Time Under Tension – Is It Effective?

TUT – Time Under Tension Explained In Detail.

TUT isn’t a bad method of training at all, and here I’ll explain how it’s done. But please read on, because it’s not the answer you’re looking for. What you were doing before wasn’t wrong, so don’t stop what oyu were doing, just add TUT as an addition.

How to lift correctly using Time Under Tension

Time under tension (TUT) is a strength training technique that emphasizes the duration muscles are subjected to stress during each repetition, rather than just the number of repetitions performed. This method aims to optimize muscle growth and strength by extending the time muscles are under load.

Advantages of Time Under Tension

Enhanced Muscle Growth

Slowing down exercise tempo increases the duration of muscle activation during each repetition. This extended strain can lead to greater muscle hypertrophy due to prolonged anabolic signaling​​​​.

Improved Strength

By maintaining tension throughout the eccentric (lowering) and concentric (lifting) phases, TUT can contribute to strength gains. This method ensures that muscles are consistently engaged hard, leading to improved muscle endurance and strength​​.

Proper Implementation of TUT

Controlled Tempo

Use a deliberate and consistent pace for each part of the exercise. A common method is the 3-1-3 tempo: 3 seconds for lowering the weight (eccentric), a 1-second pause, and 3 seconds for lifting the weight (concentric). Adjust the tempo to suit your fitness goals and capabilities.

Maintain Proper Form:
Focus on maintaining correct form throughout each repetition to prevent injury and ensure maximum effectiveness. The slower pace of TUT can help refine your technique and engage the targeted muscles more effectively.

Adjust Weights Accordingly

Given the increased difficulty with TUT, you might need to use lighter weights. The objective is to keep the muscle under tension for the desired duration while still challenging it effectively.

Monitor Fatigue Levels

Be aware of muscle fatigue as TUT can lead to quicker exhaustion. It’s essential to balance the length of time under tension with your ability to maintain proper form and complete the set.

Vary Your Training

Incorporate different tempos and weights to prevent plateaus and encourage comprehensive muscle development. Mixing up slower tempos with lighter weights and faster tempos with heavier weights can stimulate different muscle fibers and adaptation responses.

By integrating these principles into your workout routine, you can effectively leverage TUT to boost muscle growth and strength gains.

But Getting Too “Smart” Can Be A Big Mistake

Let me give you the scenario. You have been training for about 18 months now and you are pretty chuffed with the progress you have made. So naturally, you feel it’s time to start looking for some more advanced training methods, so you jump on Google. You come across ‘time under tension’ and everything you read just makes sense. You adjust your workouts to include TUT and this is where it all starts to fall apart. You begin to completely remove all logical thought processes from your decision making, your new found smarts have actually made you less intelligent.

That probably reads as an unfair statement, but let me explain….

Strength Training Matters

You see, probably without even knowing it, from day 1 in the gym you were already adopting the most fundamental of training principles, the only thing that really matters…. getting stronger.

You only wanted to be stronger than the last session. That was your tunnel vision and why training for strength is the one and only goal. If you are a male, you pinned the entire success of your training to if your bench press got better and if you are a female; it was probably some kind of glute focused movement. You were NOT wrong by doing that.

So, what happens?

Well, that’s easy to answer. When you first start lifting, you can pretty much do anything and it will add 50kg to your bench, squat and deadlift in about 12 months. The problem is, once you start to get significantly stronger, your body quickly adapts to that stimulus.

The further away from your normal (untrained version of you) you get, the more NOT “normal” things you need to do.

All of a sudden the universal bro split of chest & tri’s, back & bi’s plus the occasional leg press leg extension combination (yes we all fkn did it) stops working and after the first 12 months of honeymoon gains stop you then spend any from 6 months to well forever having every training session look like this…..work up to your 1 rep max on bench then doing a drop set and you do that because well…..we need to make sure the strength is still there plus it worked to this point. Better the devil you know, right?

Then Google and socials completely ruin it for you

Driven by your frustration by your inability to get your bench press past 120kg or hip thrust to 200kg, you start looking at what you should be doing “different” and how you can fix this!

