Time Under Tension

If you enjoy picking things up and putting things down, chances are you are a fan of free weight training. However, lifting the heaviest weights does not always mean you’re stronger than someone who lifts lighter weights. The person who is lifting lighter might be lifting for a longer amount of time than someone who is just lifting heavy. Lifting weights against time puts a strain on the muscles, causing them breakdown and become stronger. This practice of putting your muscles in this strain against time, rather than going by the number of reps, is called “time under tension” or TUT for short.

Time under tension is a form of conditioning that helps build muscle. It can get you the results you want without hurting your back by strictly lifting heavy weights. On average, a guy will lift for a certain muscle group by doing 3-4 sets with 6-7 reps per set. When doing these reps, the maximum weight will mostly likely be utilized to get stronger. However, this action of lifting heavy weights over time can really hurt your back. With time under tension, users lifting small weights will get the same results as the guy lifting heavy. Just because weights are heavier does not equate to bigger muscles. It is all about form and strategy. Being able to quickly do light dumbbell curls under a time constraint will breakdown bicep muscles just as much as doing 2 reps of heavy bicep curls.

With this new alternative way of lifting, it is good to start light and workout for a short amount of time. This is so you don’t exhaust yourself with this workout. You can gradually increase the weights or time as you get stronger. Try starting out with 30 seconds and bump the workout to 45 seconds when you feel you’ve mastered lifting under 30 seconds.

Just because you are doing “time under tension” does not mean that you have to stick with the same weights the whole time. Lifting the same weights repeatedly for a long period of time will not allow your muscles to grow. This is because your muscles will get used to the weight and will not breakdown. It is good to increase the weights gradually over time, just don’t increase the weights dramatically to back breaking levels.

“Time under tension” is a great bodybuilding workout if you don’t want to hurt your back by lifting heavy weights. Lifting light weights will build your muscles just as well if you time it.

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Article written by William Graves.