Time Under Tension

Hi All,

If you are looking for a quick muscle-building tip, here is one.

Are you practicing the concept of time under tension (TUT) in your workouts?

If not, you need to read this article!

The concept of TUT is that studies have shown that muscles grow well when given a stimulus of a certain time.

The time needed to give this stimulus is 30-40 seconds.

Therefore, to make use of this, you want to use a weight that you can handle for 30-40 seconds in your sets.

You want to go slow and controlled in the movement so that your muscles do the work rather than your connective tissues.

If you can handle the weight for more than 50 seconds, it is likely too light. Likewise, if you can’t handle the weight for 30 seconds, it’s likely too heavy.

Note that your muscles do the work when you minimize momentum. Your connective tissues do the work when you employ the stretch reflex and use momentum.

If you are training for muscle growth, minimizing the momentum and taking the set slow is important.

My advice: Do about 8-12 reps per set and have each rep last 3-4 seconds. You can go slightly faster on the concentric part of the lift, and slower on the eccentric part of the lift.

Personally, I train using this TUT concept most of the time.

However, if you have athletic goals too, such as sprinting or jumping, changing the pace of the exercise can be important.

I love to sprint. So for me, i do want to use the stretch reflex once in a while so as to retain and build explosiveness.

Conclusion

Nevertheless, if your goal is just muscle-building, staying in the time range of 30-40 seconds is great. (But, don’t forget to change up the stimulus once in a while if you plateau).

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