Only time TUT came into play is in the 15 to 20 rep range with good contractions and slow neg. To complete failure. That has been probably where I see the most growth
I became kinda weary of complete failure because I once did 8 sets of rows (40 reps), angled push ups (70 reps) and caused myself heinous peripheral damage, couldn't train for 13 days. Could be that I tried to or bench press on top and did some 3'ers tho lol
@@pushpitaghosh3627 Feels bad, man. Was in the middle of watching this when I got the news. This straight up sucks - both for his family and the thousands of people who came to John for reliable fitness knowledge. I am sad.
I’ve been lifting for 12 years now. I’m pissed in just now finding out about you the last couple weeks. I love the videos and your workouts and tips have helped me greatly in the gym. Thank you for the knowledge and keep the videos coming!
Growing up I idolized Chuck Sipes and recently went back to his style of training so I'm glad to hear you guys agree you don't need a lot of time under tension
I started incorporating giant sets inspired by Milos Sarchev(thinks that's the last name) and drop sets into my training and my progress took off. I after awhile realized I was doing time under tension. I believe training always has to be intense for it to be a quality workout session. When I go to the gym 80% of the people rarely break a sweat, and here iam with my sweat towel to wipe myself off after every working set. I also incorporated Dorian's style of trainin with two warm up sets and two hard balls to the wall to failure working sets. Doing this I notice i spend half the time in the gym but when i leave I'm zapped and on the weekends i wake up at 6 or 7 in the gym by 9 workout for an hour and then come home eat and take a two hour nap because I completely zapped all my energy. Anyway time under tension works but it also has to be intense time under tension. Thanks John
I have found that if I concentrate on time and tension, whether it's 4 reps or 20 reps, it forces me to do the rep more slowly and keep the correct muscles in play by being more able to feel the mind-muscle connection due to reduced momentum. Keeping momentum at a minimum, should reduce the chance of injury as well. This has helped me a lot in the last year, with my weaker areas, back and legs.
I am moving to TUT workouts. With Asthma I usually take longer rests in the past. So my upper body is thin but I have big quads from BMX/MTB racing back in the 1990’s. Again I am using bicycling to increase my VO2. This helps with me take shorter rests and do more super sets. I wish I knew this 20 years ago, I would have been a chic magnet back then like my bro and cousins. Now in my 40’s Im getting there with TUT. Thanks John👍
Thanks again for great insight on (time under tension). I enjoy hearing how you and Eugene think...I take your tips to the gym and actually do them. Keep it up!
Ive always struggled to build my biceps, even found it hard to focus on my bicep when I curl, even doing very slow reps, the contraction doesnt seem to be there. ive pushed myself to no avail with low reps 5+ and middle 8-12. Usually I hit the wall and i can do maybe 2 more reps after, but Im done. No pump, no gains, nothing. Anyways, since working out from home, ive had to change my approach. Ive got a barbell with less weight, so one day I thought id do some curls until failure. Picked it up, curled quite fast at first and hit about 12 reps and my biceps were burning, but I could push through and eventually hit 20. Rested for a bit , did another set, same thing and man my biceps were bulging like Ive never felt, I could focus on them, flex them and it felt really good. Since that day I do all my reps explosively with a weight i can do for 3-4 sets to failure ( which is usually around 20) and around the 12-15 mark im burning, but its great because its light enough for me to go balls out to 20 ish. This contradicts everything Ive read over the years, for years I was stuck doing heavy, low reps and it did fuck all. Now at 40 i look better than ever, anyway... thought id share that.
Can't agree more, in bodybuilding you have to try stuff out to see what works for you. And not just go with a method that some research has proved to work, because the study groups can never cover the whole spectrum of disparities that human beings have. And i find out that your body can pretty much tell you what works for it, you have just to listen.
Bingo. Same here. I should actually post a video with the headline being “COVID built my best physique of all time”. Had to stay home vs gym due to the China flu. Small setup. Far lighter weights. No distractions and boom. Best damn gains ever using similar high rep techniques you wrote about.
Agreed. I got great gains doing 8-12 but then plateaud so I started doing lighter sets and started getting gains again. I guess once the type 1 fibers get overused you need to start working the type 2. Maybe your arms are type 2 dominant.
