Weight Training Blog

So I’m doing a book review for Price World Publishing and in the book they discuss a topic known as “Time Under Tension”, and it’s something that I’ve heard of in the past, but haven’t really paid much attention to it to be honest.

Basically, the concept is rather than going only on the basis of how many sets and reps one completes, it instead encourages counting how much time is taken to complete one rep. For instance, if a preacher curl takes you 3 seconds to complete one rep, then your time under tension (TUT) is 3 seconds. Now if you performed 10 reps in that set, each taking 3 seconds to complete, that would be a total of 30 seconds of time under tension.

So after reading this, I decided to take a break from continuing on with the review and do some quick research on my own as to what TUT is (I did a pretty good job summing things up above), and how I can implement it in my workouts, and how I can get the best benefits out of it for strength.

After doing some quick research, I have found that generally speaking, for strength gains a TUT of 4 to 24 seconds should be used, for muscle mass a TUT of 32 to 48 seconds, and for muscle endurance a TUT of 60 to 120 seconds should be used.

So there you have it, at least in terms of strength the saying “less is more” applies. Doing a  lesser amount of repetitions can yield better results when it comes to making strength gains.

Obviously, this doesn’t address how much resistance should be used.

Last night I benched with bands for the first time. It’s something I’ve been wanting to try out for a while now to help build on my explosive power at the bottom of my lift where I am the weakest. Needless to say, today I’m feeling the effects of the workout which means a job well done.

For those of you who don’t really know much about bands (or even chains), the idea is the weight is light on the bottom, and heavy at the top towards the lockout. Most people tend either be weaker on the bottom, or unable to lockout their max. Bands will help solve that because they force you to use explosive force rather that putting the weight up slow and steady or you’ll find yourself quickly stalling because you did not move the weight fast enough.

If you’re not an experienced lifter, benching with bands might not be a good idea right off the bat as control and proper form is crucial for performing the lift correctly, especially when you’re dealing with bands that tend to have variable weight, rather than a static weight that doesn’t shift and is generally equal on both sides of the bar.