In many ways, and for a number of reasons, the speed at which you are lifting a weight matters almost as much as the weight itself. In some situations, it matters more than the number on the weight plates you’re using! So today, dear reader, we’re going to talk about tempo, a magical thing that can make all things possible!
(Well, maybe that’s being a bit excessive, but…)
Tempo and power.
Speed kills.
Want to deadlift 700 pounds? Get good at picking up 500 pounds really fast.
Power is, by rough definition, the ability to move a load at speed. The heavier the load you can move at speed, the more powerful you are. The faster you can move that load, the more powerful you are. Speed lifts and power go hand in hand. If you can move five hundred pounds at the same speed that people move fifty pounds, you can be damn sure your actual one rep max is way higher.
The reason for this is because of how your body recruits muscle fibers. To get into the nitty gritty of it (without getting too deep into jargon territory,) your body builds strength in two ways: By training your brain to use more of your muscle fibers more efficiently (muscle fiber recruitment,) and by making your muscle fibers larger and/or making more muscle fibers (hypertrophy.)
Moving weight quickly through speed reps (in the case of weight lifting) or plyometrics (in the case of bodyweight and calisthenics style training,) forces your brain and muscle connection to adapt and become stronger. By telling your brain to move something as quickly as it can, you’re effectively forcing it to become more efficient in recruiting muscle fibers to accomplish the task you’ve set before it. You make strength gains by repeatedly drilling into your brain that it needs to recruit as many muscle fibers as it can, as quickly as it can, in order to get done what you want to get done.
Now, care must be used if you’re working speed reps or plyometrics into your workout regimen! First off, you want to be using a weight that you can lift with proper form, every time. Bad form in either weight lifting or calisthenics is a recipe for injury as it is, but attempting a movement at speed with bad form is basically a guaranteed method of hurting yourself. Back down the weight that you’re lifting, or go back to a lower level progression of whatever calisthenic exercise you’re doing. Also, when you’re starting to get fatigued, pay even closer attention to your form, because tired speed reps are where you’re most likely to mess up. That’s not to say you shouldn’t do them! Your body works hardest to recruit new muscle fibers when it’s tired (more about that in the next section.) Just be careful!
Slow and Difficult Wins the race…to mass?
Yeah I dunno, that one kinda fell apart…
So, we have two methods of getting stronger, right? One is to make your muscles more efficient (muscle fiber recruitment, see above.) The other is to make your muscles bigger! Tempo and hypertrophy go hand in hand, but in almost the opposite way that tempo and power do. Basically, in order to maximize hypertrophy, one of the most important things to do is to completely exhaust your muscle. This has to do, again, with muscle fiber recruitment.
Your body really likes to be efficient in it’s motions, energy expenditure, and overall effort in life. It doesn’t want to have to spend more time and energy doing something (or recovering from something) than it has to. So, the trick is to make it spend as much time and energy doing something as we can.
Basically, as your muscle fibers get tuckered out, your body starts to recruit more of them to continue to perform the task you’ve set before yourself. So, by slowing down your tempo while you’re lifting, you’re going to exhaust your muscle fibers faster, forcing your body to get non-exhausted, barely used muscle fibers to chip in and help. You can never get 100% muscle fiber recruitment, but by slowing down your reps you can, over the course of a workout, recruit more than you normally would, triggering hypertrophy and forcing your muscle to grow.
Cool! So…just lift in slow motion, then?
Not so fast!
When we talk about tempo, we need to understand the phases of a lift or callisthenic motion. They are the isometric, the eccentric, and concentric. The isometric portion of an exercise it when you are exerting force in some manner, but not moving.
Isometric
Typically, every exercise has two isometric phases, the “beginning” and the “middle.” The periods between when you’re actually moving the weight/yourself. These are the static portions of any given exercise, for instance: when you’re standing with the barbell on your back at the top of a squat, or when you have the barbell on your chest before driving it back up again on a bench press. Callisthenic movements have isometric periods too, like when you’re at the “top” and “bottom” position of a pull up, or a push up.
Eccentric
The eccentric portion of a lift or exercise is when you are performing the part of an exercise where your muscles are lengthening. Typically, this is the loading portion of an exercise before you do the “actual” exercise. For example, when you’re doing squats, the eccentric portion is when you’re lowering your body down. For pull ups, the eccentric portion is also when you’re lowering yourself down (after you’ve pulled yourself up to the bar.) Usually the eccentric portion has an isometric phase at each end (standing at the top of a squat, “in the hole” phase after lowering, but before standing up.)
Concentric
The concentric portion of an exercise is the part where you’re “shortening” or contracting your muscle fibers. It’s the part that we typically think of when we’re thinking of an exercise. It’s when you’re standing up from the squat, pushing yourself off the floor with a push up, picking the weight off the floor for a deadlift, or pulling yourself up for a pull up.
Okay, so what kind of tempo are we talking about, here?
Timing is everything.
When notating tempo we use three numbers separated by colons or hyphens. The first number is the eccentric phase. The second is the mid-exercise isometric hold. The third is the concentric phase. These numbers are basically a “count,” and they’re a way or measuring the time spent during each phase. So, in a 2:1:1 tempo squat you would lower yourself for a count of 2, stay “in the hole” for a count of 1, and then drive back up for a count of 1. A 4:0:1 squat, on the other hand, would mean you lower yourself twice as slowly (the 4 count) spend NO time pausing in the hole, and drive back up with a 1 count.
Tempo for Maximum Mass Gains (Hypertrophy)
4:0:1
For hypertrophy, we want to recruit and exhaust as many muscle fibers as we can, through time under tension AND rapid muscle contraction. So, we want a 4:0:1 count. Slow, controlled eccentric, no pause, and during IMMEDIATELY into the concentric to engage your fast twitch muscle fibers.
Tempo for Maximum Power Gains
2:1:1
To develop power gains )ability to move weight at speed,) we want to practice engaging our muscle fibers from a dead stop, so we don’t take advantage of muscle elasticity. At the same time, we don’t need to spend extra time on the eccentric phase than we need to control the load. So, we go with a 2:1:1 tempo. A speedy but controlled eccentric, a full one count pause to remove muscle elasticity from the equation, and then an explosive concentric. You don’t want to be performing this exercise with anything too close to your one rep max because first of all, it’s inefficient, and secondly, it’s a good way to injure yourself. Develop your power with sub maximal loads.
Tempo for Maximum Strength Performance
2:0:1
This isn’t a tempo you want to be using every session generally speaking, because the other two we’ve discussed are generally better methods of developing muscle mass or improving athletic performance. However, if you’re going heavy and want to move as much weight as possible, a 2:0:1 tempo is what you want to go with. Controlled but rapid eccentric, followed immediately by the concentric phase to maximize rather than eliminate muscle elasticity.
The Bottom Line
Let’s wrap it up.
Keeping tempo in mind is important in most exercises you do. It’s not absolutely necessary to monitor your tempo or try to hit perfect timing on every lift in every part of your workout. Exercise is an imperfect science, religious timing count is an unrealistic goal. With that said, if you’re striving to advance a particular exercise, or really want to force a particular muscle group to grow, then watch your tempo! It can REALLY make a difference in the quality of your movements and gains.
That’s it for today. Until next time, as always, live boldly, change the world, and continue to be awesome.
Dan Wallace
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