Fast or Slow Reps for Muscle Growth? | Lifting Tempo | Fundamental Series Ep 6
Summary
TLDRThis training video discusses the impact of lifting tempo on muscle hypertrophy, emphasizing that tempo is less critical than form and safety. A 2014 meta-analysis by Schoenfeld, Ogburn, and Krieger found similar hypertrophy results across a wide range of tempos, except for those over 10 seconds which were less effective. The speaker suggests varying tempo for different exercises and goals, such as using a fast concentric for power training or a slow eccentric for technique and enhanced eccentric strength. The video concludes with the recommendation of a 1-0-1-0 or 2-0-2-0 tempo for most lifts, prioritizing full range of motion and control.
Takeaways
- 🏋️♂️ The video discusses the importance of lifting tempo in achieving hypertrophy, emphasizing that it is less important than other factors but still relevant for safety and form.
- 🔄 The tempo of lifting weights can be varied widely without significantly affecting hypertrophy, as long as it's not excessively slow, over 10 seconds per rep.
- 📉 A 2014 meta-analysis by Schoenfeld, Ogburn, and Krieger found similar hypertrophy results across a range of lifting tempos from 0.5 to 8 seconds per rep.
- 🚫 Extremely slow lifting tempos, greater than 10 seconds per rep, are detrimental to hypertrophy, possibly due to reduced tensile stimulus.
- 🔄 Lifting tempo notation is explained, with numbers representing different phases of the movement, allowing for creative and dynamic training variations.
- 💡 The speaker prefers a 'normal' lifting tempo, typically 1 second down and 1 second up, with slight adjustments for different exercises and goals.
- 💥 To train for power, a fast concentric lift (notated as 'X') is recommended, with an example of a squat tempo being 0x2.
- 🔄 Enhanced eccentric training can be achieved by slowing down the eccentric phase, such as 3 seconds up with no pause, to overload the negative part of the movement.
- 🛠️ Technique training can involve pausing at the bottom of a movement to eliminate momentum and encourage proper form, like a squat with a 3-second eccentric and no pause at the bottom.
- 💦 Metabolic stress training, though controversial for hypertrophy, can be achieved with slow tempos and pauses, like a 3-1-3-1 tempo for calves.
- 🔚 The video concludes that while tempo is not the highest priority, it can add variety and specificity to training, with a general recommendation of 1-0-1-0 or 2-0-2-0 tempos.
Q & A
What is the main topic discussed in the final episode of the training segment?
-The main topic discussed is lifting tempo, which refers to how fast you lift weights up and bring them back down during exercise.
Why is lifting tempo less important than other factors in achieving hypertrophy?
-Lifting tempo is less important because it ranks lower in the order of importance compared to other factors such as proper form and safety, which were emphasized as the most critical aspects from the beginning.
What does proper form in lifting generally involve?
-Proper form generally involves good control of the weight and full range of motion, ensuring that you are not just letting the weight fall under the force of gravity but actively resisting it throughout the movement.
What did the 2014 meta-analysis by Schoenfeld, Ogburn, and Krieger find regarding different lifting tempos and hypertrophy?
-The meta-analysis found that from a 0.5-second lifting tempo to an 8-second lifting tempo, there was no statistically significant difference in hypertrophy across this wide spectrum of lifting tempos.
What lifting tempo was found to be less effective for hypertrophy in the study mentioned?
-Lifting tempos that were super slow, lasting greater than 10 seconds, were found to be less effective for hypertrophy.
What does the lifting tempo notation represent and how is it used?
-Lifting tempo notation represents specific phases of the movement. Each number corresponds to a phase, such as the eccentric (lowering) phase and the concentric (lifting) phase, indicating the time spent in each phase in seconds.
What is the general preferred lifting tempo mentioned in the script and why?
-The preferred general lifting tempo mentioned is one second on the way down and one second on the way up, with the main criteria being good control on both the concentric and eccentric phases and training through a full range of motion.
How can lifting tempo be used to train power in exercises like the squat?
-To train power, one might use a tempo notation like 0x2, which means a one-second eccentric phase with no pause, an explosive concentric phase as fast as possible, and a two-second pause at the top for breath.
What is an example of using lifting tempo to train for enhanced eccentric overload?
-An example is the lat pulldown with a tempo of 3010, where you take three seconds on the eccentric phase, no pause at the top, one second on the concentric phase, and no pause at the bottom, followed by another three seconds on the way up.
