I understand the benefits of using slower tempos or even isometric holds during the eccentric/concentric for athletic performance and motor learning/technical efficiency.
However, with strictly hypertrophy or fatloss in mind, especially when using more demanding protocols like supersets, post-fatigue, GBC, ascending velocity and similar protocols that increase aerobic and anaerobic demands, doesn’t tempo prescription decrease your ability to put enough effort or intensity into the exercise and load the target muscle(s) as much as possible.
The current trend that many coaches agree on right now is that mechanical tension and recruiting/fatiguing the FT muscle fibers is the single most important thing to stimulate muscle growth/maintenance during an hypertrophy/fatloss macrocycle.
Unless you have a weakness or sticking point to fix in a specific lift, which would be more important for strength and power imo, will you actually see a visual difference in muscle size over 5 years when using a 4010 tempo instead of a normal 2010 tempo?
I’m interested to learn your current view on this topic if it suits you Coach.
Hopefully I’m adding nuance instead of annoyingly digressing, but this question could have an indirect as well as direct answer, no?
What I mean is, maybe it makes no difference over that time horizon in terms of actual mechanical hypertrophy. However, in practical application, maybe our hypothetical bodybuilder’s tendon strength can’t keep up and slow eccentrics would have helped - he’s injured less, in the gym more, thus the temp indirectly promoted hypertrophy?
I greatly amused myself using “practical” and “hypothetical” to refer to the same example. Worth the post on its own.
You’re right and I do apply slow eccentrics in my own programming when using an undulating periodization model (alternating phases of pure hypertrophy with absolute strength to get more load on the next pure hypertrophy phase) or a linear model where strength is the focus during the first block (from general to specific).
However, when technique is solid, your rotator cuffs are taken care off and your muscles grow bigger, that usually comes with an increase in tendon size as well. Bigger tendons have more potential to store elastic energy and also increase total strength potential.
Of course to unlock this potential you would need to train for strength at some point in time to allow the Golgi tendon organs to desensitize a bit and increase firing rate of the muscles. But don’t forget that load is the most important variable for strength. Using slower eccentrics definitely has it’s place but you cannot use the same load as you would with a normal tempo.
By the way, when I say normal rep tempo I’m referring to something like 2010 or 3010 which is still a controlled way of performing your repetitions and if technique and rotator cuff strength are on point, the risk for injury is pretty low imo.
That’s all totally fair. I wasn’t really offering an opinion so much as adding an annoying paragraph to your question.
In terms of hypertrophy, I’m of the (underwhelming) mindset it kind of eventually comes out in the wash over the years of consistent training. Some methods may be more efficient, but I think a lot of the delta is finding what allows you to put in that consistent, hard (key word) training. So if you’re so fragile you need the slow eccentrics to be able to get back in the gym, maybe it helps. If it makes you hate lifting, it probably hurt. Yes we could beat me up about the 1% difference for a stage bodybuilder, but even then it’s going to be about maximizing specific hypertrophy for whatever your winning/ losing bodypart may be… and that will come back to finding ways to consistently train it hard.
I do think athletic training is a different animal, though, because the gym is not your field. In that case the techniques matter because you constantly have a relative weak link to address or strength to maximize.
I look forward to CT’s thoughts, because I think your questions are always interesting.
It wasn’t annoying to me at all, you’re entitled to having your own opinion and making suggestions.
Your responses actually added value to this thread so there’s no reason to understate them.
I agree 100% as long as you allow for an explosion phase to transfer strength into power. Speed is often the most important skill for an athlete to develop. Power is the foundation to speed. Strength is the foundation to power. So you need to train all of them.
Absolutely. I didn’t mean that in context of tempo specifically; it was just more that I believe, in general, applying the tool for the goal becomes a little more important when talking athletic performance vs straight hypertrophy.