Tempo Training 101: Transform Your Workouts with Timing

And a one, and a two, and a…Wanna take your training to the subsequent level? Tempo training might find a way to try this, but you’ll have to make use of it appropriately. Tempo training refers to a training method that alters a rep’s speed and duration. Proponents consider it will unlock latest gains and optimize your training. Nonetheless, after research, tempo training doesn’t appear to work in addition to some would have you think.

Will pushing a barbell slower or faster really construct more muscle mass and strength? This text will inform you, and more importantly, how you’ll be able to actually use tempo training to extend mass and strength.

What Is Tempo Training?

When you’ve ever been to the gym and lifted weights, you’ve got almost 100% definitely practiced tempo training. Have you ever ever intentionally slowed down a rep during a bicep curl or bench press? Congratulations! You may have used tempo training!

At its core, tempo training is a technique that uses a bar’s speed as a variable to switch your training. You may have probably been told to “Decelerate!” when training at the very least once in your life. Well, that is sort of what tempo training is, however it’s a bit more involved than randomly slowing down a curl.

So what’s it, and why do people do it?

Tempo Training: One other Training Variable

When considering different variables you need to use to change your training, there are generally 4 that the majority people take into consideration.

• Load: The quantity of weight you lift based on a percent of your 1RM
• Reps: The quantity of times you perform an exercise
• Sets: The variety of times you perform a
• Rest: The period of time you get well in between sets

Well, now you’ve got a fifth, tempo training. As mentioned, tempo training refers to adjusting the speed of your rep for a selected duration. When prescribing, tempo training involves a selected sequence of 4 numbers that dictate the duration of the 4 phases during a lift; we’ll review those in the subsequent section.

Most individuals associate tempo training with slower reps to extend muscle growth. That is 100% true and is mostly how most individuals use it. For instance, have you ever heard of time under tension (TUT)? This is basically a proponent of tempo training.

TUT refers to the whole period of time that it takes to finish a set because the muscle is “under tension” during this time. For instance, in the event you performed 10 reps and every rep took 4 seconds, the time under tension can be 40 seconds.

The idea behind using TUT says that increasing the duration of TUT essentially increases the quantity of labor placed on the muscle. More work equals more muscle growth. 

Nonetheless, tempo training may also be for strength and power. In truth, using time under tension to extend strength could be even higher evidence. We’ll get into that later.

How Is Tempo Training Prescribed?

When you were to make use of tempo training in your workout program, each exercise would have a sequence like 2-1-2-0. The number represents durations (in seconds), and the order represents the several phases of a rep.

Here’s an in depth breakdown of how that breaks down:

1. Eccentric Phase (Descent): The primary number represents the time spent lowering your body weight. This can be a controlled descent, reminiscent of squatting down or lowering yourself during a pull-up.
2. Bottom Pause: The second number indicates the duration of the pause at the underside of the movement, reminiscent of the underside of a squat or bench press. If the number were “0,” this simply means there is not any rest.
3. Concentric Phase (Ascent): The third number denotes the time spent lifting the burden or yourself up. In some cases, you may see an “X“ as a substitute of a number, which implies to blow up upward as quickly as possible. In rare occurrences, you may see an “A,“ indicating an assisted lift reminiscent of a cheat rep.
4. Top Pause: The fourth number represents the pause at the highest of the movement. Again, in the event you see a “0”, this implies there isn’t any pause.

Bear in mind these numbers are consistent whatever the exercise. For instance, the deadlift is exclusive because it begins with the concentric fairly than the eccentric. Still, the tempo would still be given in the identical format, so you’ll start the deadlift with the third number (concentric phase). 

That said, tempo training would then seek to regulate the tempo of an exercise to change the adaptations.

We’re going to take a look at some research to reply that, but we’ll separate tempo training for muscle growth from tempo training for strength and power. Muscle hypertrophy and muscle strength work through different adaptations, so we might expect to see tempo training affect them in another way.

They usually do.

