tempo of reps for strength/size

[ged]

how long is a good time for a rep when building muscle and strength?
im guessing it depends on the range of motion, eg doing squats compared to calf raises.

it seems like the longer i take, the more it 'burns' compared to my muscles just giving out. taking off weight and doing slower reps seems to make me less of a man, but i'm willing to make sacrifices.

sevenstar, if youre reading this, i'm particularly interested on how long you hold reps for - if i remember right, you've definitely achieved size and strength.

[SevenStar]

I don't really pay attention to it, I just keep a natural, controlled ascent and descent. What I do do, however, is pause at the end of the movement, to give my muscles the chance to lose any remaining elasticity, that way I am using my strength to lift the weight, not momentum, if that makes sense. If I remember right, it takes approx 4 secs for that to happen, so at the end of the movement I pause for 4 secs, then do another rep.

Also though, I have a mesomorphic body type - I can pretty much look at a weight and get bigger, so you may wanna ask one of the little guys, like Ironfist, (sorry bud, had to mess with ya :) ) and see what he says.

[inic]

i only use weights for my biceps and shoulders, so i dont have tons of experience with wieghts. but all my reps are 4 secs... 2 sec down, stop at the full range, 2 secs back to starting.

[SevenStar]

Why only those 2 body parts? IMO, those are the two that actually don't really need it, for MA... the shoulders get an excellent workout through punching - hitting a bag is perfect, and the biceps are hit by some many of the exercises that there is no need to focus on them. They are mainly a vanity thing anyway. That being said, I use weights for my whole body, including those two areas. If I only worked two areas though, my two would be the legs and back.

[IronFist]

Originally posted by SevenStar
Also though, I have a mesomorphic body type - I can pretty much look at a weight and get bigger, so you may wanna ask one of the little guys, like Ironfist, (sorry bud, had to mess with ya :) ) and see what he says.

Haha :D It's cool dude.

Alright, to answer the question, uh... I don't have any hard facts for you because I've never really looked into it, but here are some pointers:

Do not use fast, uncontrolled reps (ie. "bouncing")
Do not use fast, controlled reps, unless you totally know what you're doing and why you're doing it.
Do not use super slow, HIT, or any other crap where you take like 30 seconds to lower your bench press.

So, that being said, probably keep each contraction (ie. raising and lowering of the weight) to between 2-4 seconds.

ged, remember that the "burn" you feel is not proprotional to how much growth you will get. So, while you will most likely feel SOMETHING with an effective workout, do not think that you have to totally torture yourself in order to have an effective workout.

Remember, if you want to gain size, nothing is as important as eating enough.

IronFist

[ged]

thanks guys, got it.

i think i'll aim for about 2-3 seconds down, the same up, with a pause at the bottom and top.

good news about the not having to torture myself thingy... i can forget about 10 second reps for bicep curls doing the negative part only.

[IronFist]

You can forget about going to failure, too, if you want :D Just stop a rep or two before failure and you'll get the same effect.

IronFist

[PLCrane]

I was told that it's better to do the concentric contraction part of the lift a little faster and the eccentric contraction portion slower. On a bench press, that would be faster up than down, and on a lat pull-down it would be faster pulling down than letting up, on a pull up it would be faster pulling up than letting down. Can't remember if I was told why.

IronFist - why not 30 seconds? Am I wasting my time when I do a 1-minute pushup, or am I needlessly torturing the young men in class?

[The Willow Sword]

it has made all the difference.

what IS reverse resistance weight training?

with free weights you are either slowly bringing the weight towrds you or away from you.

with the pulley weights, whatever the resistance is at either pulling towrds you or pushing away you will resist the return. it is slower and guys waiting to use the machine next will hate you for it. but while they are pumping away damaging themselves you will be gaining real hard strength.

i encourage all of you to try it. you will feel the burn more so and will build stronger muscle.
i do 3 sets of however many reps it takes to get to failure, i rest about two to three minutes in between and then start again.

if any of you try this method..let me know how it works for you.

MRTWS

[SevenStar]

Originally posted by PLCrane


IronFist - why not 30 seconds? Am I wasting my time when I do a 1-minute pushup, or am I needlessly torturing the young men in class?

Functionality. If you do a one minute pushup, what purpose is it serving you, other than a little mental toughness? you want to train your body to be explosive. you want to do the explosive movements so that your body is used to them. super slow bench pressing is cool if you are gonna push furniture all day, but for something like fighting, you need explosivity.

As a punishment or something, a 1 min pushup is cool, but I wouldn't have it as a normal part of the workout. also, I think ( I could be wrong though) that a 1 min push up is more of a muscular endurance feat than a muscular strength feat.

[ged]

willow sword - im not fully with you on the description. is that doing the negative part of the rep really slowly? what about the first part, do you do that quickly, or get someone to help you?

sevenstar, your comments tie in with a thread i wanted to start about what a personal trainer in the gym told me. he's huge, and won a junior Australian bodybuilding title when he was young. he told me to do my reps fast, to activate and build fast twitch muscles which grow bigger than slow twitch. id always thought that fast twitch was activated by the number of reps, ie cycling for half an hour uses slow twitch but doing a set of weights for 60 seconds uses fast twitch. but your post seems to agree with him, which disagrees with a bodybuilding teacher from my school and an instructor at kung fu... meh, im confused.

but then there's the other advantage of slow reps, ie you gain power throughout the range of motion, as you're not relying on momentum for the last half of the rep. that would be useful for punching, if your arm doesn't start from the position it's at at the beginning of a bench press. if that makes sense.

[SevenStar]

Originally posted by ged
willow sword - im not fully with you on the description. is that doing the negative part of the rep really slowly? what about the first part, do you do that quickly, or get someone to help you?

sevenstar, your comments tie in with a thread i wanted to start about what a personal trainer in the gym told me. he's huge, and won a junior Australian bodybuilding title when he was young. he told me to do my reps fast, to activate and build fast twitch muscles which grow bigger than slow twitch. id always thought that fast twitch was activated by the number of reps, ie cycling for half an hour uses slow twitch but doing a set of weights for 60 seconds uses fast twitch. but your post seems to agree with him, which disagrees with a bodybuilding teacher from my school and an instructor at kung fu... meh, im confused.

he told you to do your reps fast because explosiveness is a characteristic of fast twitch fibers. fast twitch are like "power fibers" they fatigue easy, but are used for rapid force development. Slow twitch fibers are endurance fibers.

but then there's the other advantage of slow reps, ie you gain power throughout the range of motion, as you're not relying on momentum for the last half of the rep. that would be useful for punching, if your arm doesn't start from the position it's at at the beginning of a bench press. if that makes sense.

it does make sense. However, it only takes about 4 seconds for a muscle to lose its elasticity, so there is no need for something like a 30 second negative rep.

[ged]

thanks again sevenstar.