When’s the last time you counted how fast you perform a squat? Sure you count the reps, the weight and the sets, but tempo? What the hell is that about anyway?

Tempo is the time you take to go down, how long you stay in the bottom (stretched position), how long you take to go up, and how you stay at the top (shortened position)

It’s represented by four numbers:

4020

This would be 4 seconds down, 0 pause, 2 seconds up, 0 pause

This is a great tempo for teaching the movement, taking movements slowly forces you to focus on each part of the movement, it also prioritises the stabilising muscles as you are less able to use your tendons to just bounce out of movements. This also means it’s great for preventing injuries like back pain in squats and deadlifts

The other great benefit is the tension it puts the muscles under means you get greater growth and expend more energy

Lastly, by manipulating tempo you can change the effect of your training thereby giving you another way to avoid plateauing with your strength and your results

If you aren’t using tempo you are leaving a HUGE amount of progress on the table, try it in your next workout and you will feel the difference, during the workout and the next day