+ 2 Time under tension training
Hello everyone!!! Been here over two years now and never created a forum and decided now is the time. I recently viewed my boi Cronus and his most recent pic. He made a reference that he only trains with time under tension. I've really been thinking about this concept and wondering about personal experience regarding this ideal. Today was leg day and decided to give it a try. Wow what a totally different workout it was ...lower weights and the breathing was odd. I've used this technique in the middle of a set or at the end and on the last reps of a set but never for a whole workout. I'm very interested in this and like to here what the communities opinions are.
When the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the fear of change, then and only then am I willing to try something different !!!
Thanks and happy holidays to everyone.
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https://www.eroids.com/forum/training-nutrition-diet/workout-exercise/re...
Excellent read. Do you do the same exercises for a length of time or constantly do different exercises. ???Noticed you said you have your heavier weeks and higher volume weeks.
Intresting read ! thanks for sharing brother !
AnonWhile you can dig researches and debates on how TUT is horrible and just down right wrong in a way of lifting you can't argue what your body says. Mine says "grow". It takes time, effort, constant days of pushing the mind and body to the max but TUT and high volume works for me. I can make 10 pounds feel like 80. Can I lift both? Yes but my mind muscle connection is beyond crazy good. Both ways I train make you slow down and focus. More of a pump factor than just strength or lifting it to lift. When you volumetricly train and incorporate TUT your working different fibers and muscles you don't hit on the regular. A lot of stabilizer muscles are targeted. While many find it hard to do TUT because you think "okay 4 seconds up 4 seconds down" while that is what commonly is done you will fail at that approach starting of by trying to count your seconds and concentrate on the reps at hand. Concentrate more on keeping control and slowly moving the weight. Then your mind and muscle will connect over time and BAM! you'll be doing the whole 4 seconds up 4 seconds down. I don't have scientific proof this works. I don't have debates written to help my case. I don't have pages upon pages ready to rebuttal someone but what I do have is my body. And when I'm asked how I train I say exactly what I posted. Volume and TUT. Your body speaks a thousand words without you needing to say it. What's impressive to me is the intensity! Whether you lift 20's or 100's it's how you lift that shit that will make or break your body. And when I mean brake I mean you'll be that lame ass people say "god he's been lifting for 3 years or 11 months and still looks the same" Don't be that.
Well Cronus I just did my first full tut workout. Today was chest and finished with some tris. Totally different feel to everything. Lifted lighter weights for 8-10 reps , 4 seconds up and 4 down. 4 sets of 10 dumbell press, 4 sets of 8 dips, seated upright machine flys 4 sets of 10( really started to get fatigued at this point). Felt much weaker than normal doing these. Almost twiching and skaking as I touched hands together. Then standing cable flys in an incline position. Only cud get 3 sets of 10. I usually do 5 sets of each exercise and do incline press on the barbell or dumbell which I didn't do. I felt much more muscle fatigue at the end of this. It seems like I got a better workout controling less weight and doing less excercises. Needless to say it only took an hour to complete this compared to 1 1/2 hrs. Ohh and the pump was almost a different kind of pump. It was a sustained long lasting pump that didn't disappear between exercises. I was thinking to myself how much more weight I actually lifted as apposed to just doing a regular sets. It seems this could be a hidden gem here. Faster workouts avoiding catabolizim but actually lifting for a longer time during the time under tension. Less time in gym = keeping momma happy. The breathing did take a second to master but it wasn't too bad. I'm very pumped about this new to me concept and look forward to continuing it to see where it'll take me. Thanks bro for the help.
Well said brother. Straight to the point. Thanks for stopping by
I dont have scientific proof, but i grow the most from destroying every possible muscle fiber. Slow negatives. Fast concentrics. Mix it up with high reps to push blood. There is no secret. Just destroy and rebuild. Eat.
great info
First off, everyone is training under "Time under tension", haha, how else would you move the weight?
But I guess you mean moving the weight in a slow and controlled fashion. Let me get deeper into why "TUT" isn't the way to go.
