What Does Tempo Mean In Weight Training?
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Tempo: The Simple Technique To Gain Muscle Mass Fast
On today’s episode of Live Lean TV, I’m answering the question, what does tempo mean in weight training, and share the simple solution to build muscle faster.
Alright Live Leaner, pay close attention to this post because this is a mistake a lot of men and women get wrong with their workouts.
Plus, there is such an easy solution to fix it, so you can build lean muscle faster.
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Lean muscle mass is the key to Living Lean and looking and feeling young.
Best Muscle Building Workout Tip So Many Males And Females Ignore: Tempo
There are many advanced teachings to build muscle faster.
However, in most cases, these “revolutionary” techniques are way more advanced than your current fitness level.
It’s very important to first learn and master the fundamental basics of muscle building, then move on to more advanced techniques.
Today’s muscle building workout tip is something that everyone, regardless of your fitness level, can implement into your next workout.
Even though this simple muscle building technique should be engrained in the head of every single personal trainer, I often see these fitness professionals also forgetting about it.
This amazes me because, without a doubt, this is one of the easiest and best muscle building workout tips you can add to your training.
I’m referring to the tempo of your weight lifting.
Let’s get what tempo means.
What Does Tempo Mean In Weight Training?
Tempo is simply defined as the time, in seconds, it takes to lift and lower a weight.
Focusing on varying the tempo is one of the most effective ways to increase muscle gains in the gym.
Tempo is often broken down into 4 different numbers, similar to this:
1st Tempo Number: Eccentric
The first number indicates the eccentric portion of the lift, also known as the negative or lowering of the weight.
The tempo used to lower the weight is key to building muscle.
This is the portion of the lift where you build the most muscle mass and strength.
To be clear, the lowering of the weights, not the lifting of the weights is where the majority of the muscle soreness occurs.
In other words, it’s most responsible for building muscle and strength.
This causes the stimulus that creates the adaptation to your muscle fiber hypertrophy, i.e. the growth of muscle.
So make sure you follow the proper tempos when lowering the weight.
To explain what tempo means, let me share an example of the alternating standing dumbbell bicep curl.
In the example of a bicep curl, the eccentric portion of the lift would refer to the lowering of the weight in seconds.
For example, if the first number was 4, this would mean you should take 4 seconds to lower the dumbbell from the top to the bottom of the curl.
To grow muscle and build strength, I like to use an eccentric tempo of 3-6 seconds.
So count, 1 one thousand, 2 one thousand, 3 one thousand, 4 one thousand.
2nd Tempo Number: Pause At The Bottom
The second tempo number indicates how long to pause at the bottom of the movement, in seconds.
In this example, the pause at the bottom is 0 seconds.
Therefore, there would be no pause at the bottom of the curl.
Typically at the bottom portion of the lift, I usually don’t use a pause, because I like to keep tension on the muscles.
3rd Tempo Number: Concentric
The third tempo number indicates the lifting of the weight, in seconds.
For a bicep curl, the concentric part of the lift is when you lift the weight up.
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In this example, the concentric is listed at 2 seconds.
Therefore, it should take 2 seconds to lift the weight from the bottom to the top of the curl.
I usually like a 1-3 second concentric, i.e. lifting the weight up.
4th Tempo Number: Pause At The Top
The fourth tempo number indicates the pause at the top of the lift, in seconds.
In this example, the pause at the top is 0 seconds.
Therefore, there would be no pause at the top of the curl.
Depending on the exercise, I usually keep the pause at the top of the lift short.
Tempo Is All About Controlling The Weight
For example. watch this clip of the video where I show you what I see so many people doing.
They are obviously following no set tempo, thus they are limiting their muscle gain.
It’s important to be in control of the weight, rather than the weight being in control of you.
Tempo Guidelines For General Muscle Building Programs
Here’s an image representing the 4 parts of tempo and the recommended times for general muscle building programs.
Feel free to “PIN” away.
Remember to keep the eccentric slow and controlled, typically between 3-6 seconds.
On the concentric you can go between 1-3 seconds.
By following these tempos, you will be strategically tearing your muscle fibers, which is required to build new muscle.
Since your muscles are being torn apart, you will get sore, but remember once they repair themselves with proper nutrition, they’ll be bigger and stronger than ever.
Here’s another “out of the box” muscle building tip for you.
Count Your Reps Down
Most people count reps up.
For example, if your program calls for 10 reps, you count 1-2-3-4 and so on, after each rep.
Switch it up.
When it comes to counting your reps, try switching around the numbers by counting down.