Tempo Training For Muscle Growth

It appears that evidently the vast majority of individuals who discuss tempo training do it for muscle growth. Unfortunately, usually circumstances, there may be little research supporting using randomly altering the tempo to extend muscle growth. 

Realize that the important driving aspects of muscle growth are increasing volume in addition to mechanical stress. Most individuals will then assume that in the event you decelerate a rep, it increases the quantity of stress and volume in the shape of doing more work. That is true, sort of.

Let’s take two people doing bicep curls with the identical weight and the identical sets and reps. On this scenario, the person using slower reps would likely have higher adaptations as they’d have more work done. The issue is this is not how real life works.

Multiple studies have shown that increasing the duration of a rep causes a big drop within the variety of reps.¹ This is smart, as your muscle fatigues attributable to the quantity of total work, whether that is one rep that takes 30 seconds or six reps that take 5 seconds each.

Other aspects decrease the variety of reps, reminiscent of a decrease in the quantity and intensity of the stretch shortening cycle (CCS). The CCS occurs when your muscles are prolonged during a movement, stretching your tendons and storing energy. Upon reversing the motion, this energy is released and helps generate more power.

Regardless, it appears that evidently if you decrease tempo, you might be sacrificing reps, resulting in similar amounts of total work performed, often known as time under tension.

In truth, a comprehensive meta-analysis indicates that muscle growth may be similar no matter whether the whole duration of a repetition is between 0.5 and eight seconds, so long as other aspects are controlled.²

The secret’s reaching muscle failure, which may be achieved with each slow and fast repetitions. This also assumes you are using controlled reps.

Eccentric Training

Now, one approach to using tempo training that does have research to support it’s eccentric training. There’s a fairly good probability that you’ve got heard of eccentric training, which is basically tempo training; you perform the eccentric contraction for an prolonged duration.

Research has found that eccentric muscles play a greater role in stressing muscle and muscular adaptations, mainly muscle growth when comparing concentric to eccentric muscle contraction.

This phenomenon has led bodybuilders or others desirous about muscle growth to exaggerate the eccentric with longer durations—they might even use barely heavier loads and lower the burden as slowly as possible.

Subsequently, if muscle growth is your primary concern, eccentric training must be your primary focus with tempo training. Bear in mind this does not imply tempo has no role. You continue to need to make use of slow and controlled reps.

Faster Tempos Increase Muscle Mass?

To further muddy the water, studies also exhibit that a faster, not slower tempo can increase muscle mass. For instance, a 2009 study found that lifters who performed a one-second concentric contraction experienced greater biceps growth in comparison with those that took three seconds.³ This implies that faster repetitions, which reduce time under tension (TUT), may be simpler for muscle growth than the slower reps typically really useful.

Tempo Training For Strength And Power

Let’s turn our attention to tempo training for strength and power. Strength and power adaptations are unique as neuromuscular adaptations control them. The best technique to explain that is that the muscles learn to talk more efficiently with the brain and may produce more force at a faster rate.

When most individuals consider tempo training, they consider performing their reps slower. Nonetheless, to extend strength and power, you need to go faster—the truth is, as fast as you’ll be able to.

Along with assigning a number to the tempo (i.e., 3-1-3-1), it’s possible you’ll also see an “X.” This suggests you need to perform the exercise as fast as possible. Outside of the world of tempo training, this may occasionally even be known as “maximal intent“ or “maximal velocity”; this just implies you need to try to maneuver the load as fast as possible.

Pushing the identical load faster requires more force production, which might theoretically cause more favorable muscle adaptations. Several studies have shown this to be the case, such as this one.⁴ The researchers demonstrated that while performing the bench press at each low and maximal speeds will increase your 1RM, you will recuperate strength gains when your reps are performed at 100% velocity.

One other study found similar results when training the lower body using squats.⁵ Two groups of trainees were split right into a medium-tempo group and a fast-tempo group. On this study, the fast group didn’t use maximal intent but fairly a 1-0-1-0 tempo, while the medium-tempo group used a 2-0-2-0 tempo.

