Why tempo training? What’s the benefit and science behind it?”

Simply put, Tempo training refers to how fast your perform an exercise. A tempo exercise is written as four numbers (ex: @2121), and each number refers to a different segments of the movement. 

• The first number refers to the eccentric phase or lowering portion—the lengthening of the muscle. 

• The second number refers to the isometric pause at the bottom of the exercise—the hold after the muscle has lengthened.

• The third number refers to the concentric phase or raising portion—the shortening of the muscle.

• The fourth and final number refers to the isometric pause at the top of the exercise—the hold once it is complete.

What does this actually look like?

Back Squat with the tempo @4210 is 4 seconds lowering, 2 seconds pause at the bottom, 1 second raising, 0 seconds pause at the top.

So why do we do it the way we do?

Firstly, we have eccentric exercises. The eccentric phase, involves a slow lowering, this should take around five seconds. It needs to be long enough that you’re not letting gravity pull you down, but you are controlling the descent. You are managing how fast you’re going down.

Eccentric exercise is important for strength gains because of a process called sarcomere popping.

Think of the individual elements within your muscle fibers as hooks and ropes, like Velcro. As you pull them apart, they can reattach along the muscle length. This creates significant muscle damage, which is beneficial for creating a stimulus to become stronger. The body adapts and responds by replenishing that muscle, making you stronger. Eccentric exercise not only increases strength but also improve the range over which you can become stronger.

To understand this, you need to grasp the relationship between muscle length and strength. When a muscle is very short, it can’t generate much power. When it is long, it also can’t generate much power. There’s a sweet spot in the middle where you can optimise strength and power production. This is where the muscle fibers overlap enough to generate significant force.

Eccentric exercises help widen this strength curve, which is like an inverted U. At the extremes (too short or too long), power generation is low, but in the middle, it’s optimal. Eccentric exercises flatten this curve, allowing for greater strength development at the extremes of the range. For example, in an overhead position, many people are weak not because of a lack of pressing strength but because their shoulders are tight. This puts them on the descending arm of the curve, where they can’t generate much force. Eccentric exercises increase the range over which you can generate force, allowing you to apply your strength more effectively.

For eccentric exercises, I recommend a five-second lower. This should be long enough to ensure you are controlling the descent and not relying on gravity.

Next, we have a pause at the bottom. My recommendation is a three-second pause. This dissipates the elastic energy, or bounce, which can be beneficial in activities like Olympic weightlifting. The ability to store energy in the muscles has a half-life of one second. If you squat and pause for a second, you retain 50% of the elastic energy. Pausing for two seconds reduces this to 25%. Research shows that a three-second pause dissipates all elastic energy, so you must stand up purely under your own muscle strength. Using a timer for this pause is crucial, as counting in your head can be inaccurate under load.

So to conclude for tempo based movements, a five-second eccentric, a three-second pause, and two second concentric is ideal.

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