How can taking it slow get your stronger?

When I first started training with weights, there were so many cues from the instructor; hips back, chest up, knees in line with toes etc… thinking about the speed of doing the movement was the last thing on my mind. Surely a squat is a simple case of down then up?

Let me introduce Tempo Training to you! It's the secret tool to make your workouts more effective and will help you use speed to your advantage.

Tempo training is simply the speed at which you perform your reps and is super helpful when looking to increase strength, or if you have limited equipment or weights at home.

Focusing on tempo has several benefits;

• Helps to improve technique. There is a higher correlation of rushed movements and technique error.

• Gives a better understanding of the movement positions by spending more time in the different areas.

• Teaches control and can address potential weaknesses. Often our stronger muscles overpower or compensate for weaker muscles.

• Reduces the risk of injury by working on the lengthening phase of the movement.

• Increases the time under tension, this is the time the muscle is worked for.

Time under tension - TUT

A key point to understand is time under tension, this is the amount of time that a muscle or muscle group is subject to load during a workout.

Different timings will yield slightly different results. To increase muscle size studies have shown that we should be aiming for 30-40 seconds of TUT. For fat loss the duration is longer around 45-75 seconds.

The muscles are under three different kinds of tension when lifting weights, let’s take hip thrusts for example.

The muscle lengthening phase (eccentric) is when we lower our hips to the ground.

There is then a pause or static hold in the stretched position of the movement.

This is then followed by the muscle shortening phrase (concentric) when we bring our hips up.

So what does this look like?

If you look at the video above you can see me lower the bar for a count of 4 then straight away drive my hips up for a count of 1. This is a 4-0-1-0 tempo as I don't pause at either end of the movement.

Each rep takes about 5 seconds, performing 8 reps at this tempo would result in 40 seconds of TUT.

There are so many different ways to adjust your tempo from a simple 2 up 2 down to switching the time taken for both eccentric and concentric phases.

If you cant tell I love to talk about training and fitness, so if you have any questions about this or training please get in touch! maxineellison@me.com 07747676414