It’s the frustration that the makes you buy into the bullshit. Now, to understand what I mean by that, let me take you back and give you a quick history brief of the fitness industry.

You see, not even that long ago there was no real fitness industry, there was just the gym. It was a place for social outcasts of sorts, muscle was not popular and gyms were full of men wearing ripped denim and ladies in leotards doing aerobics. If you like data, look into the time period weight loss surgery started to rise exponentially, there were next to no supplement shops until the mid-2000s, the rise of “personal training’ schools, then correlate those dates to the obesity trends in Australia, the US and the UK.

The health and fitness industry finds its genesis in the rise of obesity but the issue that everyone fails to see, it has ZERO interest in getting rid of the very thing that feeds it.

So back to my POINT

You will come across an endless pile of training “methods” that promise more gains, faster gains, a bigger this and a bigger that. Exercises that will focus on “lagging” areas of certain body parts. Try this, google best exercise for chest growth……see what I mean?

The perplexing thing for me is this: if we already have the best exercise for every body part and we can combine that with the best program…..why is every gym not full of everybody at their best version of themselves? Well, that’s easy to answer…

The truest and fairest answer is this: do certain exercises target certain part of a muscle? Is there a best exercise for your chest? I would say definitely there is, we are all built anatomically different, so what’s best for me will probably not be best for you and then on top of that as you get stronger, your best exercise may become your worst. The perfect real-world example for that is skull crushers, nothing better for a novice/intermediate trainer for building their triceps, until you get so strong that they start to destroy your elbows. The perfect exercise, until it’s not…….

Is there a ‘better” program/split for you to follow? Again, the answer is definitely yes, your life will dictate to us your best program/split. In that a shift worker will make ZERO progress and probably fall apart if they attempt to follow the same program someone who works part-time uses.

So, what do you do?

Well, in part, you already have the answer. You always had the answer. Get stronger, a bigger muscle is a stronger muscle, and significantly stronger muscle is a bigger muscle. Do not separate strength and size when they undeniably corelate. Understand that yes, for you and for everyone there is a better movement, that can be used in conjunction with a better program and they can be complimented by a better diet BUT, if you did not get measurably stronger something you are doing is not working and you need to identify what it is and rectify.

You need to embrace strength, apart from the fact it’s just fun. Your strength is something you can measure and if you know how, manipulate on a weekly level, whereas lean mass, unless you are underwater weighing yourself weekly, it is impossible to accurately track, and that does not matter because all you need to know is how much weight you lifted and how many times you lifted it.

The art of programming is dead

Now I am not saying things like drop sets, employing time under tension, rest pause, super sets and giants sets don’t work. What I am saying is you, you need to change your definition of “works”. Most of the previously mentions “techniques” are sold to you as a way to boost intensity, which makes you believe that your lack of intensity is your problem, which is concede sound pretty logical and it could well be one of your problems but if you are not making progress, I assure you it’s not the primary problem and if your primary problem is not addressed, nothing that you do will change your outcomes.

Your primary problem is you are simply not trying to make progress. Your program has no long-term path to follow. You are not managing fatigue on a CNS or muscular skeletal level. You are too focused on finishing the workout “smashed” then what you are on being stronger next month. You are working out, the something is better nothing approach, where you bomb your body with everything you can find.

You need a strength coach

You need to start training in the methodical, tracked, and measured approach to achieving a specific outcome in a specific time frame. In short, you probably need a coach. Can you do it without a coach? If you have the ability to keep your own training purely objective and not be emotionally attached to an exercise or program, you definitely can, but the fact you are still reading this tells me you probably need some help.

That’s where I come in. For the cost of a daily take away coffee, you can have me telling you what to lift and how many times to lift it and if you need how to lift it (you probably will need that)

A strength coach is a perfect solution, it’s their job to work out what’s best for you and to teach you how to utilise it and your only job is to do what they say and you know the part above where I told you it’s important to identify what’s not working, well if you are being coached and you are not getting measurably stronger, then the coach is the component you need to fix/get rid of.

#simple