Using Tempo for Slabs of Muscle

Do you ever have that feeling like you’re lifting your ass off but you don’t seem to be gaining muscle? It’s like a swift kick in the jewels. You’re not alone my friend. Maybe you just need a slight change in the direction of your efforts, which I am here to provide. When I began training I grew fast. Slabs of muscle in the first few months of dedicated training. It was like a dream. Now it seems like every pound is a struggle. One thing in particular that I’ve noticed when looking back on my results is that my legs were pretty big. Bigger than they are now, yet I am currently handling weights much heavier than before. So what gives? When I began I followed instructions to the letter. I basically knew nothing so why would I question the person who designed my workout? One of the things I followed strictly was lifting tempo.

Most gym goers lift with the intention to just achieve the required reps, which is good in a sense, provided that your rep range is suitable for your goal. For the purposes of muscle building however we must remember that an exercise is not simply an exercise, but a way to contract a muscle against resistance. The focus is on the target muscle not just the completion of a movement. A lifting tempo allows you time to increase body awareness and allows you to actually focus on the muscle contraction (think mind-muscle connection) along with producing greater structural damage. A vivid memory of my experience with lifting tempo is doing rear foot elevated split squats in a gym during the summer with no A/C using a 3-1-1-0 tempo. Meaning I would lower the weight in 3 seconds, pause at the bottom, lift the weight in 1 second, and go right back into the descent. It was brutal, but I had muscular legs to show for it and a ton of mental toughness to boot.

                                                     Not me.

The eccentric portion of a lift, which is the lowering of the weight, is known to be where the most muscle damage occurs, so that 3 second lowering really exploited that. More muscle damage initiates more protein synthesis if you’re consuming enough of the right nutrients. Nowadays I lift more explosively and don’t really use a tempo which means less time under tension. I’m much stronger, but as a consequence I carry less muscle mass than I would like. The solution? Continue to lift explosively with my strength based movements and use a tempo with the movements I’m using for muscle building purposes.

If muscle is your goal consider using a tempo with your lifts, focusing on increasing time spent in the eccentric portion of the lift. Don’t sacrifice weight however, as benching with the pink dumbbells isn’t likely to put much muscle on anyone no matter how slow you lower them. Expect some serious soreness, but get ready to be pleased with the results.

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