Science doesn’t mean 100% truth. There’s things most people would swear by that don’t work for me. There’s things that work well for me that people will tell you to never do under any circumstances. There’s no need in trying to reinvent the wheel but you should always play around with exercises to see what suits you best. We’re all different.
Im glad that you found what works for you. That being said, how about you mix it up and do both high and low reps. Changes are you see higher growths. The thing is, high reps is good for blood flow and sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. More blood to the muscles means more nutrients you can use to fuel your lifts and also sarcoplasmic hypertrophy means you muscles fibres look slightly larger and can accommodate more nutrients. But you chances are you will reach a plateau soon as another guy said in the comments. Why, because sarcoplasmic growth means your individual muscles increase in size but the actual number of fibres stays the same. Unfortunately, your fibres can only grow that large and if you stop training, you might lose your apparent gains fast. This is where heavy weights and short reps come into play. This triggers myofibrillar hypertrophy, which is the addition of more muscle fibres (and not simply the increase in volume of existing fibres). This type of hypertrophy lasts longer after you stop training, while sarcoplasmic growth gains is dependent on the amount of fluid in your muscles at any given time. So yeah, dont cancel out heavy weights. Periodize your training and include both.
I've been doing 6 days a week recently and it seems to work great. Legs, Push, Pull. First 3 Strength oriented with main exercise rep ranges 4-6 + some accessory at the end. Next 3 days hypertrophy oriented with main exercises a little higher 8-12 and accessory afterwards as well.
This conversation is so underrated! So much essential wisdom, knowledge, experience for all levels of bodybuilding. Perhaps just add, discuss phases of the rep, flex style positives, peak contractions, slower negatives, within engaged range of motion, etc... engaging the mind muscle connection... if you read this comment please make this video expounding on phases of the rep to increase intensity and the physiological reponses... your work is truly outstanding. Thank you, blessings brothers.
That sumarize pretty much everything about reps, volume, tempo etc... It really is the most basic and fundamental information you need to know and work with. Thank you.
When I was 14 I had to ride a Bicycle on Pleasant Run from Cedar Hill Texas to Lancaster Texas 8 miles one way to get to work, only one gear worked, the high gear, after a month of riding I no longer had to get off my bike to rest. There were a lot of steep hills to and from work and there was nothing pleasant about it but when I went to visit an old friend of mine I was wearing shorts when his mother said to me... “Michael, your legs look really strong, what have you been doing lately?” My point is the tension works if you are forced to ride the Bicycle in high gear.😄
.. More important than the number of reps is the gradual progressive increase in resistance; mixing up the reps schemes however, will give better results and preserve the joints and connective tissue
I love both you guys, you know your stuff. It’s also true that everybody’s different, but go back in time and ask Sergio Olivia and Serge Nubret if time under tension matters, because they were both big proponents of TUT.
@@faqzi7145 think about it, your muscle doesn't know what number is on the dumbbell you just lifted, but it does know how much tension is being exerted on it. If you can increase the tension without increasing the weight, then that's better. It's all about maximising tension. Doing slow positive and slow negative increases tension on the muscle and takes away other muscles that could be helping doing the motion. Thus will produce you more stimulus to grow
I really wish people would try to figure out, and understand their own body instead of trying to figure out what everyone else is doing for their physique. I mean taking the time, effort, trials and errors, successes, of genuine curiosity. Might be a longer road might be a shorter road but there’s that sense of accomplishment, pride and experience that comes along with it.
What you said is exactly why I love working out. The study and practice of figuring out what works for your body has been an amazing experience. Too many people think that 1 strategy or workout is going to be enough for their goals and it's downright silly and hindering their own progress.
For cyclist, hill climbing is definitely muscle building (speaking for myself) but would agree I could never build monster quad on a bike alone, unless I start towing a weight cart, and them I am back at using heavier weights. You do see a lot of terms thrown around, and equally as many defintions of those terms. Rather than consult a dictionary, I prefer to just hit the weights. Some times I go as aheavy as practical, some times medium, some times lighter/higher reps. No one size fits all, all the time. I do like you sensible straight up, discussions, no over the top 'guru' talk, and obviously you know a thing or two about getting results. - Cheers
I think one of the things rarely talked about with time under tension is many people that gravitate to it want a quick and efficient workout - so having 1 set to failure and the warm up built in is perfect. Perfect for full body workouts too. So by that logic if you go 1 second up and 1 second down on 30 reps to failure - that's 60 seconds - seems to be right in the middle and a sweet spot merging the different methodologies. Rich Piana as an example has his bicep feeder curl results - that's super high rep and therefore super high time under tension. A lot of people on youtube recorded the results they got with merging all this and it was pretty impressive. Blood flow being one of the other major benefits for recovery as even the kneesovertoesguy is also pointing out with sleding. I gained a tonne of muscle around my knees (I don't have a sledge so did deadmilling) by doing 4 minutes of backwards walking under tension daily (has frequency training built in).
