Click Here for Free Bodybuilding and Fitness Magazine Subscription
Time Under Tension For Building Muscle
Creatine, as we've known it, is dead
After years of intensive pharmaceutical research, we introduce Kre-Alkalyn - a revolutionary, patented creatine formula that yields 10 times greater absorption than conventional creatine formulas. There's no loading phase. No bloating. No sugar or dextrose transport system. Just three capsules gives you 100% digestible creatine.
The benefits of Kre-Alkalyn capsules, is that it's pH balanced to maintain stability for up to three years.
Kre-Alkalyn is pure, potent and easy on your stomach and you'll get pro-hormone-like results: Increased strength and endurance. Deep-tissue muscle stimulation. Enhanced muscle volume.
Simply put, Kre-Alkalyn is he strongest, safest, anabolic creatine supplement available.
If you're not using the purest, most digestible form of creatine, you're not getting the most out of your workout. Kre-Alkalyn takes creatine to a whole new level. Kre-Alkalyn is The new king of creatine.
For full details go to Pumped Extreme Kre-Alkalyn Creatine
You can also order Pumped Extreme by calling 800-635-8970 or 503-648-1898, 10 am to 6 pm PST
How Much Time Under Tension For Muscle Growth
Most lifters understand that in order to get bigger, they need to move heavier and heavier iron over time. What many overlook, though, is just HOW they should be lifting those weights and how the quality of their reps and sets can make all the difference in terms of gains.
In particular, if you want to build more muscle, you should be paying attention to your time under tension (TUT), or time under load (TUL).
What is time under tension?
Simply put, it is the amount of time that your muscles are actually working during any given set. If you do 10 barbell curls and take one second to raise the weight and one to lower it, your total TUT for the set is 20 seconds.
The slower you move, the more time under tension you will deliver to your muscles for a given number of reps.
Why Time Under Tension Is Important
In order to force your muscles to grow, you need to expose them to forces that they haven’t experienced before. You do this, of course, by lifting weights that target a given muscle group.
When you flex that muscle, you are increasing the tension applied to the individual cells and strands, and it’s this mechanical manipulation that ultimately stimulates growth.
If you sling the weights around, though, instead of lifting and lowering in a slow, controlled fashion, you will reduce the tension on the target muscle to just the end points of the rep. Momentum will take over in the middle, and your muscles will be “loaded” for just a fraction of a second.
By slowing down, you can ensure that your muscles are under tension during your entire set.
How Much Time Under Tension Is Optimal?
As with any aspect of exercise, the optimal application of time under tension depends on your specific goals.
In general terms, if your primary goal is strength, you should use relatively short TUTs, while muscle hypertrophy (growth) is best served by more moderate TUTs.
In-the-gym experience and anecdotal evidence from HIT websites puts the best time under tension for muscle growth in the 40-60 second range for each set. For example, if you’re performing reps at a speed of 4 seconds up, 4 seconds down, you’d use a weight that would allow you to get 5-8 reps under this protocol.
While university studies on TUT are somewhat scarce, a group of Canadian researchers did find in 2011 that set times near two minutes were better for inducing hypertrophy than set time under 20 seconds. Both of those time lengths are fairly extreme, but the results support the idea that longer TUTs can help us grow.
Keep It Simple
There are training methodologies that call for you to time every set and strive to increase time under tension from workout to workout rather than reps. This can be tedious and misleading, as you might be tempted to really slow down each rep and “rest” along the range of motion just to increase TUT.
A better approach is to time your sets for a couple of workouts to get an idea of about how many reps and what loads you need to hit the target TUT. Then simply work in that rep range during the majority of subsequent workouts, paying close attention to form and keeping your reps under control.
Over time, you may find that certain muscle groups respond to slightly higher times under tension, while others need shorter sets.
Either way, by using time under tension to guide your rep ranges, you can set yourself up to make the fastest gains possible.
Want Even More HIT Information?
If you want to learn ALL about high-intensity training to figure out if it’s the right approach for you, be sure to check out The Best High Intensity Training Workouts.