Slower Tempo For More Time Under Tension: Does It Really Matter?
If you have ever trained at a commercial gym, I’m sure you’ve across the term time under tension being thrown around.
If not directly, then maybe indirectly.
What do I mean?
You know, when someone comes up to you and tells you, “It’s not about the weight you lift, but the tension you place on the muscle by lifting it slowly, that matters.”
Well, in most cases, they are referring to time under tension.
Thanks to the countless number of influencers on social media, now it is not uncommon to come across someone pressing a dumbbell with an 8 second concentric.
Because, more gains, right?
Well, not exactly!
Here’s why.
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Slower Tempo Vs. Faster Tempo
There had been a study that showed lifting a submaximal weight with a slow tempo could lead to higher protein synthesis when compared to lifting with a fast tempo.
This made most people jump to a conclusion and say that a slower tempo is thus more effective for hypertrophy.
What most failed to realize is that this outcome was only because the same number of reps were performed in that study.
This means that it was easy for the slow tempo group to hit failure because of the slower reps, while the group with the fast tempo couldn’t hit failure in the same number of reps because of the faster reps.
In simple terms, the slow group ended up doing more, which resulted in better results.
Would this still be the case if volume was equated?
Turns out that when volume is equated, slower rep velocity could be inferior to faster rep velocity.
Before we go ahead, we have to accept that, as a natural, achieving progressive overload has to be the crux of our training.
This just means that you have to get stronger over time.
To perform reps slower, you’ll have to sacrifice weight on the bar.
This means you have to choose between the two, slower tempo with lower weight or higher weight with normal tempo.
Is it worth sacrificing load to perform reps with a slower tempo?
To answer this, let’s look at the outcomes of a few studies.
In a study by Munn J, Herbert RD, Hancock MJ, Gandevia SC in 2005, training with a faster speed produced greater strength increases than training slow.
Another study by Neils CM, Udermann BE, Brice GA, Winchester JB, McGuigan MR. in 2005 found that training with traditional tempo is better than training with a super slow tempo.
One more study, by Kim E, Dear A, Ferguson SL, Seo D, Bemben MG. in 2011, concluded that super slow training is inferior to traditional training for strength improvements.
Does This Mean That Tempo Training Is Useless?
A better question is ‘can tempo training have practical applications?’ and the answer is yes it can.
It is very common to see people categorize things as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ when it comes to fitness.
Tempo training isn’t bad, but it isn’t the most optimal way to go about things.
It can be helpful if you have injuries and you don’t want to put a muscle under heavy load.
Slower tempos can also be used in the eccentric part of movements.
It can be useful if you want to accumulate more volume without worrying about the breakdown of form using heavy loads in the latter parts of a higher volume workout.
Should You Use Slow Tempos?
If you are anyone like me, and you’re just interested in getting in the best shape of your life, I would suggest you stick to training with traditional tempo, focus on achieving progressive overload and don’t sweat the details.
This doesn’t mean that you throw the weight around.
Control the weight, but you don’t necessarily have to go super slow with it.
Are you never going to make gains if you train with a slow tempo?
As long as you achieve progressive overload, you will make progress.
In the end, do what suits you best. There’s no one size fits all approach in fitness.
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