2 Things that have had a big influence on not only my own training, but in the way that I coach people too.
Let me share a story with you, back when I first started training, I didn’t really know what the hell I was doing. I just tagged along with some friends and followed what they did, we followed a body part, hap hazard bodybuilding style of training where we worked hard, didn’t track any weights and just lifted the weight the way we thought it was supposed to done.
Then I got my first Muscle & Fitness magazine, which included a free 8 week bodybuilding program. I went solo and used this program, I think I repeated it 2-3 times and made some decent progress.
After I had made decent newbie gains, I thought that I knew how to train. I know a variety of exercises, I had a decent idea of what a program should be like and I thought I had all the right techniques.
In my pursuit of learning more and becoming better I found someone who I consider to be one of the biggest influences on my career as a coach & trainee, Tom Crudgington of Body Development.
Tom, like myself has a great passion for all things physical culture, especially bodybuilding, I don’t think i have met someone who is as knowledgeable, in not just the training but the history of the sport too which I found very inspiring.
Anyway I started training with Tom and I quickly learned that while some of the training I had been doing alone was alright, I was lacking in a lot of areas too…my exercises technique and my understanding of how to get the most out of exercises in particular.
Tom introduced me to exercise tempo. I had never used exercise tempos before training with Tom, I just went and lifted the weight form Point A to Point B without any real thought.
For those who do not know what exercise tempo is here is an example:
Lets look at a good old bicep curl.
We have 4 Points to go though over the course of a bicep curl, I have also added some tempos
1.Concentric – (Upward) 2 Seconds
2.The top of the movement (think where the muscle is fully contracted) 1 Second
3.Eccentric – (lowering) 2 Seconds
4.Bottom – 0 Seconds
The tempo would look like this 2-1-2-0
For a long period I used tempos with all my training and i think it’s something that people can learn a lot from.
While I no longer count my tempos, using this method taught me a lot, by slowing down a movement or sticking to a specific tempo It taught me how to feel where an exercise should be working, how to control the weight, how to create tension and increase my body awareness all things which regardless of your style of training are going to help you.
If you have never used exercise tempos try giving it go for a period of time within your training.
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