Each groups saw improvements and saw similar increases of their maximal strength. In addition they each increased their power output, however the fast group saw greater improvements. To be clear, the faster group only saw higher improvements in power output. Strength improvements were similar. 

We must always also note that this paper found barely more significant improvements in strength when using a slower eccentric of 4 seconds vs. 2 seconds.⁶ This falls according to a slow eccentric for muscle growth as well.

Final Guidelines With Tempo Training

Although tempo training has grow to be quite popular, it doesn’t really appear to be as effective as some could have you think, especially for muscle growth, at the very least in the way most individuals use it. By this, we mean the tendency to extend time under tension.

A 2021 review of studies on tempo speed found that neither slow nor fast movement tempos definitively offer greater advantages for muscle hypertrophy.⁷ Which means the tempo doesn’t really matter if you take all other aspects under consideration. As mentioned, training to failure is essential.

Nonetheless, this does not imply that the tempo has zero role; it just means there are a ton of variables at play. When taking all things into consideration, we are able to offer some basic guidelines:

• Eccentric Phase: Slow and controlled, with 2 seconds being the fastest. You could possibly possibly see greater adaptations going longer.
• Concentric Phase: Perform as fast as possible if strength is your priority.
• Eccentric training: Use with prolonged eccentric contractions or heavy loads.

Also, remember to all the time perform your reps with a controlled movement!

Now, we should always also state that tempo training also won’t necessarily hurt you, at the very least for muscle growth. Using longer reps is usually a little bit of a latest stimulus to maintain things interesting, so you could possibly still give it a go.

And in the event you don’t have the desire to make a giant deal out of it, just give attention to the last couple of reps. For instance, in the event you’re doing bicep curls, do your reps and perform your last eccentric as slowly as possible.

When considering the whole lot, we do not think you want to worry an excessive amount of about tempo training aside from the above guidelines. Train with intensity and push yourself to lift more weight and do more reps; the tempo will work itself out.

References

1. Wilk, Michal, et al. “The Influence of Movement Tempo on Acute Neuromuscular, Hormonal, and Mechanical Responses to Resistance Exercise—a Mini Review.” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, vol. 34, no. 8, 19 June 2020, pp. 2369–2383, https://doi.org/10.1519/jsc.0000000000003636.
2. Schoenfeld, Brad J., et al. “Effect of Repetition Duration during Resistance Training on Muscle Hypertrophy: A Systematic Review and Meta-Evaluation.” Sports Medicine, vol. 45, no. 4, 20 Jan. 2015, pp. 577–585, https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-015-0304-0.
3. Nogueira, W., et al. “Effects of Power Training on Muscle Thickness of Older Men.” International Journal of Sports Medicine, vol. 30, no. 03, 6 Feb. 2009, pp. 200–204, https://doi.org/10.1055/s-0028-1104584.
4. González-Badillo, Juan José, et al. “Maximal Intended Velocity Training Induces Greater Gains in Bench Press Performance than Deliberately Slower Half-Velocity Training.” European Journal of Sport Science, vol. 14, no. 8, 15 Apr. 2014, pp. 772–781, https://doi.org/10.1080/17461391.2014.905987.
5. Lu, Wei, et al. “Fast and Medium Tempo Resistance Training with a Low Variety of Repetitions in Trained Men: Effects on Maximal Strength and Power Output.” Journal of Human Kinetics, vol. 87, 17 Apr. 2023, pp. 157–165, https://doi.org/10.5114/jhk/161472.
6. H.S.M. Azevedo P, G. D. Oliveira M, J. Schoenfeld B. Effect of various eccentric tempos on hypertrophy and strength of the lower limbs. Biology of Sport. 2022;39(2):443-449. doi:10.5114/biolsport.2022.105335.
7. Wilk, Michal, et al. “The Influence of Movement Tempo during Resistance Training on Muscular Strength and Hypertrophy Responses: A Review.” Sports Medicine (Auckland, N.Z.), vol. 51, no. 8, 27 May 2021, pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34043184/, https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-021-01465-2.