Every time I post a workout I still get asked about tempo, so every now and then I will keep reporting this to explain. A brief look into Tempo! Tempo is one of the most important key factors when it comes to lifting / moving a weight. It seems that theres a lot of neglect for this aspect of training, especially with the more novice lifter. Charles Poliquin was one of the industry leaders that brought the focus back to the mainstream when considering working with tempo. Tempo basically refers to the speed in which the weight is moved and if youre not controlling the tempo specific to the lift in hand youre may not be recruiting the right muscle fibres. Therefore in my eyes you are not performing the exercise correctly, or at least to the best of your / its ability. We use tempo for several reasons, these are the main reasons. 1. Improve your own body awareness. 2. Improve the control of your lifts. 3. Will actually help in the development of connective tissue strength. 4. Helps Improve joint stability in and around the working muscle. 5. Improve a neural response leading to strength gains. 6. Activate protein synthesis & in turn build muscle. Tempo is written as four numbers, these numbers each represent a time period in seconds for a particular phase of the lift. Most beginners only concentrate on the lifting and lowering of the weight and some do not even think about the lowering phase. Introducing pauses into your lifts helps with muscle engagement and allows for a more controlled lift. So lets look at a tempo like 3110 on a Bench Press... The First number 3, is the time for the Eccentric phase, when you are moving in a direction opposite to the muscle contraction. So for a Bech press this would be lowering the bar to your chest. The Second number refers to the pause after the first phase is complete, so on the bench this is the part where you hold the bar just off the chest. The Third number refers to the concentric phase, this is the contraction part of the movement. So again with a bench press as an example this would be the part where you push the bar away from the chest. Sometime you may see the letter X in this section, this basically means explode. Drive that bar away from your chest as quickly as possible. The Fourth number refers to the pause at the top. Generally this is a zero but you may find in some hypertrophy based programs a 1 here, this means squeeze and contract the muscle before repeating the move, this increases the muscles time under tension. TUT. Tempo and TUT go hand in hand. Tension is a significant part of training to elicit the ultimate goals of building / increasing muscle size and density. If you cannot create tension throughout your muscle you are setting yourself up to fail in your quest. It is tension that forces the muscle to contract, so you should be able to create tension in all of the muscle being worked, even with the lightest weight. So guys think a little bit more about the tempo of the lift for the particular exercise your doing. As with any training protocol or controlled variable repeated over and over, your body adapts and gets used to It. Resulting in slow gains. Vary your tempos and remember tension stimulates muscle growth, recruits more motor units and fires more of your muscle fibres. So next time you are in the gym try thinking about the tempo. I guarantee you, you will have a better workout as a consequence...
Posted on: Mon, 14 Apr 2014 18:23:54 +0000
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