We all wish we had more time, but more time under tension; who has time for that? I wrote the word time three times (now four) in one sentence for those counting. That’s got to be some record.
Remember when somebody pressured you to accomplish something or work to achieve a goal? The feeling of blood rushing through your body, the hyper-focus, the butterflies in the pit of your stomach, and the stench of failure hanging over you like a cloud. When you succeed, you feel pretty awesome.
That’s a non-gym version of time under tension, and by overcoming it, you become mentally stronger and increase your confidence. Every time you pick up and lower a weight, you put your muscles under tension. You’ll get stronger by increasing the time you put your muscles under tension.
Increasing the tension (weight) is handy too, but we are not discussing that here.
Improving time under tension is the key to your gains and making mirror time enjoyable. Let’s explore a few time-under-tension methods you can incorporate into your workouts.
Let’s Talk Muscle Contractions
Understanding the three types of muscle contractions is key when building strength and muscle. Each contraction type affects how you control your body under tension. Let’s break it down:
Concentric Contraction
This is when your muscle shortens under tension. Think of it as the part of the lift where you generate force to move weight.
Example: When you curl the dumbbell toward your shoulder, your biceps contract concentrically to overcome the weight and gravity.
Why it matters: Concentric strength is essential for explosive movements like jumping, sprinting, or pressing a barbell off your chest during a bench press.
Eccentric Contraction
Eccentric contractions occur when your muscle lengthens under tension; you control a load as you resist gravity.
Example: The lowering phase into the bottom of a squat. As you lower, your quads, hamstrings, and glutes work eccentrically to control your body against gravity.
Why it matters: Eccentric training is excellent for strength gains, reducing injury risk, and improving joint health.
Isometric Contraction
Isometric contractions occur when a muscle is under tension but doesn’t change length. Your muscles are working, but there’s no movement.
Example: A Side plank. Your core, glutes, and shoulders are all under tension to maintain your body’s stability and to resist the pull of gravity.
Why it matters: Isometric contractions build muscular endurance, improve joint strength, and strengthen sticking points where lifters get stuck.
Increasing Time Under Tension
Increasing the weight or the number of reps performed is the ultimate form of progression. But these tried-and-true methods will move the needle forward when you hit a plateau or want to add variety to your torture.
Increasing Range of Motion
Putting the muscle through a greater ROM makes any exercise more challenging because it increases your time under tension, which helps to build more muscle. A prime example is the rear-foot elevated Split Squat. The elevated surface increases the demand for hip mobility and makes the glutes and quads work hard to pull you up from the bottom of the squat.
Adding half a rep is another method of increasing ROM and time under tension. You take the most challenging part of the exercise, like the bottom of a push-up, rise halfway up, back down again, and then rise. The one-and-a-half-rep method works for most exercises but is particularly effective with squat and press variations.
How To Do It
Increasing ROM and adding half a rep works best when starting with a lighter weight than usual and then building up. Adding half a rep works for most exercises, while increasing ROM works better for leg exercises. However, exceptions exist. Performing two to four sets using a rep range of six to 15 works best. Here’s an example.
1A. Rear Foot Elevated Split Squat 8 to 12 reps per side
1B. Unilateral Dumbbell Row With Pause 10 to 15 reps per side
Tempo Lifting
Each repetition has four parts: the eccentric, bottom position (isometric), concentric contraction, and lockout (isometric). Lengthening how long each part of the rep takes is the backbone behind tempo lifting, and here is how it works. For instance, the 3322 tempo barbell squat takes three seconds to lower into the bottom of your squat (eccentric), a 3-second pause at the bottom, 2 seconds to push back up (concentric), and a 2-second pause at lockout.
Using tempo encourages you to slow the exercise down, focus on form, and the muscles working, which is essential for good form and building muscle.
How To Do It
For tempo, use a 2-3 second concentric contraction, and a 3—to 4-second eccentric contraction works well for muscle and strength. The pause and lockout parts depend on the other two, but anywhere from 1 to 5 seconds works best. You cannot perform as many reps as you usually do with a given weight, but the muscle pump will compensate for it.
For most exercises, two to four sets using a rep range of six to 12 work well. Here’s an example.
1A. Tempo Bench Press 3131 6 to 8 reps
1B. Upper Back Foam Roll 10 to 15 times.
Pause Reps
Mechanical tension (weight), metabolic stress, and muscle damage are the primary triggers for building muscle. While some folks downplay metabolic stress and muscle damage, adding a pause hits all three hard. But fair warning: pauses don’t tickle. They’ll have you questioning your life choices really fast. Pausing at your weakest point of a lift (like the bottom of a squat or a bench press sticking point) forces your muscles to generate more strength exactly where you need it.
How To Do It
Pause reps work best with compound lifts like squats, deadlifts, presses, and rows. Do them early in your workout when you’re fresh and have the most energy, pausing for 3-5 seconds in the most challenging position, (performing the rest of the rep as usual) using roughly 20% less weight, and doing 5-10 reps per set. For example,
1A. Pause Dumbbell Bench Press – 3-5 second pause, 3 sets of 8 reps
1B. Band Pull-Apart – 3 sets of 15-25 reps
Wrapping Up
Lifting weights doesn’t tickle; you want to get the most bang for your buck to achieve the desired results and look. These three methods will go a long way toward achieving your weight room and vanity goals.
Now flex like you mean it.
If you need a little kick-start, putting these into your workouts, contact me here.
Leave a Reply