I'm 41 and I've never maxed out on anything. I've found that choosing a weight that 6-8 reps is all I can handle, or choosing a lighter weight and lowering the weight at a 4 second rate has worked the best for me
The mixture of having an intermediate weight but still doing 6-8 seconds up and down is scientifically proven to have a major effect in the muscle groups vs the normal way of lifting.
I recently switched over to focusing on TUT with decent weight... really brings out the pain in regards to pre existing conditions in my shoulders, back etc.... not for me - 8 reps, heavy weight, 25 seconds is my max
What i do is use a heavier weights where i hit maybe 5-8 reps or even 10....then once i hit failure or see that i am one rep away from failure i perform that last rep very slowly e.g. 30 seconds on the way down or even an isolation hold at each stage of the movement for 10 seconds each...thats my approach. I suppose after failure with the heavy weight you can do a drop set as well but the isolation hold or slow tempo after failure for 30 seconds seems really effective to me.
I got my deadlift from 225 to 465 in 8 months by basically doing nothing but 3 rep sets. My legs didnt really get bigger but they did get hella stronger.
5 to 6 reps under 85 percent max lift, is pretty much what "5 and 5 training" is all about it. and it works, i know guys smaller than me that have ripped chest and can bench more than me cuz they been doing the 5 and 5 method for a couple years doing their bench presses. From what i can see it doesn't build overrall mass as much but more strenghth, that's where my Russian friend's training method of 4 weeks comes in. 2 weeks normal bodybuilding with a few drop sets here and there, 1 week pyramid sets up to max weight or 85 percent max weight 5 to 6 reps. then 1 more week lighter weight 20 to 25 reps each set, 4 sets. it burns. trust me this works I have never taken any enhancment performance drugs other than creatine and glutamine, EAA's ect. nothing funny and i'm 40 and i can still build muscle this way, Diet is the most important thing at this age we gotta eat clean as we get older, i eat a lot of Yams , oats, bananas, veggies, spices, i love making home made masala sauces to throw on food.
Coleman lifted an ungodly amount of weight that no human was biologically capable of doing without severe consequences later down the road, now he’s paying for it. The human skeletal and muscular system just wasn’t meant for that much weight
Have some joint issues, left elbow snapping, right hip impingement, right acl sprain (healed) and scoliosis. I had to start relying more on TUT and shorter rest + increasing load when I can to help me train while dealing with these nagging issues. My goal is more leanness than size so this works out well as long as my diet is in check. I read a lot of stuff by Steve Hollman and use his 4X training style for most of my exercises.
press ups, 8-10 reps over 50 seconds, no pause just slow movement with constant tension, add weight in a backpack to provide the correct level of resistance.
Would it be wrong to say "Maximize your time under tension for each rep, regardless of set length"? 😅 I'd love to hear your thoughts on achieving maximum tension using mind muscle connection w limited overload (vs going heavy) in this context!
