The Importance of Lifting Tempo in Weight Training | Day #20 WellFit 365

Lifting Tempo Ideas For Your Weight Training Program

Lifting tempo is the speed at which you’re lifting your weights when you’re exercising.

This can be a great thing to take notice of, yet most people don’t think about tempo too much.

What we need to do is really concentrate on the tempo of your repetitions because it is a great way of modifying your workouts and can help to bring in some great variety. This helps with your overload that we’ve spoken about in a previous episode.

Exploring Different Weight Lifting Tempo Techniques

Generally it is advised to do whats called a 2-1-2 tempo – Which is 2 seconds lowering, 2 seconds lift, and two second squeeze. This is a good tempo with to work at if you’re looking to produce good muscle development.

With the eccentric part (the lowering part of the lift) – This is really beneficial for real muscle development, because it is within this part of a repetition that the micro muscle tears happen which stimulates growth over time. Many people like to modify the lowering part of their lift for up to 5-10 seconds because of this.

The only problem I see with this technique is that it then doesn’t stimulate those high threshold muscle fibres that we’ve spoken about earlier as well. The type B fibres. Those fibres respond to more fast, explosive movements.

My favourite weight lifting tempo technique:

A 3 second drop, 1 second up, 1 second squeeze.

Good emphasis on the eccentric and stimulates the high threshold fibres as well. Don’t forget the nice squeeze at the peak contraction of the muscle.

The main thing is that you’re lifting your weight with control.

Try this:

Change your weight lifting tempo up a little bit for your next few sessions and see if you notice a difference.