentric phase of the movement, as the cells lengthen. Therefore, it is much easier to perform the eccentric phase than the concentric phase. Going slower helps diminish momentum in the lift.
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