Fast or Slow Reps for Muscle Growth? | Lifting Tempo | Fundamental Series Ep 6

Summary

This 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

00:00

🏋️‍♂️ 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.

05:00

💥 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.

10:02

📚 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.

Keywords

💡Lifting Tempo

Lifting tempo refers to the speed at which one lifts weights during an exercise. It is a crucial aspect of resistance training that can influence the effectiveness of an exercise, particularly in terms of muscle hypertrophy. In the video, the trainer emphasizes that while lifting tempo is less critical than other factors like form and safety, it can still play a role in injury prevention and optimizing exercise performance. The script mentions various tempos, such as 0.5 seconds to 8 seconds per rep, and how they relate to hypertrophy.

💡Hypertrophy

Hypertrophy is the increase in muscle fiber size due to a growth in the size of existing muscle cells. It is a primary goal for many individuals engaged in strength training and bodybuilding. The video discusses how different lifting tempos can impact hypertrophy, citing a 2014 meta-analysis that found similar hypertrophic effects across a wide range of tempos, except for those slower than 10 seconds.

💡Form

Form in weightlifting refers to the correct posture and movement patterns during an exercise. Maintaining proper form is essential for preventing injuries and ensuring that the targeted muscles are effectively engaged. The script stresses the importance of form as the most critical aspect of lifting, with controlled tempo being an integral part of maintaining good form.

💡Controlled Tempo

Controlled tempo is the practice of deliberately managing the speed of a weightlifting movement to ensure safety and effectiveness. It involves resisting gravity throughout the entire range of motion rather than letting the weight fall or rise too quickly. The video script uses the example of a chest press to illustrate the importance of a controlled tempo for both the eccentric (lowering) and concentric (lifting) phases of the exercise.

💡Meta-Analysis

A meta-analysis is a statistical technique used to integrate and summarize the results of multiple studies on a specific topic. In the context of the video, a meta-analysis conducted by Schoenfeld, Ogburn, and Krieger in 2014 is mentioned to support the findings on the effects of different lifting tempos on hypertrophy.

💡Eccentric

The eccentric phase of a weightlifting movement refers to the lowering part of the exercise, where the muscle is lengthening under tension. The script discusses the importance of controlling the eccentric phase to prevent injury and maximize the benefits of the exercise, such as using a 3-second eccentric tempo to overload the muscle.

💡Concentric

The concentric phase is the part of a weightlifting movement where the muscle shortens as the weight is lifted or pushed away from the body. The video mentions the concentric phase in the context of lifting tempo, such as using an 'X' notation to indicate lifting as fast as possible during this phase to train for power.

💡Power Training

Power training in the video refers to exercises that focus on developing explosive strength and speed. An example given is using a lifting tempo that emphasizes fast concentric movements, like '0X2', to train for power in exercises like the squat.

💡Technique

Technique in weightlifting pertains to the skill and precision of performing an exercise correctly. The script suggests using specific tempos, such as slowing down the eccentric phase, to improve technique, particularly in compound movements like the squat and bench press.

💡Metabolic Stress

Metabolic stress is a concept related to the physiological stress placed on muscles during exercise, which can contribute to muscle growth. Although its role in hypertrophy is debated, the video mentions using specific tempos, like '3-1-3-1', to induce a pump and potentially enhance metabolic stress during exercises like the calf raise.

💡Range of Motion

Range of motion (ROM) is the extent of movement possible in a joint or series of joints. The video emphasizes the importance of training through a full ROM for each exercise to ensure comprehensive muscle development and to avoid limitations that could lead to injuries.

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

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