There are 3 main drivers for muscular hypertrophy;
Mechanical tension
Metabolic stress
Muscle damage
Muscles don’t just respond to tension. They respond to tension, metabolic stress, and damage. A sweet-spot of these factors likely exists that maximizes hypertrophy, and the ideal combination might differ between individuals.
This is what the master of Hypertrophy "Brad Schoenfeld" says;
If someone like, I'll post the references in a seperate post.
That being said. 4 seconds is still not really slow and further I think it has some advantages to it. Most people just hammer out the weights, without having control and a mindmuscle connection. Of course, you will always hit the muscle with specific movements, but do you hit it to it's full potential? Do you hit it the same way every single rep. Probably not. And this is where the advantage lays. Many trainees will optimize their form by implementing a slower repition movement, by that having more quality reps leading to a higher hypertrophic response.
With that in mind, we should rather call and focus on "time under load" which in the end means how much volume we're actually doing, our form and the quality of our sets.
Hope this sums it up :-)
Thanks for bringing up Schoenfeld. I need to read some more of his stuff.
What it boils down to is maximum time under tension. The maximum part being the maximum weight you can use for a given duration. There is an optimum duration. Under or over that duration and you will not maximize hypertrophy. I believe this is what Schoenfield is alluding to in what you have posted above. There is basically a threshold were the weight is to light to provide maximum TUT and where it is to heavy for maximum TUT and thus limiting hypertrophy. From what I have been able to gather and read is that the duration of time under tension that appears to produce maximum hypertrophy is the window between 40 and 70 seconds. Outside of that window and the weight is likely to light or to heavy. I will try to dig up the studies so you can review them.
So in order to hit that 40-70 sec TUT interval I like to focus around 8 reps with a 4010 tempo which puts me in that 40 sec window. That window has to take place with the maximal amount of weight so failure should be occurring on or around that eighth rep. Now take a look at most of the guys you see lifting in the gym. They will crank out 8 reps of say bench with more of a 1010 tempo so there TUT is only 15-20 seconds which is well outside the window of TUT hypertrophy. Just to be clear resting the bar on your chest or locking your arms out does not count towards time under tension so it may take these guys a minute to complete their set but only 15 seconds of that set was actually TUT and the remainder is spent with the muscles in a deloaded phase either resting the bar on their chest or with arms locked out. (I guess their tempo is more of a 1313 tempo with most of the set spent resting the weight). smh
Rest factors come into play here also. If I am going for that 40 sec TUT goal I will limit my rest between sets to no longer than 45 sec. If it is a smaller muscle like biceps that rest may only be 30 sec. If I am training in the higher end of the window, 70 seconds, I will rest for a minute between sets. I haven't really come across any studies saying this is how to do it but it only seems logical to me to do it this way because the muscle are put under greater TUT and therefore likely need a longer rest period compared to a 40 sec TUT.
It is pretty clear that there is a lot more to inducing maximum hypertrophy than just moving a weight from point a to point b.
Makwa, I actually went from the sofa to the pc to reply, because I really like where this conversation is going ;-)
Brad is really a guy to follow! He does so many studies which are interesting for our field.
Getting back to the topic;
Well, still need to remember that total volume plays a huge role as well. A study Brad did as well, showing that there's no significant difference in hypertophy in doing for example 3x10 or 10x3 and still, there kind of is, because time is an important factor here as well. In the time we're able to do 3x10, we can do couple of more exercises while we would still be busy with the 10x3, which would end with a much higher moved load in the same time frame.
But there are still some questions left, like for example long term influence on different muscle fibers. Will it still have the same hypertrophic response? And that's the issue with many studies, they don't show long time development and differences.
I rather focus on "Time under load" then "TUT". The overall volume done is more important. How long you'll take to do it, will then be up to you. Ie. short time in a session, split into 2 sessions a day, or even split across the week. Recent studies have even shown that a higher training frequency could yield more hypertrophic responses with the volume being the same, but spread over the course of the week. (But this could also be due to a change in the routine)
Anyway, we're getting off topic here, just wanted to get into what you were refering too but because of the stuff shown above
So, I kind of agree with you and kind of don't. I think, if the lifter is getting a decent lifting routine and focuses on form, it'll fall into place and the things we're saying. Ie. enough volume to achieve a hypertrophic stimulus and falling into a range where the lifter is under a longer "TUT".