For example, rather than counting from 1 to 10 reps, after your first rep you would count 10-9-8-7, and so on, down to 1.
When I try this, psychologically I find it keeps my mindset more focused on how many reps I have left, therefore I feel more motivated to hit my goals.
So give it a try and let me know what you think of it.
There you go Live Leaners
Following a tempo is one of the best muscle building workout tips to Live Lean.
Make sure you incorporate these tempos into your workouts.
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Brad Gouthro is the founder of Live Lean TV, a media company focused on helping men and women “Live Lean” 365 days a year. Brad’s programs and content have helped millions of people all over the world learn how to get in shape, and more importantly, sustain it for life.
This is my first time visit at here and i am truly pleassant to read everthing at alone place.
great tip brad i started to really focus on TUT (time under tension – which
is essentially what he’s talking about) last year and actually saw a pretty
dramatic increase in gains! Makes the workouts much harder though lol. But
hey its supposed to be hard right?
Amazing Technique, thanks for sharing!
I was extremely pleased to discover this web site.
I want to to thank you for your time for this fantastic read!!
I definitely savored every bit of it and I have you book marked to see new things on your
blog.
Squats could be the most important for the size of muscle building exercise. Past building muscle groups of the lower limbs, squats are a fantastic full body work out. Calculated forearms, upper body, abs and even your back. The use of a suitable approach is important with squats. For proper squat, the hips should appear lower than the knees and the body should be well balanced.
When it comes to maximizing muscle-ups, rope climbs, pull-ups, and snatches, stronger biceps will allow you to handle more weight on your compound upper back exercises.This is a great mass building exercises for your biceps.
Love the tip to count the reps down!!
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Thank you for that extremely good tip, because I strive for excellent’s on a daily
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Great tips! Yes women won’t get bulky lifting weights. Only lean muscle and you will gain a lot of muscle by dropping the weights by 20%. Awesome post!
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i’m so glad i found you a week ago. i’ve learned so much with your food wars episodes. i’ve started doing your workouts, and i’m already seeing results. i also started the no bread 14 day challenge yesterday. let’s see how that one goes. thank you.
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Useful information shared..Iam very happy to read this post..thanks for offering us good info.Wonderful walk-through. I understand why post.
Trust me. As a female, lifting weights will not make you bulky. I repeat…
HI Brad! I have a quick question! I really fear my body looking masculine, I don’t really want to look like a personal trainer…I just want to be thin. I’m afraid that if I build lots of muscle, I will end up having muscle curves and defined calves and such. What is your opinion on this? Thank you!
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Dude brad I got to say your an inspiration. After 3 years of not giving of shit due to being happily married with kids I felt like there was no point nor motivation to get lean and ripped again till came across your channel.
yeah doing this is going to get rid of some ego lifting of mine
thanks Brad this is my 1st vid I’ve seen of yours and it does make sense. I will try to incorporate this strategy
what a strange question….who cares, this is about fitness.
Many thanks for the tips. I used to use supplement to keep my body & thigh slim, but these tips are really useful and I would surely try it.
As usual Brad, more great tips. I will start doing this. But I would like to know do you use the same method when using the universal machines?
I tried this at the gym an to lift for the same amount of reps ive had to drop the weight by about 20%! Its good!
just learned on this last week in my ACE PT course.
I have been focusing on is exact technique for the last 2 1/2 months with my trainer and have seen better results than I ever have in my entire life. It’s amazing what simple logic can really do!!!
Great tip!! Thanks!!
I have a trainer to count my reps for me – I like to call her my second brain! 😉 You could be my third!!!
Check out those guns!!!!!!!
Yay! You are so handsome 😀 Lol
Great Video Brat…..I felt the change in the effort needed today itself in the Gym. You get a sense of something more happening with your muscles while I did lift today keeping in my the concept you explained.
Thanks!
I’ve been using this technique for years and it does work.
Thanks Brad for your answer.
I’ll apply this tip starting today in my workout(s) 😉
@BenoitDouville great question. Yes, you should focus on tempo for ALL body parts. For abs, the main thing to focus on is your breathing and contraction of your abs. On the contraction, breath out as much air as possible and flex your abs.
Hi Brad,
As usual, this is a great value tip, thanks for this!!!
I wonder if we can use this tip for leg workout and/or abdominal exercise? I basically imagine how to apply this for squats for examples (you do use it for squats at the end of the video, don’t you?) but for abs, I have no idea…
Thanks again.
that shouldn’t even matter.
Great vid!
@Javed6234 nope…dig chicks
Such a great tip. I’m tweeting this 😉