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Increase Your Time Under
Tension!
Are you short of time when it comes to
completing your workout? Are you perhaps struggling to achieve the weight
loss or toning goals that you so desire?
Is it time to increase your time under tension?
What is he talking about now you say? What I am suggesting is that
it may be time to streamline your workout programme to increase the time
that your bodies muscles are under tension. OK, so how can I do
this?
Compound / Combine Exercises
Not only will compounding your exercises streamline your workout, but it
will help maintain your heart rate at an increased intensity, will burn
increased calories, while still giving you a great toning workout.
So how do I compound my traditional exercises?
Basically you are looking at combining two exercises, working different
parts of your body, into one using free weights. For example, your
dumbbell squats could be combined with shoulder shrugs, or lunges could be
combined with dumbbell curls to work two different parts of the body.
The total time (and repetitions) that you are exercising for in one set
would be doubled (e.g. 30 seconds of squats plus 30 seconds of curls
totals 1 minute that your body is under tension). However, the rest
between each set of exercises should remain the same e.g. 30 seconds.
This way you are increasing the work to rest ratio from 1:1 to 2:1,
therefore increasing the total time under tension. Try this to spice
up some of your workouts at the gym or even in the 'comfort' of your own
home!
Modify Your Tempo
Another way to increase your time under tension is to modify the tempo of
your resistance training workout. Normally you might lift a weight
taking 2 seconds to complete the concentric (lifting) phase and about 1
seconds to finish the lowering phase. A great way to liven up
your workouts is to modify the tempo, for example increasing the
concentric phase to 4 seconds and the eccentric phase to 2. This
increases the time that your muscles spend under load so long as you
endeavour to complete the same number of repetitions per set. Again
the rest period should remain constant between each set.
Try these two tips for increasing total training time under tension.
How's that for a tongue twister... Happy training!
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