In the end I think your approach is a good one. Especially for newer lifters who don't really know how good form looks and feels like. With a slower approach of lifting, you're really focusing on aspects which are more important in the end. I'll rather see 8 quality reps with 100lbs then 10 with 120 from which everyone looks differently. It's common sense which would end in a better outcome in the long rung.
And again I kind of agree and kind of disagree. If we only look at the hypertrophic response, it seems that longer rest periods inbetween the sets yield to a more hypertrophy but that doesn't mean short rest periods don't serve their purpose. I think they are actually quite beneficial because "Time" is a form of progressive overload as well. If you're able to complete an exercise in a shorter duration, you'll definitely have improved over the last session. Further there are different methods which cause different stimulus on muscle fibers, like for example rest pause/myo rep system which serve a totally different purpose then usual set&rep schemes. Getting back to what I talked about above, the usual athletes simply don't have the time to spent the whole day training, so stuff like shorter rest periods, 10x3 and all those methods do definitely have it's place. In the end, every routine, method, set&reps scheme work to a certain degree and everyone needs to find the method which fits his goals and needs the most. We can always debate about whats most optimal but then we simply forget about the fact that everyone's different as well. I think, this all is something, people who simply want to get "fitter" don't need to stress about, hell even people who are intermediate doesn't really need to think about it.
Like you mention, there's so much more for inducing maximum hypertrophy and people can absolutely overthink it. Actually, I wouldn't have gotten so much into detail if it weren't for you. I saw your topics and that you're interested in stuff like this as well and I like the thought meeting someone here who might be that much into it as I am.
If you like, I could sent you 3 studies. 1 about the rep/set schemes and 2 about the rest periods. I didn't want to post it here, because it could pop up on google. Just let me know :-)
BTW. +1 for this discussion ;-)
There is so much that goes into maximizing hypertrophy. TUT and load are just 2 of the multitude of variables (albeit very important) that can help take one to next level instead of just blindly focusing on getting the weight from point a to point b without thought to form, range of motion, muscle initiation etc. Maximizing tension isn't going to mean much if you aren't initiating with the working muscle or controlling the weight through the complete range of motion.
Now we also have to get into the discussion of the makeup a persons body has with regard to slow and fast twitch muscle fibers. This is going to have a big impact on the optimum TUT, loads, rep ranges, rest periods etc because different muscle fibers respond better under various schemes. I think that is why is generally good practice to vary rep schemes, loads, TUT to make sure all those fibers are hit and people are going to respond better to different schemes becasue they may have a preponderance of 1 type of fiber over the other. That is where we are all different and need to determine what is going to work best for me or you. Trial and error is the name of the game here. Essentially all of this is a moot point though if one isn't incorporating some type of progressive overload in there workout.
Wow bud this is very interesting!!!! Thank you
Pretty much what most of my training is centered around. 4+ second eccentrics are pretty much the norm for me nowadays.
https://www.eroids.com/forum/training-nutrition-diet/workout-exercise/ma...
Exactly what I'm looking for Mak. Pleasure to have you stop by and spread your knowledge. So eccentrics are negatives rite. Is tension during positives just as important?
Eccentric would be the negative. The positive is an important part. I don't really want to say the eccentric is more important than the concentric but I think you will be short changing your workout moreso by not maximizing the TUT during the eccentric. Remember the equation Force = mass x acceleration. Explode through that concentric portion of the rep to create the greatest amount of force which will help with growth. Now that is a generalization, since there are cases where you may want to slow the concentric down, but as a general rule explode through it in a controlled fashion, no rest at the top and then lower under control, no rest at bottom repeat.
Dc training emphasizes slowing down the negative and says explode on the positive along with rest pause for longer tut and then hard deep static stretches