Staying with a slower tempo but switching to 3×5

I have been doing all my workouts with a slow tempo for a while now. I like it. It puts more strain on my muscles for longer and I have a lot more control. I don’t lose energy all of a sudden in the middle of a rep especially on my bench press, because it is the most dangerous exercise to do without a spotter. Losing energy in the middle of a rep means you just have to let the barbell drop on your chest and roll it off your stomach. In that process you will most likely hurt your shoulder.

On the other hand doing slow reps means you have to reduce the weight to be able to do the same number of reps and sets as you would do with power lifts. When I first started doing slow reps I wanted to do it for a month or so and go back to power lifts. But once I started doing the slow ones I felt so good about the immense control I am getting and the good form I am able to maintain I decided to go with it as long as I cannot increase my weights for 4 weeks straight. Then I will switch to power lifts again.

Now to fix the problem of not being able to lift the same amount of weights as power lifts I decided to reduce the number of reps per set. Instead of my usual 8 to 10 reps, I switched to 5 reps per set. The total number of sets still remains the same at 3. With this change I am able to continue to increase my lifts slowly. My decline bench press is back to 115 lbs, which is where I was when I did power lifts.

My deadlifts and squats are still a far cry from my power lifts but I am getting there very slowly. I am having a much better form especially with squats, because when I used to do quick lifts I found that I did not go all the way down. So I was actually doing partial squats! No wonder I was able to increase the weight so quickly. I always had good form with dead lift but with the slower tempo my grip is giving away before my legs do. I don’t want to use wrist straps because I want my grip to improves as I increase my weights.

Here are the latest stats on some important exercises

• Squats: 165 lbs (5, 4, 3)
• Deadlift: 175 lbs (5, 5, 5)
• Dips: Body Weight + 15 lbs (5, 5, 4)
• Bench Press: 115 lbs (5, 4, 3)
• Rows: 90 lbs (5, 4, 3)
• Pull-ups: Body Weight (10, 7, 5)
• Push-ups: Body Weight (36, 19, 11)

You will notice that I am not following the slow tempo and low reps for pull-ups and push-ups. For push-ups I want to continue doing fast, max reps for every set. I am hoping to reach my goal of doing 50 push-ups in 1 set. As for pull-ups I will switch over to slow tempo, fewer reps starting from next week. Also I am trying to put more effort on gaining more tricep muscle.

Filed under: 3x5, control, power lift, tempo

The Hugh Jackman Workout

Today was really the first day when I attempted to slow down my tempo to allow for more time under tension. When I decided to do it last week, I was just guessing that my body needs more time under stress. But now I have something that reinforces my logic for using slow tempo for 6 weeks (again just random number I picked which happened to be what Hugh Jackman used for his workout!). Here is the link to the whole Hugh Jackman workout: http://www.squidoo.com/hugh-jackman-workout.

Apparently Hugh used a two phase approach. Basically the website explains (I cannot say if it is authentic, but hey that is the case with most body building websites and stories) that he used a slow tempo phase for mass building and then a faster tempo to gain strength. Each phase lasted for 6 weeks.

First he would start with a mass gain phase. This is the phase where he uses slow 3 second eccentric contraction and 1 second of concentric contraction. This tempo is useful for muscles to adapt and grow. It limits the amount of weight one can lift but it helps the central nervous system to cope with the weight and you will learn to control the weight properly. The slow tempo demands a lot more attention and coordination from the brain. It also helps burn more calories and in my view helps in increasing vascularity.

For the second phase he would simply do powerlifts to lift as much weight as possible in short sudden burst of energy. This means he can lift a lot more then the previous phase. He becomes strong but not necessarily gain mass. This I find it hard to understand. I need to do more research to understand how that works. I know powerlifts will use the fast twitch muscles. But what about these muscles that make them strong but not gain a lot of mass? May be they are dense muscles and every fiber can lift a lot while occupying very little space.

The last week of each phase was set aside for interval training with only 1 day of weight training to get rid of the extra fat that he might have gained during the phase. Very interesting. So if I were to follow this plan I would have to do 5 weeks of a phase, followed by 1 week of interval training. Followed by 1 week of rest. My cycle would then be 14 weeks (for the 2 phases). It may just fit right into my currently planned schedule.

Filed under: hugh jackman, mass gain, strength gain, tempo