Keeping them as a heavy, explosive set will be great for our power and improving our strength, but the actual time under tension will be rather brief, even too brief to experience maximal muscle growth. So, we slow down the tempo on the eccentric contraction to increase the TUT.
Try using a 5 second tempo on the eccentric contraction, pause for 1 second at the top and bottom of the lift, and explode on the concentric contraction.
Note: All changes to cadence or tempo will be made to the eccentric contraction. The concentric contraction (push in a bench press, military press, and the pull in a pull-up) will always be at a full speed – as fast as humanly possible.
Middle 10-12 reps
This is the “hypertrophy” rep count I talked about earlier, and it’s definitely a necessary aspect to a complete routine.
Cadence options to increase hypertrophy:
You can apply the cadence we talked about in the 4-8 rep range to this rep range for an awesome – and painful set. You can also drop that eccentric cadence down to 2-3 seconds. This will allow you to increase the amount of weight you’re lifting for the higher reps.
High 20-100 reps
These extremely high rep counts are often left out of muscle building programs because they’re seen as strictly endurance sets. But a high rep set or two at the end of a workout – a burnout of sorts – is a great way to accomplish maximal hypertrophy.
Do 50-100 reps of an exercise like the lateral raise, or a rear delt fly (machine) is a great way to end a workout, bringing much more blood flow and creating greater muscle damage to end your training session.
Cadence options to increase hypertrophy:
Keep these higher repetition sets at full speed. But maintain your control over the weight. The focus will be almost exclusively on the concentric contraction, with the eccentric contraction being the “reset” back to the starting position.
Create Maximal Muscle Growth with CHF
Changes to in tempo to the eccentric contraction of our exercises have been shown to help us break through plateaus. By adding each of these rep ranges, but also the different cadences to each range, we’re ensuring not only maximal muscle growth, but muscle growth over an extended period of time.
We use different tempos to help experience sustained growth in the PowerHowse Challenge. But if you’re looking for a more hands-on, focused approach, one that will help you break through your own training and nutritional – as well as personal – barriers, I’m opening up my online coaching program for the next week, and filling the 3 available spots. It’s $200/month for me to be your personal online training coach. If you’re interested in becoming a client of mine, click here and apply.
