The Importance of Movement Tempo in Resistance Training

Tempo is the speed of movement for a resistance training exercise and there are four distinct phases for each exercise.  Tempo directly determines time under tension which is a very important variable in resistance training. 

The first phase is the time spent on the eccentric phase of the movement (where you are lowering the weight and the muscles are lengthening) like when you lower a dumbbell from the top position to the fully lowered position in the bicep curl.  

The second phase is any time spent pausing at the end of the eccentric phase like holding your body an inch off the ground in the bottom of a push-up. 

The third phase is the time spent in the concentric phase of the movement (where you are lifting weight up and muscles are shortening) like when you push up from the ground in a push-up.    

The fourth phase is any time spent at the end of the movement like pausing in the fully contracted position when doing an abdominal crunch.

So tempo for a movement is expressed with four numbers like this 3-0-1-0 which would mean taking three seconds in the eccentric of lowering phase, no pause at the end of the eccentric phase, 1 second for the concentric phase where you lift the weight, and no pause at the end of the lifting phase.

Sometimes this is shortened to three numbers such as 3-1-1 which means lowering resistance for 3, pause for a count of 1 at the bottom of the movement (like the bottom of a squat), and then quickly lift the weight in one second and repeat.

Changing Tempo is a huge tool for preventing plateaus in your workout program because it dramatically changes the stimulus of the workout and directly affects the time under tension.   There are many possibilities but there are several tried and true tempo schemes for resistance training.

Whenever you are having trouble feeling a particular target muscle group in an exercise cut your load and increase your time under tension.   Try taking 4 seconds to lift the weight, brief pause at top without locking out, then lower for 4 seconds and pause briefly at the bottom position:  4-1-4-1.

This slow down creates a lot more time under tension allowing you to feel and control the muscles doing the work to hit your target!

Another great tempo scheme is eccentric accentuated which means slowing down during the lowering phase to 4 – 5 or even up to 10 seconds for big movements.  So a tempo like 6-1-1-1.

Last but not least is pause tempo where you place emphasis on holding the bottom or top of the movement such as the bottom of the squat or top position of a dumbbell lateral raise.      For the squat example tempo might look like this:   4-4-2-0 while for the lateral raise it might look like this: 2-4-2-0