If you aren’t seeing the results you wish you were in your fitness training, there may be some simple things that you can do. Today’s post we’ll explore the concept of tension, or time-under-tension (TUT). Often TUT is overlooked for adding extra weight or doing more reps as a way to progress and get stronger. This might work for some, however with clients who have arthritis, more reps can aggravate joint pain, and holding something heavier may not be possible.
“Pleasure and pain, though directly opposite are contrived to be constant companions.“ Pierre Charron
Exercise Physiology 101
One of the main purposes of resistance training is to work a muscle getting as many muscle fibers working efficiently as needed to complete the task. However, the human body is incredibly adaptive and quickly finds the least amount of effort to do anything resulting in lazy effort by your brain. This explains why when you begin training your quickly become stronger-your brain & muscles are learning just how hard they have to work. Often we get so lazy in our fitness training that we think we only have to work on the way up (concentric phase), relaxing/dropping the weight back to the start. Part of this is because of this neural adaptation, they other is because we as humans are hard-wired for the avoidance of pain and discomfort.
When it comes to lifting weights, we really do need to seek that ‘burning’ sensation or tension. This is feedback that the muscle is working. Very rarely does it mean something is going to explode. Tension is a form of stress. When something (muscles in this case) is stressed, it responds, adapts and gets stronger. As a personal trainer I’m amazed at how many people-even in my personal fitness training clientele-try to avoid this feeling/pump. Tension is a good thing. Think of a strut or suspension on your car. That spring is constantly under tension/stress which helps give you that smooth ride while you drive. Those shocks are incredibly resilient and it really takes a LONG time to wear those suckers out. Your body is no different. It wants to be stressed and feel tension so that it can grow stronger.
Here are 3 quick tips to help embrace the ‘pain’ in your fitness training
1. Iso-hold reps
This is a short-but deliberate- isometric hold at the difficult part of the lift (either the ‘bottom’ or the ‘top’ depending). We’re talking about a hold of 1-5 secs for each rep. I love this method because it prevents what I call ‘momentum reps’-where you only achieve the task by momentum. I believe this technique also ensures good and proper form from start to finish. Way too often we cheat into the end-range of motion. This technique is also referred to as iso-hold reps, pause reps, or GPG (go-pause-go) reps.
2. Pause-Go reps (PG reps)
This is where you hold for a pre-determined amount of time, then immediately do the prescribed reps. I typically like to do at least a 10 sec hold, and to make things easy will usually match the hold to the number of reps for the set. I.E. 10 sec hold followed by 10 reps. This technique is great if you most likely aren’t going to get a lot of reps in. Another benefit of this technique is if you lack strength to do the whole movement or struggle with form or ‘feeling it’ where you should, you can focus just on the hold and grooving that mind-muscle connection. You’re basically getting a little more ‘time-under-tension’ with good form-always a good thing. Here’s a great little clip from my man Nick Tumminello on how this is done and some examples of how he likes to use them.
3. Go-Pause reps (GP reps)
Just like it sounds, this is where the isometric hold occurs at the end of a set. Again I like to hold for at least the number of reps you just did in secs. If you did 8 reps, hold for 8 seconds. I usually like this method when dealing with exercises and muscle groups that are stronger-like legs, and core work. Again, check out Nick’s tutorial.
Bottom line:
If you aren’t embracing some tension in your lifts, you’re leaving a lot of strength and potential on the table. Get ready to not get as many reps as you normally can in any given lift/exercise. This will challenge you in a good way. This also isn’t some crazy YouTube fitness challenge that only the elite are crazy/stupid enough to do. Really, everyone should throw these tips into their fitness training regimen.
Remember, that everyone is different-so your workouts should be unique. That’s why all our older adult clients have a unique, specific exercise prescription.