Rhythm training with kettlebells
Every time you do a series of repetitions, you are following a certain tempo. If asked how fast their reps are being performed, most people shrug their shoulders or raise an eyebrow, as many people don’t consider tempo when training. It’s common for the average gym goer to follow a typical 1010 pace, meaning they spend the same amount of time flexing the muscle being worked as they do relaxing it. For example, someone who follows a 1010 tempo spends as much time pushing up to do a push-up as they do lowering to the ground. A 1010 tempo is very typical for cardiovascular workouts as it increases activity and calories burned. However, to gain mass and strength, your priorities must be different. Similar to how we decrease reps and increase weight for strength exercises, we also need to manipulate the rate at which we do our reps to maximize gains during workouts.
Before we go too deep into an explanation of how to set the most effective tempo to gain strength, it is important to understand how tempo is measured in these cases. There are several tempos, so it is important to know what the numbers really mean. In the case of 1010, the first number defines the amount of time spent in the eccentric phase or “relaxation” phase of the exercise. The 0 indicates the amount of time you spent pausing after the relaxation phase. The third digit means the time spent in the concentric phase, or the phase in which the muscle being exercised flexes. The last digit means the amount of time spent pausing after the concentric phase. To help visualize this, in a push-up, the eccentric phase is bending the arms and lowering towards the ground, and the concentric phase is pushing yourself up. So, at a tempo of 1010, a second is spent going down, then a second going up, with no pauses before or after any of these movements. For a 4010 tempo, 4 seconds are spent bending the arms and lowering toward the ground, and one is spent pushing up. For exercises that require explosiveness and rapid flexion, the tempo may include an “X” instead of a number. This is commonly seen at the Olympics where X0X0 tempo raises are commonly performed; eccentric and concentric explosive phases, without pauses before or after. For hypertrophy exercises and mass gaining attempts, the most effective and commonly used tempo is 40X0.
When tempo is taken into consideration, changes can be made to the amount of time muscles spend under tension. Time under tension, or TUT, is a measure of how long a muscle, or group of muscles, is under the weight of the load. When it comes to strength training and maximizing muscle mass, you need more TUT. For kettlebell strength training, 40-70 seconds of TUT is the optimal time period, anything shorter would result in less hypertrophic gains. Basic calculations can be done to see the difference in time under tension between training with tempo and without tempo. Taking a look at the real-world variation in the different tempos used is a good way to paint a picture of why it’s so important to include tempo training in your kettlebell workouts to gain strength. For example, for a typical 1010 kettlebell shoulder press, a single rep will take about a second to push and a second to relax, making the total rep duration 2 seconds. Over the course of approximately 12 reps per set, this equates to 24 seconds of TUT. However, if you are sticking to tempo training, the length of a single rep will change. If you switch to a 40X0 tempo kettlebell press, the flex will be immediate and there will be no break at the vertex before lowering the weight and relaxing for 4 seconds. When the kettlebell returns to the rest position, there is no pause and you immediately get up for the next rep. The total time for this repetition is approximately 5 seconds, with a total of 60 seconds of TUT for a set of 12 repetitions. When tempo is taken into account, the same weights, reps, and sets can be used to achieve better results in strength training. This is why tempo training is so important for real mass and strength gains. If you’re only looking at reps and sets and disregarding the time it takes to complete each set, you will miss out on big gains in strength and mass from your kettlebell training.
When their goals are to increase strength and mass, many people often increase the weight of the kettlebell they are using and make adjustments to the sets and reps to maximize muscle gains. Although this is an effective way to increase strength, it is important to note that the tempo can also be modified to make the most of each repetition. Although it may require more concentration, tempo training is one of the most effective ways to successfully reach your kettlebell strength training goals.