Fast or Slow Reps for Muscle Growth? | Lifting Tempo | Fundamental Series Ep 6

i never thought fitness industry is gonna be this complicated 😂

Thanks Jeff. Videos are and have always been extremely informative while still being easy to follow.

Very interesting...personally I think a brief pause, maybe half a second, during the amortization phase at the top and bottom of most movements can dramatically lower joint and connective tissue fatigue. So I think my generic go to is something like 2 : 0.5 : 1 : 0.5

thanks for knowledgeable lesson

I can say he's the only person I take advice for gym coaching. It is because he is science and research based, and being a natural body builder. Thank you putting all of that! I personally have benefited a lot from his programs and guidance.

I do a super slow workout once or twice a month to throw my body a change up. It usually helps me overcome plateaus.

Thank you bro

If you have a proper adequate load on your exercise, super slow temp is much better for safety and hypertrophy. 1sec up and down is training more for explosion and athletic. To train like this you would have to do lots of reps and sets to even come close to those type 2 fibers. So is you want to train like a athlete listen to this youngster. If you want to lift well into your 60+ look up Dr Doug McGuff or Body By Science

Great video, very informative!

So if you have access to lighter weights you get similar results with higher tut?

fast concentric = power. slow eccentric: hypertrophy

Great explanation, very informative 🔥

HIT recommend tempo of 10 sec both concentric and eccentric.
Different claim here... 😂 I’m always confused

I guess those nutrition videos are never coming, then, huh... But in all seriousness, great series. Watched a few years ago, and just gave it a quick rewatch on 1.5x speed.

You're a star

There are no problems at work because of your lifestyle???

So basically aslong your muscles are under tension for certain ammount time doesn't matter how fast you do the reps aslong as form is good

I have been at the gym for about 5 months and never really used tempo. Yesterday I was working on back and bicep but didn’t really feel it in my back as much wasn’t sure why at first but seen the 4020 rule for building muscle does the rule apply to all muscles group. Also if I start this today would it be best to lower the weight and reps ?

So what’s the answer?

You 🎉 are really well educated

4 : 0 4 : 0 might be best for preventing injury. Force = mass x acceleration. So if your going slow you have less acceleration and less force on your joints. Thanks for the informative video 🙂🤙

when next part

Safety/Form: It is correct that proper form involves control of the resistance through the entire range of motion. However, proper form is not necessarily a full range of motion, and there are reasons to specifically avoid certain ranges of motion (for both safety and efficiency). Safety is really about one thing: minimizing the force involved. Excess force causes injury, but we don't know what that threshold is until we exceed it, which is too late.

As for repetition cadence as relates to only increasing muscular size/strength, it doesn't really matter. Stimulus for adaptation in size/strength is based on overload, meaning placing an increased demand on the target musculature. In practice, this is a matter of performing strength training activities to a high degree of intensity (muscular output relative to maximum possible muscular output at a given time). When strength training activities are taken to the same level of intensity and controlled for equal Time Under Load (this is important!), the results are pretty much the same. The "super slow" repetitions that take 10 seconds or longer (which is really a moderate cadence, not a notably slow one) are not worse for size/strength. The studies done that come to such conclusions make the mistake of comparing cadences based on mechanical work (number of repetitions) rather than Time Under Load, but the ones that standardize on Time Under Load find no appreciable difference. The misunderstanding of mechanical work is a common one, and we'll see this lack of physics knowledge come up again.

As for cadence notation, those of us who have used notations as such don't quite write it that way or with those categorizations. The four phases of a repetition are (in order used in cadence notation): lifting (concentric), transition from lifting to lowering, lowering (eccentric), and transition from lowering to lifting. Understanding these phases is important, as the proper execution of a repetition has specific considerations for all of those phases for every strength training activity.

As for "specific goals," there is only one goal: to increase muscular strength. "Power" is an invalid goal, because muscles do not produce mechanical power, they produce force. There is no such thing as "explosive force", there is just force. Speed of movement is a byproduct of the force applied and the amount of mass, so someone can be "exploding" (contracting as hard as possible) with very slow movement. It is a common mistake for people to attempt to use mechanical work/power as metrics of muscular output. This comes from a lack of understanding of physics, which is (unfortunately) very common in the exercise industry. This is reinforced when he says "eliminate momentum." Whenever an object (mass) is in motion, it has momentum, so it cannot be eliminated.