My 2 bits worth on time under tension. I find that loaded carries and push, works wonders for me. When i use carries as finishers i feel it works as a cathalyst on both strength and hypertrophy. so doing heavy and medium length farmers carry (back, legs traps), simulated husafell carry (chest biceps shoulders upper middle back), long step walking prowler push legs, possibly, overhead carry core/lower back specificly........ each at least once a week as workout finisher does wonders to my overall growth. i do think the time under tension plays a very important part in that. I accredit these effects mainly to time under tension. seeing that the comment has become a sticky and all i thought i might qualify it a bit. i workout at a commercial gym, focused on martial arts so i do not have access to neither farmers walk handles or a husafell stone. so i use a trapbar for farmers walk, actually makeing it more of a frame walk than a farmers walk. but for my purpose i actually think that is a good thing. useing the walk as a finisher, by the time i get to the farmers walk i might have worked myself to a point were my coordination and mind muscle connection starts to go from fatigue. useing the frame/trapbar there is little or no technical element involved, its just to pick it up brace and walk, and i guess the ability to brace and walk, you know one foot in front of the other no matter the agony, is one of the last things to go as a result of fatigue. Grip strength and forearms is something the walk works good. so i do the walk on 2 levels: apx 50% of my deadlift 1 rm without straps to work forearms and grip. my gyms artificial gras strip is apx 70 ft so i walk up and down that, then stands at the end until the handles slips out of my grip. then for further loading and time under tension i do the same with straps and 75-80 % of my deadlift 1 rm. (sometimes when i feel like Thor i use "loose straps" so i hold it until it starts to slip and then the straps takes over, but i am not able to hold my coffee mug with 1 hand the day after so i seldom do that, it actually does not feel constructive, but then and there it feels bad ass .-) the husafell is pure magic to me. i started doing that after a session of wood choping where i carried pieces of oak that was apx 160- 220 lbs on my chest. the feeling i had in my upper back and shoulders the next day was unforgettable, so i try to emulate that in the gym. no husafell available and really no interest in the specific strength gain from the pick up (i do other stuff to strengthen the bottom of my deadlift) , so i bought a hefty loading pin. i load that up with plates 40-50 % of my deadlift 1 rm. on a plyobox so it is at a level were i squat down to apx rack pull height, grip it, press my chest against it and stand up with it on my chest and carry. again up and down the gras runway is 1 set. I guess this would be more like a atlas stone or sandbag carry than a husafell, any way it works, and my norse genes like any kind of norse bad assery ;-) so in my mind it is simulated husafell. 3-5 working sets is the norm for me on both carries. Oh by the way i find that walking, long step prowler push is a excellent "old mans leg press" at the age where your joints cant handle both squats/deads and legpress the prowler walk does the job and the joints stay relatively pain free, at least pain free compared to a day of squats and legpress.
I will say this time under tension helps with weak body parts. A video called "Weider bodybuilding series" had an exercise where you did a bicep curl and the bicep peak was right underneath your chin. You did it really slow. Weider knew time under tension worked.
@@mountaindog1 Do you need to go to failure only during the last 1-2 sets or you can even do it throughout all the sets after the warm-up, to build muscle efficiently? I don't go to the gym yet, but I do push ups with handles and full ROM, moderate speed, 1-2 times a week, 4-5 sets to failure with 5-8 mins rest in between....but I don't seem to be able to do more than 8 reps each time, even after weeks of doing it...I finish with dropping on the knees and squeezing out some additional reps for my last set. I literally try to "shock" the muscles as Arnold said, but it doesn't seem to work...Maybe I just need to do push ups like 2-3 times a week instead of 1 or 2? Or should I avoid failure until my last set?
The comparison to other sports imo always is a bit out of place. Those people might grow some muscle, but how would they look if they trained differently Second: isn't TuT also about metabolic stress? Cause that's one of the factors some research more focused on, rather than just pure TuT. Great video! Keep it up!
Heavier weights are harder to lift and automatically force the lift to slow down therefore more time under tension but harder and more dangerous to take to real failure Therefore it's better to make a lighter weight feel that heavy to the muscle without the joint stress and dangers by slowing the lighter weight down, lifting for time not reps, focusing on form and maybe adding pauses
from time to time i've done 5 sec positives, 5 sec negatives and 2 sec hold in the contracted position for 3-6 reps TIL FAILURE, and then i increase weight once i hit 6 reps, so..... if you keep increasing load you will get bigger
Another thing people need to remember is the muscle fiber types they have. Type I are slow twitch, which are built for endurance and don't grow very big. Type II fibers are made for explosive movements and have the potential to grow much bigger. The reps you're doing need to coincide with the muscles you're trying to develop. Slow reps = type I and fast explosive reps=type II.
I'm in a phase now where I'm not tracking the used weights. Depending on the session I have my work set weights at 5/6 or 13/15 repetitions. After a thorough warmup, 1st set: hard workset, 2nd set: con. failure, 3rd set: ecc. failure. If that isn't possible due to whatever reason, I work with straight sets and utilize intensity techniques such as cluster sets and isometric holds. The burn of the muscle under tension at the shortest position / last few or 'actual working reps' is what will dictate what I will do. Being mindful of loading the musclesfibers with the proper resistance is my only focus, nothing else.
