I guess the way I envision this is if you have a sufficiently elliptic orbit, at periapsis you're throwing propellant out the back to a standstill/non-orbital t

I guess the way I envision this is if you have a sufficiently elliptic orbit, at periapsis you're throwing propellant out the back to a standstill/non-orbital trajectory and at apoapsis you're throwing it into a higher orbit than the one you are at, just orbiting in the opposite direction?