What is Tempo Training

Tempo is part of any strength coaches vernacular, however a lot of general trainees or gym going enthusiasts may not know what it is or how it should be applied to a resistance training movement.

So what is a tempo? It is when we alter the speed at which we perform a movement pattern. In order to alter the speed or cadence of a movement we need to break the movement into four different parts.

1 - Eccentric (lengthening of the muscle)

2 - Isometric (between eccentric and concentric)

3 - Concentric (shortening of the muscle)

4 - Isometric (top)

This allows us to apply a different cadence to all different parts of the movement. Tempo is written as four numbers that represent the number of seconds spent in each phase of the movement, for example 30X1. The concentric portion of the movement is written as X as it is performed at speed. Do not let this confuse you, it just means perform the concentric portion of the movement at the traditional pace.

If we were to apply this tempo to the squat movement pattern then it would mean the eccentric (downward) phase would last 3 seconds, the bottom of the squat would have no pause, the concentric phase would be performed at speed and there would be a natural 1 second pause at the top before performing the next repetition. Once we understand how to use tempo in our training we can apply it to any movement pattern, including the squat.

How Does Tempo Training Influence The Bench Press and Adaptation

Currently the science behind tempo training is inconclusive, this can be seen in this meta analysis (1). What we can take away from this is that tempo training can be effective for strength and hypertrophy, but it is not the be all and end all of resistance training. This means that tempo training should be used in your resistance training sessions, but it should be seen as a supplement to normal high velocity strength training, which is also crucial for progress.

Why You Should Be Using The Tempo Bench Press

Strength Adaptations

Using pauses is an amazing way to work on strength adaptations, it potentially has an impact on neuromuscular activity (2), which means that it is very effective for strength training adaptations. A pause is performed traditionally between the eccentric and concentric phase, so in the bench press this would be when the bar is at the chest. I love using pause cycles in my bench press programmes personally and for those of my clients, they are an excellent variation to typical bench pressing.

Hypertrophy

A tempo for hypertrophy (muscle gain) would typically put emphasis on increasing time under tension to therefore increase muscle gain, this is done through increasing the time spent on the eccentric contraction. The eccentric contraction is the downward phase of the bench press when the muscle fibres are lengthening. Adding a difficult tempo here can make the bench press substantially more difficult so make sure that you are not adding too much weight when attempting this kind of tempo.

Novelty / Variation

Resistance training is a very long process. When we write training programmes it is crucial to take novelty and variation into consideration. Training needs to be fun and novel otherwise it can feel stagnant and mundane, especially if you have been training for a long time. Tempos and pauses offer us excellent ways to add variation to training programmes to make them feel more novel, this can in turn increase motivation and encourage consistency.

Breaking Plateaus

It is perfectly normal to reach a plateau on your bench press, and using tempo training can be a great way to change the stimulus sightly to help break through these plateaus. Tempo training can help you break out of a rut in your training just by allowing you to use a different method and move away from the potential frustration of your plateau. If you have a long term plateau, consider reading my article on break a bench press plateau .

Practical Examples of Tempo Bench Press

Pause Bench Press

The pause bench press usually involves anything from a 1-3 second pause at the chest. Typically written as such:

Tempo - 13X1

Breakdown:

1 - normal eccentric

3 - three second pause between eccentric and concentric

X - fast on the concentric

1 - slight pause before the next repetition

These would typically be performed for between 1-6 repetitions, they are much more associated with strength training (low repetitions) than hypertrophy training (high repetitions).

Eccentric Bench Press

The eccentric bench press would traditionally involve increasing the eccentric phase to between 2-5 seconds therefore increasing the time under tension. Here is an example of an eccentric bench press:

Tempo - 40X1

Breakdown

4 - four seconds on the eccentric phase

0 - no pause at the chest

X - fast concentric contraction

1 - slight pause between repetitions.

Typically this would be performed with relatively light weights, around 50-60 percent of your 1RM bench press, for a high number of repetitions.

References