Negatives and drop sets are probably the best way to force time under real tension. The down side is that its hard to do negatives on compound movements, and a lot of people think it takes longer to fully recover from negatives which means less working that muscle per week, and it may negatively impact other workouts where that muscle is a secondary muscle. Its also not realistic to literally do negatives on every excersize for a particular muscle or muscle group
John, I give you a lot of credit for this video... I have always seen that using 80% to 90% of a persons 1 rep max, is time under tension. So the weight a person uses matters the most. Not making a rep slower. Now for older people 65 and up ) Who have not continued lifting. I do believe that high reps to failure is best because they cannot always lift heavy weights. Also no need for them to do 40 rep sets. Make the weight heavy enough that they struggle at 17-18 reps.
I take every set to failure then hold the partial (failure) rep for as long as I can before putting the weight down. I don't have a clue if there are any benefits to this though?
I just don't think using powerlifter who most likely, definately are using tons of gear is a fair analogy here. However, I would agree that you obviously don't need 40 seconds tut for hypertrophy. Getting stronger is a must no matter what rep range you are using. If your goal is hypertrophy.
The cyclists with the biggest legs are the velodrome sprint cyclists, not the tour de france guys. I think they also do a fair bit of leg training with weight.
I used to be a form police guy, T.U.T etc but this video is spot on , just like diets everyone is different. Check out erik kanevesky on youtube his form is crap yet he has made an astronimacal transformation ( his latest video ) which shows that what works for one person doesn't always work for others. Now im just experiementing till I find something that works for me then do it.
@@littlehobo261 possibly but to me I don't mind folk who use gear so long as it's done responsibly and with the correct pct etc. Using gear doesn't take away from the fact they still have to eat sleep train right as well as fight through the usual I don't feel like eating right today or training today. Anyway I will agree with you be probably did play about with his doses.
I think the tut thing is supposed to take like 40 seconds so if you are using weight too light and it takes you like 50 reps, maybe that takes 70 seconds, thats too long
Without a Doubt you are one of the BEST training vids on youtube.. well done Sensei John
ty!
@@mountaindog1 Brother thanks to you i have combined the Half Rack pulls with my Barbell rows.. those have helped build my back into a Great Wall now
John Sama
Only time TUT came into play is in the 15 to 20 rep range with good contractions and slow neg. To complete failure. That has been probably where I see the most growth
I became kinda weary of complete failure because I once did 8 sets of rows (40 reps), angled push ups (70 reps) and caused myself heinous peripheral damage, couldn't train for 13 days. Could be that I tried to or bench press on top and did some 3'ers tho lol
John, you are the world's classiest bodybuilder. I hope you stay around for the next 100 years. 😎
thank you :)
Sorry bruh he is no more😢
@@pushpitaghosh3627 Feels bad, man. Was in the middle of watching this when I got the news. This straight up sucks - both for his family and the thousands of people who came to John for reliable fitness knowledge.
I am sad.
@@ahoff64 yeah buddy BTW it's my insta I'd we can talk on insta....@indronillghosh
Rip
Miss you John 🥺
I’ve been lifting for 12 years now. I’m pissed in just now finding out about you the last couple weeks. I love the videos and your workouts and tips have helped me greatly in the gym. Thank you for the knowledge and keep the videos coming!
Growing up I idolized Chuck Sipes and recently went back to his style of training so I'm glad to hear you guys agree you don't need a lot of time under tension
I started incorporating giant sets inspired by Milos Sarchev(thinks that's the last name) and drop sets into my training and my progress took off. I after awhile realized I was doing time under tension. I believe training always has to be intense for it to be a quality workout session. When I go to the gym 80% of the people rarely break a sweat, and here iam with my sweat towel to wipe myself off after every working set. I also incorporated Dorian's style of trainin with two warm up sets and two hard balls to the wall to failure working sets. Doing this I notice i spend half the time in the gym but when i leave I'm zapped and on the weekends i wake up at 6 or 7 in the gym by 9 workout for an hour and then come home eat and take a two hour nap because I completely zapped all my energy. Anyway time under tension works but it also has to be intense time under tension. Thanks John
I have found that if I concentrate on time and tension, whether it's 4 reps or 20 reps, it forces me to do the rep more slowly and keep the correct muscles in play by being more able to feel the mind-muscle connection due to reduced momentum. Keeping momentum at a minimum, should reduce the chance of injury as well. This has helped me a lot in the last year, with my weaker areas, back and legs.
