Andrey Malanichev is one of the best squatters in the history of powerlifting. He generally squats once per week and his squat workout in the video posted in this article is simple. Andrey starts with about 154 pounds for his first set and adds weight to each successive set until he reaches a top weight of 926 pounds for 3 reps for his 10th and final set. He never does more than 5 reps per set during this process and he does as little as one rep for some of his warm up sets. How much total time does Andrey actually spend lifting weights for this 10 set squat workout? 50 seconds. The breakdown of the time it takes to perform each set is listed below, and a video that shows all 10 sets is shown afterwards.
1st set: 5 reps with 154 pounds = 8 seconds
2nd set: 5 reps with 265 pounds = 9 seconds
3rd set: 3 reps with 375 pounds = 7 seconds
4th set: 3 reps with 485 pounds = 6 seconds
5th set: 2 reps with 595 pounds = 4 seconds
6th set: 2 reps with 661 pounds = 4 seconds
7th set: 1 rep with 728 pounds = 2 seconds
8th set: 1 rep with 794 pounds = 2 seconds
9th set: 1 rep with 860 pounds = 3 seconds
10th set: 3 reps with 926 pounds = 10 seconds
Total workout time of all 10 sets: 50 seconds
In the last article, a breakdown of the time it took to perform each set of a full body powerlifting workout by Mike Tuchscherer was presented. The workout took 2 hours to complete, but his actual lifting time was about 4 minutes, 34 seconds. The workout consisted of deadlifts, bench presses, and a rack pull exercise. If you look at the actual workout time of Mike’s workout and Andrey’s workout, it should be very obvious that neither of these powerlifters are depending upon a high time under tension to develop their strength, rather, they are depending upon load as the primary driver of strength gains. Andrey is squatting less than 60 seconds per week to become enormously strong. Of course, the video only shows one workout and it is possible that some of Andrey’s workouts include more time under tension, but even if he did a workout with three times the amount of time under tension, it would still only be about two and a half minutes of lifting.
The lesson is that you don’t have to lift long to get strong, but you do need to lift heavy if you don’t lift long. This is not to say that some lifters don’t use a high amount of time under tension to get big and strong, but there is more than one way to gain size and strength. You may want to evaluate your own training to see how much time you spend under tension for each workout and each week. Everyone has a sweet spot for time under tension, and you can find yours. Best of training to you.