How can lifting tempo be adjusted to train technique in compound movements like the squat?
-To train technique, one could use a slower eccentric tempo, such as three seconds on the way down with no pause at the bottom, followed by an explosive concentric phase and a couple of seconds at the top to catch breath.
What is the controversial aspect of using lifting tempo to train metabolic stress and why might it still be beneficial?
-The controversial aspect is whether metabolic stress is a main driver or determinant of hypertrophy. However, it might still be beneficial as it can provide a good pump, which some people find enjoyable and motivating.
What tempo is recommended to avoid when training for hypertrophy according to the script?
-Tempos that exceed an 8-second rep duration are recommended to avoid because they tend to see detriments in hypertrophy.
Outlines
🏋️♂️ Lifting Tempo and Its Role in Hypertrophy Training
This paragraph introduces the topic of lifting tempo, emphasizing its importance in hypertrophy training and its relation to safety and proper form. The speaker suggests that while lifting tempo is less critical than other factors, it is still significant for injury prevention and maximizing exercise effectiveness. A meta-analysis by Schoenfeld, Ogburn, and Krieger (2014) is cited, indicating that a wide range of tempos from 0.5 seconds to 8 seconds per rep showed similar hypertrophy results, except for super slow tempos over 10 seconds which were less effective. The paragraph concludes by advocating for creative and dynamic tempo variations based on specific training goals and exercises.
💥 Exploring Different Lifting Tempos for Training Goals
The second paragraph delves into how different lifting tempos can be utilized to achieve various training objectives. It discusses the use of fast concentric lifts to train for power, as seen in exercises like the squat, and the use of enhanced eccentric tempos to overload the lowering phase of movements, such as the lat pulldown. The paragraph also touches on techniques for improving form, such as pausing at the bottom of a squat, and the use of slow eccentrics to train metabolic stress, with the cave press as an example. The speaker shares personal preferences for tempo, suggesting that a 1:0:1:0 or 2:0:2:0 tempo is often used, with a focus on full range of motion and control, especially during the eccentric phase.
📚 Conclusion of the Fundamental Series on Training Fundamentals
In the final paragraph, the speaker concludes the fundamental series on training, summarizing the importance of understanding and applying the concepts discussed throughout the series. They highlight the significance of full range of motion and control in exercises, especially during the eccentric phase, as a criterion for most lifts. The speaker provides a link to a full playlist for those who wish to review the series and mentions the availability of a hypertrophy program on their website that incorporates these fundamentals. The paragraph ends with an acknowledgment of the viewers' patience and a teaser for an upcoming discussion on nutrition.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Lifting Tempo
💡Hypertrophy
💡Form
💡Controlled Tempo
💡Meta-Analysis
💡Eccentric
💡Concentric
💡Power Training
💡Technique
💡Metabolic Stress
💡Range of Motion
Highlights
The importance of lifting tempo in achieving hypertrophy and its relation to safety and form.
A meta-analysis by Schoenfeld, Ogburn, and Krieger in 2014 found similar hypertrophy results across a wide range of lifting tempos.
Lifting tempos slower than 10 seconds were found to be less effective for hypertrophy.
The concept of varying lifting tempos to be creative and dynamic in training.
Explanation of lifting tempo notation and its significance in training.
The preference for a normal lifting tempo of 1-0-1-0 for general training.
The use of an explosive concentric phase (notated as 'X') to train power in certain movements.
Techniques for training power, such as the 0X2 tempo in squats for explosive strength.
The potential benefits of enhanced eccentric training for overloading the eccentric portion of movements.
Methods for training technique, including pausing in the bottom of the squat to improve form.
The use of slow eccentrics to improve technique, especially in compound movements like squats and bench presses.
The controversy surrounding metabolic stress as a driver of hypertrophy and its practical application.
A specific example of using a 3-1-3-1 tempo to train the calves for metabolic stress.
The conclusion that a 1-0-1-0 or 2-0-2-0 tempo is generally recommended for most lifts with an emphasis on full range of motion and control.
The introduction of the Fundamentals Hypertrophy Program that incorporates these concepts into a structured workout plan.
The upcoming discussion on nutrition as the next part of the series.
