Weight Lifting Tempo in Your Workouts Menu Verywell Fit Nutrition Weight Management Nutrition Facts Nutrition Basics Diets Meal Plans Meal Delivery Services View All News Fitness and Nutrition What to Buy How We Test Products Fitness Gear Nutrition Products Tools Recipe Nutrition Calculator Weight Loss Calorie Goal BMI Calculator Body Fat Percentage Calculator Calories Burned by Activity Daily Calories Burned Pace Calculator About Us Editorial Process Meet Our Review Board Search Strength Beginners Weight Lifting Tempo in Your Workouts By Paul Rogers Paul Rogers Paul Rogers is a personal trainer with experience in a wide range of sports, including track, triathlon, marathon, hockey, tennis, and baseball. Learn about our editorial process Updated on August 28, 2020 Reviewed Verywell Fit articles are reviewed by nutrition and exercise professionals. Reviewers confirm the content is thorough and accurate, reflecting the latest evidence-based research. Content is reviewed before publication and upon substantial updates. Learn more. by Tara Laferrara, CPT Reviewed by Tara Laferrara, CPT Tara Laferrara is a certified NASM personal trainer, yoga teacher, and fitness coach. She also created her own online training program, the TL Method. Learn about our Review Board Print nojustice/Getty Images Tempo in weight training is the rhythm at which you move a weight, including the rest time at the top of the lift and at the return of the weight to the starting position. For example, some training might involve explosive lifting at a rapid rate, while others may have a slower pace. Overview If you are new to weight training, seeing results from your well-designed program is relatively easy when you are consistent and stick to it. After you've been training for a while, your gains will become less apparent, and you may even cease seeing results. This is often referred to as a "plateau." This is a normal part of weight training, and one of the solutions can be found in tempo. Adjusting tempo allows you to vary your training for better results. Weightlifting Tempo Weightlifting at a quicker tempo builds speed, strength, and power, but produces less muscle tension overall so your muscle size won't increase dramatically. At a slower tempo, there is higher tension in the muscle, which is key to building bigger muscle size (hypertrophy). Tempo has a specific numeric scheme to describe the different phases. For example, 3011 would mean: The First Number "3" is the time in seconds to lower the weight after you've reached the top of the lift. This is the eccentric or negative phase (lowering the weight), which is opposite to the direction of muscle contraction. The Second Number "0" is the pause between the eccentric and the concentric phases of the exercise. For the curl, this would be when the weight as at its lowered position. The Third Number The third number is the time in seconds for the concentric (lifting the weight) or contraction phase of the lift. In the example, "1" means an explosive lift, which is also sometimes represented with an "X." In an arm curl, this would be lifting of the dumbbell, for example. The Fourth Number "1" is the duration of the pause at the top of the lift, or when you have bent the elbow and lifted the dumbbell to the highest point in an arm curl. This number is sometimes left out. Depending on the exercise, this pause is important for muscle building because tension is held during the pause. For example, in the lateral raise, the deltoid muscles are fully contracted at this point, so holding the tension longer can produce improved hypertrophic results. Why Lifting Heavy Is the Key to Weight Loss Many schemes are possible, depending on the particular brand of weight training you might be using. Slow tempo training, for example, might use a three-second lift rather than an explosive lift. For the novice and general fitness training, you could use 3331 or even 3631. Remember that the first number is the eccentric movement of returning the weight to the starting position while lengthening the muscle and increasing the joint angle. 5 Sources Verywell Fit uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy. Maffiuletti NA, Aagaard P, Blazevich AJ, Folland J, Tillin N, Duchateau J. Rate of force development: physiological and methodological considerations. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2016;116(6):1091-116. doi:10.1007/s00421-016-3346-6 Schoenfeld BJ, Contreras B, Krieger J, et al. Resistance Training Volume Enhances Muscle Hypertrophy but Not Strength in Trained Men. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2019;51(1):94-103. doi:10.1249/MSS.0000000000001764 Burd NA, Andrews RJ, West DW, et al. Muscle time under tension during resistance exercise stimulates differential muscle protein sub-fractional synthetic responses in men. J Physiol (Lond). 2012;590(2):351-62. doi:10.1113/jphysiol.2011.221200 Wilk M, Golas A, Krzysztofik M, Nawrocka M, Zajac A. The Effects of Eccentric Cadence on Power and Velocity of the Bar during the Concentric Phase of the Bench Press Movement. J Sports Sci Med. 2019;18(2):191-197. Franchi MV, Reeves ND, Narici MV. Skeletal Muscle Remodeling in Response to Eccentric vs. Concentric Loading: Morphological, Molecular, and Metabolic Adaptations. Front Physiol. 2017;8:447. doi:10.3389/fphys.2017.00447 By Paul Rogers Paul Rogers is a personal trainer with experience in a wide range of sports, including track, triathlon, marathon, hockey, tennis, and baseball. See Our Editorial Process Meet Our Review Board Share Feedback Was this page helpful? 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