From my experience in the world of strength and conditioning, and from dealing with hundreds of clients and athletes, tempo is the component most over-looked in a work-out plan. So what? I hear you ask… well… here’s what!

To get the best results, there is a very specific band of time that the muscle must be effectively working for. This is known as time-under-tension (TUT) and is commonly defined as the total time a muscle must contract to complete a full set.

Now picture this: we have two guys looking to get buff, or hypertrophied as the techies among us would say, and they want to start on The Bench. One guy knows a little about tempo and how it works, whereas the other doesn’t. They both decide to do ten reps, because that is what the muscle magazine of choice recommends. The first gets under the bar and bangs out the reps as fast as he can… up, down, up, down, up, down etc. taking about 16 seconds to do all ten. Then our educated friend gets under the bar, and slowly controls it down to his chest for 3 seconds, pauses at the bottom for a second before driving it back up to the top. He then continues this protocol to wrap up his ten reps in about 55 seconds.

Now ask yourself a question; who got more from that set? Whereas the first guy may have lifted more weight for ten reps, he was only working for 16 seconds. The second guy, although lifting slightly less, powered on for a full 55 seconds (slap bang in the recommended TUT band for hypertrophy which is between 40 -70 seconds per set). This story, quite predictably, goes on with the guy who used good tempo prescription drastically improving his physique, getting the girl/ boy of his dreams, and living happily ever after! That’s why!

Tempo prescription explained

The most common of tempo formats was largely popularized by Australian strength coach Ian King, but is used by many other gurus including Charles Poliquin and Eric Cressey. It revolves around a four digit code, each number representing the tempo for a specific part of the lift. Here is an example, using the Bench Press.

• The first number (4) is the eccentric tempo, and for this lift, represents the bar lowering to the chest for a count of 4 seconds. Unless specified otherwise, the eccentric or negative tempo is usually the slowest of the four, as this is the phase where the muscle is stronger; it is easier to lower something down than push something up because of this.

• The second number is the isometric phase where the muscle is working, but there is no movement. This is only a short ‘pause’ of one second for this lift.

• The third number, or X in this case, is the concentric phase of the lift. This is what most people consider the ‘work’ phase; pushing the bar from your chest to near full extension of the elbow. This like the other phases can be a number, but here it is an ‘X’. When you see an X, it signals that you should try and make the lift as fast and explosive as possible while maintaining correct technique.

• The final number is the pause out of tension. This may also be referred to as the intra-set pause and can act as a mini-rest that allows you to lift slightly more weight. If this number is a zero, good luck, as you will have to work through the entire set under tension for a maximum burn.

This simple format allows you to take control of an important variable in your training; look at your desired training goals and make sure that you are hitting the right TUT to get the best results from every set that you perform! Now go away, take it slow, and get better results, fast!