Transcripts
all right welcome everyone to the final
episode of this training segment of the
fundamental series i just recently
published the last video on rest periods
so i'm gonna skip the full recap here if
you missed any of the important stuff
that i've talked about previously
i'd recommend checking out that rest
periods video I'll have a link to in the
description below and I go through like
a quick probably two minute summary of
everything we've gotten to today but
that brings me to the topic of this
video which is going to be lifting tempo
so basically how fast you lift weights
up and bring them back down if your goal
is hypertrophy and I think it's worth
mentioning that this is all the way down
here
from the order of importance so this is
something that's less important than
everything else over here but I think
it's worth noting that it does tie in
quite nicely with the idea of safety and
form which was the very single most
important thing that we emphasized from
the very beginning because if you aren't
lifting with a controlled tempo then I
think you're that much more likely to
injure yourself and not be getting the
most out of the exercise now I'm just a
quick reiteration here of what we mean
by proper form for the most part it
comes down to good control and it comes
down to full range of motion so for the
most part you want to say you're doing a
chest press I'm gonna be bringing the
weight all the way down to your chest
and then all the way out to full
extension and you also want to be
controlling the weight not just letting
it fall under the force of gravity you
actually want to be resisting gravity on
the way down and I would say these are
the two most important things but that
aside I want to quickly highlight some
literature on this so in 2014
Schoenfeld Ogburn and Krieger performed
a meta-analysis on a bunch of different
studies that looked at different lifting
tempos and what they actually found
screwed over here what they actually
found was that from 0.5 so from a 0.5
second lifting tempo all the way up to
an 8 second lifting tempo they actually
saw similar to the statistical
significance the same hypertrophy across
this wide spectrum of lifting tempos
this is the time of a single rep so you
could take 8 seconds for a single rep so
that would be like a
for second lowering phase and a
four-second concentric phase you can see
very similar hypertrophy to anything all
the way down to somewhere in the middle
down to very fast reps so that tells us
that there's actually a lot of room to
be creative with your lifting tempo
because there doesn't seem to be any
definitive answer from the scientific
literature other than the fact that they
found that lifting tempos that were
super slow so tempos that lasted greater
than 10 seconds were actually worse for
hypertrophy so you see the people who
you see they're doing like the very
exaggerated super slow negatives and
super slow positives now that actually
does tend to be worse for hypertrophy
and it's probably because you just have
to drop the weight back so much that you
just can't get that same tensile
stimulus as you would with more
reasonable tempos given that there's
room to be creative and to be dynamic
with tempos I like to vary it depending
on the exercise and depending on what my
specific training goal is and we'll get
into some specific exempt examples down
here but just in general I actually like
something of a normal lifting tempo so
before I get into that I'm gonna explain
what all this means actually so this is
lifting tempo notation and each number
refers to a specific phase of the
movement so let's just use this here so
we've got two zero two zero the first
number refers to the e centric so if
we're doing a chest press for example a
dumbbell dumbbell chest press the two
here would refer to the two second
lowering phase so you take one count to
count and then you'd be at the bottom so
this is the bottom of the range of
motion here so you wouldn't have any
pause at the bottom so you take two
seconds down and then you'd immediately
reverse the range of motion this is your
concentric or your positive so you'd
have two seconds on the way up and then
this is at the top of the range so you'd
have no pause at the top so this 2:02
tempo in practice would look like this
you'd have a one two you wouldn't
actually pause like that so it would
look more like this two seconds down two
seconds up and it would be a fluid
motion like this of course once you get
under load it's not going to look quite
as
is that and I would say in reality my
preferred general lifting tempo is
something more like one second on the
way down one second on the way up but it
can differ you can allow for a little
bit of a squeeze here at the top so you
might change that to like 0.5 or you
might really feel the stretch at the
bottom you could change that to 0.5 but
again I think that the main point here
is that you've got good control both on
the concentric and the eccentric not
just letting the weight fall under
gravity now because we can see the
similar per trophy across a wide
spectrum of different tempos I think
that depending on your specific goal or
what you might be trying to train in
that session you can experiment with
different types of tempo now so if
you're trying to train power which is
explosive force essentially so if you're
trying to get stronger it's good to
Train for power on some movements then
you might want to use what's usually
annotated as an X here and the positive
lifting section and that basically means
you're lifting on the concentric as fast
as possible so let's just use the squat
here as an example and go with this one
0 x2 lifting tempo notation this would