I think it’s important to distinguish between time under tension and time under maximum tension. I think that’s where the 50 seconds comes from,
Best channel, your advice has really refined my training, also prevented lots of injuries. Kudos big man. Keep up the great work.
I am moving to TUT workouts. With Asthma I usually take longer rests in the past. So my upper body is thin but I have big quads from BMX/MTB racing back in the 1990’s. Again I am using bicycling to increase my VO2. This helps with me take shorter rests and do more super sets. I wish I knew this 20 years ago, I would have been a chic magnet back then like my bro and cousins. Now in my 40’s Im getting there with TUT. Thanks John👍
i try to avoid the overthinking or over analysing... discomfort, pump or fatigue = mission accomplished.
Love u big man.. u made training for me so much easier and made me so much more knowledgeable🙏👍
yea this was a really good video.
Thanks again for great insight on (time under tension). I enjoy hearing how you and Eugene think...I take your tips to the gym and actually do them. Keep it up!
Ive always struggled to build my biceps, even found it hard to focus on my bicep when I curl, even doing very slow reps, the contraction doesnt seem to be there. ive pushed myself to no avail with low reps 5+ and middle 8-12. Usually I hit the wall and i can do maybe 2 more reps after, but Im done. No pump, no gains, nothing. Anyways, since working out from home, ive had to change my approach. Ive got a barbell with less weight, so one day I thought id do some curls until failure. Picked it up, curled quite fast at first and hit about 12 reps and my biceps were burning, but I could push through and eventually hit 20. Rested for a bit , did another set, same thing and man my biceps were bulging like Ive never felt, I could focus on them, flex them and it felt really good. Since that day I do all my reps explosively with a weight i can do for 3-4 sets to failure ( which is usually around 20) and around the 12-15 mark im burning, but its great because its light enough for me to go balls out to 20 ish. This contradicts everything Ive read over the years, for years I was stuck doing heavy, low reps and it did fuck all. Now at 40 i look better than ever, anyway... thought id share that.
Can't agree more, in bodybuilding you have to try stuff out to see what works for you. And not just go with a method that some research has proved to work, because the study groups can never cover the whole spectrum of disparities that human beings have. And i find out that your body can pretty much tell you what works for it, you have just to listen.
Bingo. Same here. I should actually post a video with the headline being “COVID built my best physique of all time”. Had to stay home vs gym due to the China flu. Small setup. Far lighter weights. No distractions and boom. Best damn gains ever using similar high rep techniques you wrote about.
Agreed. I got great gains doing 8-12 but then plateaud so I started doing lighter sets and started getting gains again. I guess once the type 1 fibers get overused you need to start working the type 2. Maybe your arms are type 2 dominant.
Science doesn’t mean 100% truth. There’s things most people would swear by that don’t work for me. There’s things that work well for me that people will tell you to never do under any circumstances. There’s no need in trying to reinvent the wheel but you should always play around with exercises to see what suits you best. We’re all different.
Im glad that you found what works for you.
That being said, how about you mix it up and do both high and low reps. Changes are you see higher growths.
The thing is, high reps is good for blood flow and sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. More blood to the muscles means more nutrients you can use to fuel your lifts and also sarcoplasmic hypertrophy means you muscles fibres look slightly larger and can accommodate more nutrients.
But you chances are you will reach a plateau soon as another guy said in the comments. Why, because sarcoplasmic growth means your individual muscles increase in size but the actual number of fibres stays the same. Unfortunately, your fibres can only grow that large and if you stop training, you might lose your apparent gains fast.
This is where heavy weights and short reps come into play. This triggers myofibrillar hypertrophy, which is the addition of more muscle fibres (and not simply the increase in volume of existing fibres). This type of hypertrophy lasts longer after you stop training, while sarcoplasmic growth gains is dependent on the amount of fluid in your muscles at any given time.
So yeah, dont cancel out heavy weights. Periodize your training and include both.
I've been doing 6 days a week recently and it seems to work great. Legs, Push, Pull. First 3 Strength oriented with main exercise rep ranges 4-6 + some accessory at the end. Next 3 days hypertrophy oriented with main exercises a little higher 8-12 and accessory afterwards as well.