Much of what he is saying is based on the mistaken approach of assuming that the goal of strength training is to lift the weight. Nearly everyone makes this mistake, in assuming the goal is to do something to the weight with your muscles - that is demonstration of strength/fitness. Development of strength/fitness is doing something to your muscles with the weight.

So what should people actually do?

When I instruct people on performing repetitions, I advocate a general cadence of no faster than 4 seconds lifting, 4 seconds lowering, and 2 seconds in transition from lowering to lifting (this phase of a repetition has the greatest risk for injury due to the physics and physiology of that portion of the activity). It is common for people performing proper strength training to use cadences anywhere from 4-10 seconds each for lifting and lowering. These cadences don't make the training more effective though, but that is only one of the criteria of proper strength training. Proper strength training also aims to maximize efficiency and safety , and these criteria are where proper cadences make significant differences.

What a great video. I gonna break this down in a video! I hope you will like it. + 1 sub ❤️❤❤

Top stuff Jeff, thank you

This series has been amazing. I'm trying to get more serious about my lifting and this has been helpful. I'm definitely going to be purchasing your program. Thank you

amazing series ill be waiting for the nutrition parts.... for the next 10 years or so.

Thank you for making these videos!

Eccentric:Bottom:Concentric:Top

Gym is hard man 😭

Is there any truth to the idea of controlling the negative?

What about the fact that you build muscle in the negative?

Great series, but what about the fundamentals nutrition video?

Hmmmm.
Unsure of the 0.5 tempo yeilding the same results as 8 seconds time under tension, has been explained properly. I think there are a few hidden narratives that need explaining that underpin this. For example, you couldnt do an 8 second rep with a weight over 60% of a one rep max, so this is misleading info...
8 second reps must be done with weights below 60%. Then, the lighter weight with time under tension lets you get hypertrophic gains equivalent to doing far heavier weights at less time under tension. What you have not mentioned is it wouldnt be the same weight at 0.5 seconds compared to 8 seconds under tension. The whole point of time under tension is getting the SAME results with far less sets as someone doing loads of sets with a much heavier weight.
Go check out Jay Vincent.
And yes, metabolic stress does drive hypertrophy, or it is a driver. That concept needed to be explained in more detail, as could be misleading to your audience. Again, you would not be using the same weight for the range of tempos.

Can you comment on the role of slower eccentrics in tendon recovery? I know there are some tendinitis recovery modalities involving 5 to 7 second eccentrics (for medial epicondylitis, for example). Do you know if any evidence that 5:0:1/X:0 could be good for hypertrophy AND kinder for the tendons?

I've sort of theorized that the longer eccentrics allow for some loading while controlling for too much loading or stress from the SSC.

Tempos are everything. You have never truly worked if you have never tried a 4-1-2-1 tempo. Using tempos definitely activates the muscles and muscle mind connection bringing about growth very easily

The nutrition video is not on this playlist

Love it.. thx man

Oh no he's turned into Jeff Cavalier

This fundamental series has been super helpful for me as somewhat of a beginner. You always give credible information in such a clear way.

This Series 🙌🙌🙌

Jeff, I appreciate all your efforts and sharing your knowledge and research! This series its been extremely helpful in many ways. Thanks!!

DwaaaaaaA 🧀

Hey Jeff!
In a 3012 squat, do seconds at the “easy end” (in this case the 2 where you catch your breath) of the movement counts as rest or as tension? I’m having a debate about this. Thanks!

thank you so much for this series, certainly the most importart fitness videos i've seen

I don’t comment often but I wanted to definitely thank you for this series. This distilled understanding you are teaching is perfect. Digestible and effective. I know what I am doing now going into the gym with a plan. Thank you.

He’s better than my exercise physiologist!!!!

Oh so the series is not finished yet? Damn ;-;

Jay Vincent has left the chat