be a one-second eccentric
you'd have it no pause in the whole of
your squat and then you would explode
out of the bottom as quickly as possible
and then allow for two seconds up at the
top to get another breath in then you'd
go down again explode up as quickly as
possible another two seconds to get a
breath in and when I'm doing heavy
squats this is almost without exception
the lifting tempo that I use I find that
some people try to slow down there are
you Centrex too much on the squat and
then that reduces the explosive power
you can get on the positive
some people will pause in the bottom of
the squat which can be good for training
technique but it's not very transferable
to the sport of powerlifting and again
diminishes the amount of speed that you
can get coming back on the way up
so that's an example of how I would
train power you have your explosive
explosive speed on the concentric being
trained here and then the same thing
could go for bench so let's just do
another quick example we'd have a 1
second negative we'd pause for one
second on the chest and we'd explode off
the chest and then we'd have one or two
seconds up at the top to get your breath
back in so that's a tempo you can use to
train
power enhanced eccentric soar something
that I've been using quite a lot lately
in my own programming and I think that
they might be a little bit ahead of
where the scientific literature is
because I think they do have conceptual
merit I just don't think the their
effects have necessarily shown up in the
literature yet so approach this with
some degree of skepticism but still if
nothing else it's a quite an enjoyable
way to train and I think there is like I
said conceptual merit to it so let's
just use the lat pulldown here as an
example if we wanted to overload the e
centric portion of the movement we would
take three seconds on the way up so
going up is the negative in this case as
you take a three second eccentric no
pause at the top a normal one second
concentric no pause at the bottom and
then another three seconds on the way up
and because you are stronger in the
eccentric portion of the lift I think
that sometimes overloading that a little
bit more by either using the assistance
of ER or I guess the extra resistance of
a lifting partner or slowing down the
the eccentric is a good way to do that
if we wanted to really train technique
there's a few ways that we can do that I
alluded to one earlier and that was you
could pause in the bottom of the squat
which kind of forces you to stay upright
and - it kind of eliminates any momentum
that should get out of the bottom but
another way to Train technique would be
again to slow down the eccentric so
let's just say we're doing the squat
here you could do a three second
eccentric which might might say really
in force in your brain to stay more
upright if let's say you've had an issue
with leaning forward a little bit have
you then you'd have a zero second pause
at the bottom and then you'd explode as
quickly as possible and then another
couple seconds to get your breath up at
the top so I found that slowy Centrex on
these compound movements can actually be
helpful in the case of improving
technique I would say in particular on
the squat and the bench press I
generally don't recommend slowy Centrex
for the deadlift and then finally we can
use tempo to Train metabolic stress it's
actually really controversial as to
whether metabolic stress is one of the
main drivers of hypertrophy or
determinants of hypertrophy but still I
think that it does have some
sexual merit and even though it's
controversial in the field there's
nothing wrong with getting a good pump
so just as an example here for the Cavs
if we were to use a three-one three-one
lifting tempo that would be a
three-second lowering phase a one-second
pause at the bottom which I think you
always want to do when training the Cavs
and then you have a three-second con
centric and then a one-second squeeze up
at the top and so taken together this is
actually an 8-second lifting tempo so
something like this would be about as
slow as I'd ever really recommend anyone
going because like I said as you go
above that eight second rep duration
mark you tend to see detriments in
hypertrophy so that's my whole spiel on
tempo hopefully that was interesting
with some of the specific examples but
in general I think that for most of your
lifts it actually doesn't need to be
nearly this complicated again we're
talking about something that isn't all
that highly ranked on the order of
priority but it can certainly make
training a little bit more interesting
and a little bit more specific all's
considered I would say a 1 0 1 0 lifting
tempo or 2 0 2 0 is probably what I'm
going with most of the time with the
main criteria being that you are
training through a full range of motion
and you've got good control especially
on the eccentric so that's gonna
conclude the whole fundamental series
I'll have the full playlist link down
below I think that this is part 6 now so
if you haven't seen any of the other
parts make sure you go check them out
now I'm also my fundamentals hypertrophy
program where I take all of this stuff
and put it into a discreet program that
you can take and go through in the gym
is available on my website if you'd like
to check that out I'll put a button to
that over here thank you guys so much
for watching and following along with
the series I do like to just cut out the
white board and kind of just rant
sometimes so thank you for your patience
with me and I will see you guys all here
in the next part where we're gonna talk
about nutrition time so I'll see you
guys all then
[Music]
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