Ever had an training program and wondered what those 4 numbers after each exercise was? I used to and for a long time.
I thought you just lifted the weight whatever way you could.
Then I learned tempo is the speed at which you perform a repetition of an exercise and realised 2 things if you use it correctly:
- It’s a lot harder.
- You feel the muscles working a lot more.
Both of which are very good when your goal is to build muscle.
Just look at the 2 examples below and you can see for yourself which would be more effective.
It is important to use a controlled tempo to ensure you are:
1. performing the exercise correctly = Its hard to use proper form if you are doing it too quickly.
2. activating the muscles you are intending to = by using the controlled tempo you ensure the right muscles are doing the work i.e your back muscles are working during a row.
3. getting the most benefit from performing the exercise = the lowering phase of an exercise is generally the hardest, by performing this is in a controlled manner your muscles will have to work harder.
By doing this your ego may take a hit at first as you wont be able to lift as much weight, but after a while you will get back to where you were and be a lot stronger for it.
How to understand tempo
It is broken down into 4 parts written on a program like 3111.
The first number represents the speed of the eccentric/ lowering phase of the lift, the second is the bottom phase, the 3rd is the concentric/ lifting phase of the movement, and the 4th is the top phase.
In the example below of a bench press using the 3111 tempo, the first number denotes the speed at which the weight is lowered (3 secs), the second is the pause at the bottom (1 sec pause), the 3rd is the speed at which the bar is pressed (1 sec), and the 4th is the pause at the top (1 sec pause).
Tempo can be manipulated to make an exercise more difficult or emphasise certain parts of the movement that may need to be improved.
An example might be adding a 3 second pause at the bottom of a squat to improve strength in that position or performing a 6 second lowering phase on a chin up to increase the difficulty.
Next time you are training try to focus on performing the exercises with a controlled tempo if you dont already and see the difference for yourself.
If you have any questions just ask below.