Tempo

Diceicle

I've been wondering, how important is tempo in relation to weightlifting?
Is it a faddy, niche thing some instructors (mainly on the interwebs) use in order to have a "schtik" to market themselves / product / program. Or is it an important (under-utilised?) part of weightlifting and getting the results you desire?

After reading over that 12 week transformation article, (here's the thread: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056153815)I remembered I used to pay attention to tempo years ago when I was working out (then i stopped working out for a while, got back into it in recent times but forgot about tempo, but I digress).

In the 12 week article (in Mens Fitness, not online, I think), in the part where they demonstrate what was involved gym-wise in this guys transformation, they put a bit of emphasis on the fact that each exercise has a tempo so (and I'm making figures up here) a bench press might have a tempo of 3.0.0.1 - thats 3 seconds to lower it, 0 seconds at the bottom of the rep, 0 seconds on the way back up and 1 second rest when back at the starting position ( I may have my figures slightly off, I'm trying to recall small details from memory so dont jump all over me about the minutae of this).

So is this kind of thing in any way important or, as I said earlier, is it a kind of gimmick? At the moment I just pump out the reps on the heaviest weight I can lift. Should I consider altering my gameplan?

Lantus

Over complicating things I think. There are various timings you can use and changing them every now and then can add some variety.

I tend towards the slower end around 1-2 seconds on the +ve and 2-3 seconds on the -ve rep of whatever I'm doing. This ensures I utilise all the muscle fibres and dont make the classic mistake of swinging or going too fast which can use momentum and make you feel stronger than you really are as your able to seemingly lift 'more' (which in reality you can't)

Technique always comes first.

Mellor

Diceicle wrote: »

a bench press might have a tempo of 3.0.0.1 - thats 3 seconds to lower it, 0 seconds at the bottom of the rep, 0 seconds on the way back up and 1 second rest when back at the starting position

Well, if you can lift it up in zero seconds then you might need to up the weight

Diceicle

Diceicle wrote: »

( I may have my figures slightly off, I'm trying to recall small details from memory so dont jump all over me about the minutae of this).

Hi Lantus,

This type of "system" probably is over-complicating things, as I think I stated in my 1st post, I dont even think about tempo, and with this thread I'm trying to find out if I should. Reading the article just triggered my memory as to some things I used to do when training (like tempo). I kept it simple though, 2 seconds to lower and 2 seconds to raise. Is this something worht going back to?

Brian?

Lantus wrote: »

Over complicating things I think. There are various timings you can use and changing them every now and then can add some variety.

I tend towards the slower end around 1-2 seconds on the +ve and 2-3 seconds on the -ve rep of whatever I'm doing. This ensures I utilise all the muscle fibres and dont make the classic mistake of swinging or going too fast which can use momentum and make you feel stronger than you really are as your able to seemingly lift 'more' (which in reality you can't)

Technique always comes first.

That kinda goes againest the idea of always lifting explosivey, which I thought was the right way to do it.

Lift the weight from point A to B as quickly as possible. Lower the weight to your starting point, rest and repeat.

As the weight goes up the reps slow down, but I always try to lift as fast as possible. On warmups sets that's 1 second and on a heavy single it can be however long it takes to get there.