One common thing I notice in the gym is that people ignore the rate at which they do their reps and sets. Tempo is just as important as reps and sets when it comes to building the perfect muscle-building workout. Before I start talking about tempo, let me give you my explanation. Tempo is the speed at which you raise and lower the weight, the pauses at the top and bottom of each rep, and the total time for the set. Next let me tell you how to read the tempos because they are normally written with just numbers on a line. An example of a written tempo would be 4242. This means you lift the weight for four seconds, pause for two seconds at the top of the rep, lower for four seconds, and finally pause for two seconds before moving to the bottom of the rep. Next. rep.
Some people write them with just three numbers, like 313, and ignore the pause at the bottom. I prefer pauses because they stop momentum, and if you’re just swinging the weight up and down, it takes a lot of stress off the muscle. Another thing to watch out for is if the tempo contains an “X”. All that means is blasting as fast as you can on the way up. It seems simple enough, so let’s get into common tempo manipulations. One thing to keep in mind very quickly. Some people write tempos the opposite of me. Some have the eccentric or lowering part first. Just keep in mind because there is no universal law for writing tempos.
fast times
Fast tempos are generally not used for muscle building exercises because they don’t keep the muscle under tension long enough. Instead, they are great for explosive training. A common explosive workout tempo would be X0X0, or what I call the hugging and kissing tempo. Explosive training is just quick movements meant to mirror those of sports normally so that athletes can gain strength to quickly call up and use. Typically, explosive training is not done with too many dumbbells and barbells, but rather uses mostly bodyweight exercises and medicine ball exercises. Medicine balls are great for explosive training because you can throw the ball around and do movements that are impossible with a dumbbell. Bodyweight exercises are easy to manipulate for an explosive workout because you can pick yourself up off the ground. Push-ups, in which you push yourself off the ground as hard as you can into the air, and jump squats are good examples of explosive bodyweight training.
slow times
I honestly don’t see much value in really slow tempos, and by slow I mean more than 15 seconds per rep, so the tempo would be like 6262. As the saying goes, “Train slow, be slow.”
muscle development tempos
Now to get to the bread and butter of manipulating tempos. If you want to do this for muscle gain, you probably already know to use 8-12 reps. At least that’s commonly known, but for even more detail in your muscle building training plan, you should use tempos that can keep the muscle under tension for 40-60 seconds. Anything below that will result in strength gains and anything above 80 seconds or so will result in aerobic gains. The best is between 40-60 seconds. To get our time between those recommendations, we need to do about 5-6 seconds per rep. So my recommended tempos would be 1131, 1121 or even 1221. Any of those will be great because with 8 reps the seconds get to 40-48, and with 12 reps they get to 60-72 seconds.