Understanding Tempo in Resistance Training
R3VIVE Fitness • May 23, 2024
What is Tempo?
We get this question quite a bit at R3VIVE. So much that we thought it’d be useful to write an article about its massive benefits.
We are firm believers in consistency and control points in our training sessions that we incorporate it into every one of our program designs. From rep to rep, set to set, session to session; we believe that this is the pathway to truly experiencing and understanding the muscles contractions intended for the individual based on the their training age and goals.
Tempo in resistance training is a method used to control the speed and timing of each part of an exercise. This approach helps regulate the dose-response of the exercise and ensures consistency between workouts. Tempo is typically represented by four numbers, each specifying a different phase of the movement:
A practical example for a bench press with a tempo of “3-1-1-1”:
- Eccentric (lowering): Muscle lengthening. Take 3 seconds to lower the bar to your chest.
- Isometric Pause: At the end of the eccentric phase. Hold for 1 second at the bottom.
- Concentric Phase: Muscle shortening. Take 1 second to press the bar up.
- Isometric Pause: End of concentric phase . Hold for 1 second at the top before the next rep.
Letters can also be used:
- X: Explosive movement (e.g., moving the weight as fast as possible “31X1”)
- A: Assisted movement (help with the lifting phase “31A1)
Why Use Tempo?
- Movement Control: By specifying how long each phase of a movement should take, tempo helps maintain proper form and technique.
- Dose-Response Control: Different tempos can alter the training effect, such as focusing on strength, hypertrophy, or endurance.
- Repeatability: Ensuring consistent performance across workouts aids in tracking progress and making adjustments.
Who Should Use Tempo?
- Beginners: Tempo helps beginners develop motor control and build foundational strength. Typically, they use tempos that keep the muscle under tension for 30 to 90 seconds per set.
- Intermediates: For those with more experience, tempos are used to fine-tune specific training goals, usually keeping muscles under tension for 10 to 60 seconds per set.
- Advanced Athletes: Advanced individuals might use shorter tempos (0 to 30 seconds of tension) for maximum strength and power. They may still use longer tempos for specific training adaptations occasionally.
Key Points
- Tempo helps control the duration a muscle is under tension, known as Time Under Tension (TUT) .
- TUT influences the type of training effect: longer TUT can build endurance and muscle size, while shorter TUT can develop strength and power.
- Adjusting tempo according to training goals and experience levels is crucial for optimal results.
Using tempo in your workouts can lead to better performance and targeted training outcomes, making it a valuable tool for both beginners AND experienced athletes.
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Hey R3VIVE Athletes, The Apex training cycle, going from January 5th to April 3rd, is our next training cycle! This will be the firt training cycle of the new year! this is a chance to refocus and get in some good work to help you reach your goals! lets all work together to crush this training cycle! Functional Fitness: The Apex Cycle is designed to make your year-long strength work truly functional, focusing on controlled, powerful movements, complexes under fatigue, and mandated touch-and-go reps to prepare you for mixed-modal workouts. Our strength culminates in the classic CrossFit Total and the "R3VIVE Other Total," while conditioning features a wide variety of time domains, movement volume builds (like wall balls, toes-to-bar, and burpees), and regular Friday retests of past workouts to track your progress and ensure you perform your absolute best. Build: Designed to bring together all your training from the past year and prepare you for your strongest performance yet. Our strength work will focus on controlled, powerful movements, building you up to test your limits with both the classic CrossFit Total and the "R3VIVE Other Total," which challenges your skill and strength balance. Expect a well-rounded program including unilateral strength, skill work, and core stability, with dedicated days for deadlifts, squats, gymnastics, and varied accessory work to keep you healthy and constantly progressing. For conditioning, we're tailoring the work to challenge you in new ways, featuring a wide variety of time domains and movements, and a specific volume build on common movements like wall balls, toes-to-bar, and burpees. Instead of a standard test/retest, we'll be performing regular retests of past workouts on Fridays, allowing you to easily track your progress and see how far you've come. Our weekly template balances intensity—with short, fast metcons on Mondays—with recovery, incorporating lower impact endurance work on Thursdays, and a strategic taper toward the end of the week to set you up for success on Friday! Partner workouts will wrap up your week every Saturday, bringing the whole community together.
Hey R3VIVE Athletes, The Ultimus training cycle, going from November 10th to January 2nd, is our next training cycle! Functional Fitness will be launching into a blend of olympic lifts and diverse strength progressions. Including more intense conditioning and gymnastic strength and skill development. Functional Fitness: We're taking the solid foundations from all our Machine work (which we know you loved) in the Persist Cycle and launching into a blend of olympic lifts, foundational strength, and diverse strength formats. Prepare for tough but fun challenges, gymnastic strength and skill development, and an intensified focus that will push your limits and build your confidence further than you ever imagined! Build: This Build cycle is your blueprint for forging general strength with a rock-solid, consistent split. While we will have linear progressions of Front Squats, and Bench Press, we will also be embracing varied, dynamic strength orgressions. That will not only keep delivering results but also keep our strength fun. Our gymnastics focus will be on pure, raw strict strength, helping you build capacity with both external loads and the incredible power of your own bodyweight. Prepare to feel incredibly stable and powerful! Conditioning will focus on unleashing your engine, that we built in the Persist Cycle . We will Shift gears to a fastermore intense "for time" AMRAP and Chipper style workouts, moving beyond simple interval work and aerobic base building. These conditioning workouts will rotate dynamically throughout the week to maintain variety and deliver a fun and powerful exeriance. our cycle test, "Super Bario Bros.", is a chipper that will progressively challenge your kettlebell/dumbbell and gymnastics movements, demanding peak intensity and absolute confidence in your strength.
Hey R3VIVE Athletes, Our next programming cycle runs from September 15th to November 7th. It's an 8-week cycle that will continue to see strength progression carrying from what we did last cycle in Functional fitness. While Pump will begin working unilateral strength progressions. Functional Fitness: This cycle will continue our progression from the skill and lifts from last cycle, while trying to integrate them into more of our conditioning. We will do this by focusing on different portions of the lifts during our strength portion then performing smaller sets of gymnastic skills in our conditioning. You will also see conditioning that is purely focused on our aerobic capacity and working mainly on monostructural elements, such as running, rowing and biking. Build: This A-B week cycle is designed to build foundational strength through consistent progression, with a strong focus on Back Squats and Strict Presses, including variations for balanced weekly training. Conditioning will have some longer aerobic pieces and begin to include more skills like strict Toes-to-Bar, and Pull-ups from last cycle. See the chart below for details.
