Strength gains can be triggered through a variety of training mechanisms; one of them is time under tension. Time under tension is simply the amount of time that a muscle is required to contract while doing an exercise or a workout. Doing a lot of slow reps will produce much more time under tension than doing a few fast reps. Time under tension training tends to be used far more by bodybuilders than powerlifters, which indicates that strength can be built without a great deal of time under tension.
Time Under Tension For Strength
There are a few bodybuilders who have become extremely strong by using a training style that emphasizes slow reps and a high time under tension. Mike and Ray Mentzer are examples of this. Bill Pearl was involved in weight training and bodybuilding for decades. As a gym owner and trainer of several champion bodybuilders, he had the opportunity to observe multitudes of lifters and bodybuilders. Bill was once asked in an interview who he thought the strongest bodybuilder was. He replied,
“The Strongest bodybuilder that I’ve ever trained with was probably Franco Columbu on the specific lifts, but the guy I’ve seen handle the most weight on all sets and repetitions on all the exercises was Ray Mentzer. I saw Ray training at a gym over in Germany a few years ago, and he was using about 240 pounds on a Nautilus bicep machine. Ray took that thing and sat down and with one arm curled that weight (240 pounds) up. When Ray went in to take a shower, I went over to that machine, and with two arms I could not curl it, and I consider myself strong. All of a sudden my attitude towards Ray changed tremendously.”
High Intensity Low Time Under Tension for Strength
The reason I bring up the example of Ray Mentzer’s high time under tension is because I am about to give you some examples of powerlifters who perform high intensity low time under tension workouts. To be specific, the workouts are intense in terms of weight, force and rep speed, but very low in intensity in terms of the total time under tension. Even though many powerlifters become very strong with a low time under tension, there have been bodybuilders who have become strong by emphasizing time under tension, so don’t dismiss time under tension as a hindrance to building strength, but understand that it does not need to be emphasized in order to build strength. Dynamic speed lifting is an example of this as only a few reps are done per set, and the reps and sets are done very, very fast. The Westside lifters a known for their use of the dynamic speed method. You can see how they apply this method in the context of very low time under tension in the following video:
The total time under tension for the 11 lifts that were shown in this video is 16 seconds. The lifts take one to two seconds each, if that. A total dynamic speed deadlift workout may only consist of twenty seconds of time under tension. These lifters are building a tremendous amount of strength in only twenty seconds of actual lifting, but the load and force they are applying in that small amount of time is sufficient to trigger strength gains. Notice that bodybuilders often try to produce fatigue when training while the powerlifters in the video are trying to avoid fatigue by only doing a single brief rep. However, the load and force of each rep are done at a high intensity as that is what it takes to build strength. This same principle is illustrated again in the following video which shows a dynamic speed training session for squats.
High Volume Low Time Under Tension
It is possible to accumulate a substantial amount of training volume (i.e. total workload) yet still do so without accumulating a high amount of time under tension. This is seen in the next video of a dynamic speed bench press, which consists of only 21 seconds of time under tension across 27 total reps. The speed bench reps are then followed by two sets of dumbbell presses for 20 reps each, a total of 40 reps that this lifter bangs out with only 34 seconds of time under tension. This means the total time under tension for 9 sets of 3 reps and two sets of 20 reps (a total of 67 reps) is only 55 seconds, which is a lot of training volume in only 55 seconds of actual lifting.
If your main goal is to get strong, you can do so with high intensity low time under tension training. The specific type of intensity is based on focusing on load and forceful lifting. With the right type of training intensity, it doesn’t take a lot of time under tension to get strong. Best of training to you.
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