Have you been on the same ole training routine/workout for a while now? If you're not experiencing great results often, chances are that you're training routine is stale and you've hit the dreaded training plateau. It's time to change up your training routine. There are many ways to add variety to your workouts; increase the weights for each exercise, plus change the sequence of exercises around, slightly modify the rest between sets to challenge your metabolic threshold, and for this Blog Post, I'll show you how to mix up the tempo of your reps - Let's get right to it... 

A 1-0-1-0 rep (tempo) speed for a Biceps Barbell Curl would mean first curling the bar up to the starting point (that 1st curl up does not count). You’ll begin the 1-0-1-0 by lowering the bar (negative/eccentric portion) for a count of “1” second – Next, you will come down to full elbow extension and the “0” represents taking no rest, at all.

You’ll immediately begin curling the bar up for a count of “1” second. Finally, you’ll curl the bar up, to full elbow flexion and again, “0” indicates no rest – You’ll immediately go right back into your next rep, which is led by the negative/eccentric portion.

As you can see, this is a 4 point tempo range. You can brilliantly mix it up by performing: 2-0-2-0 – 3-0-2-1 – 2-1-1-2, etc. It will be a bit tricky at first, as counting and applying great focus can be difficult – They say that women are much better than men when it comes to multi-tasking, so gentlemen, give it all you've got! Ladies, although you may have a better handle on handling both the tempo counting and the exercise concentration, you'll still need to give this your all, too!

Let’s take it a baby step further - Are you familiar with a technique known as “Time Under Tension”? This is the amount of time you keep a muscle under tension during a set. The amount of time will dictate what type of metabolic effect takes place on your muscle – Tempo plays beautifully into this. I don’t want to overwhelm you, so begin with tempo and if you like it, I will teach you how to integrate “Time Under Tension” into your routine at a later time.

See how this all works out for you and please leave some comments about your first experience with this awesome muscle building tactic. Once I feel that most of your are ready, we can then get to the next step of “Time Under Tension”.

Keep Going!

James Villepigue CSCS