Did it work m8?
This conversation is so underrated! So much essential wisdom, knowledge, experience for all levels of bodybuilding. Perhaps just add, discuss phases of the rep, flex style positives, peak contractions, slower negatives, within engaged range of motion, etc... engaging the mind muscle connection... if you read this comment please make this video expounding on phases of the rep to increase intensity and the physiological reponses... your work is truly outstanding. Thank you, blessings brothers.
Glad you enjoyed it!
That sumarize pretty much everything about reps, volume, tempo etc... It really is the most basic and fundamental information you need to know and work with. Thank you.
John while I'm resting and getting ready for my next workout I'm watching your videos to learn more
Nene, nandito ka.
Me too andro. Its all i do. The buisness of bodybuilding has become my life . and my wife and kids are suoer supportive
Always in for a treat when these two collab!
When I was 14 I had to ride a Bicycle on Pleasant Run from Cedar Hill Texas to Lancaster Texas 8 miles one way to get to work, only one gear worked, the high gear, after a month of riding I no longer had to get off my bike to rest. There were a lot of steep hills to and from work and there was nothing pleasant about it but when I went to visit an old friend of mine I was wearing shorts when his mother said to me... “Michael, your legs look really strong, what have you been doing lately?” My point is the tension works if you are forced to ride the Bicycle in high gear.😄
.. More important than the number of reps is the gradual progressive increase in resistance; mixing up the reps schemes however, will give better results and preserve the joints and connective tissue
RIP 🪦 John Meadows
Lower reps, higher weights = greater stress on joints, greater chance of injury.
I love both you guys, you know your stuff. It’s also true that everybody’s different, but go back in time and ask Sergio Olivia and Serge Nubret if time under tension matters, because they were both big proponents of TUT.
I’ve noticed a lot more activation and stimulation while using a slower and more controlled motion.
X. Y. But what has that done for you? More muscle gains or no?
More stimulation equals more growth, with the proper nutrition and rest of course.
Dr retardo People have different goals. Size > strength some people are Strength > size.
@@faqzi7145 think about it, your muscle doesn't know what number is on the dumbbell you just lifted, but it does know how much tension is being exerted on it. If you can increase the tension without increasing the weight, then that's better.
It's all about maximising tension. Doing slow positive and slow negative increases tension on the muscle and takes away other muscles that could be helping doing the motion. Thus will produce you more stimulus to grow
If you don't lift correctly you do nothing but waste time. Slow and controlled make you stronger in the long run.
in one line
As many reps as possible with as heavy weight as possible for as long as possible without getting hurt
I really wish people would try to figure out, and understand their own body instead of trying to figure out what everyone else is doing for their physique. I mean taking the time, effort, trials and errors, successes, of genuine curiosity. Might be a longer road might be a shorter road but there’s that sense of accomplishment, pride and experience that comes along with it.
Well said
wireless thank you !
What you said is exactly why I love working out. The study and practice of figuring out what works for your body has been an amazing experience. Too many people think that 1 strategy or workout is going to be enough for their goals and it's downright silly and hindering their own progress.
Joshua Philbert 100% same here. it’s great to listen to some good experiences and things to pick up on but make your own as well.
yes, what I have been doing for years..love it!
Another excellent video from John..as usual great info on the things that matter..thanks John and eugene..👍
For cyclist, hill climbing is definitely muscle building (speaking for myself) but would agree I could never build monster quad on a bike alone, unless I start towing a weight cart, and them I am back at using heavier weights. You do see a lot of terms thrown around, and equally as many defintions of those terms.
Rather than consult a dictionary, I prefer to just hit the weights. Some times I go as aheavy as practical, some times medium, some times lighter/higher reps. No one size fits all, all the time.
I do like you sensible straight up, discussions, no over the top 'guru' talk, and obviously you know a thing or two about getting results. - Cheers
I think one of the things rarely talked about with time under tension is many people that gravitate to it want a quick and efficient workout - so having 1 set to failure and the warm up built in is perfect. Perfect for full body workouts too. So by that logic if you go 1 second up and 1 second down on 30 reps to failure - that's 60 seconds - seems to be right in the middle and a sweet spot merging the different methodologies. Rich Piana as an example has his bicep feeder curl results - that's super high rep and therefore super high time under tension. A lot of people on youtube recorded the results they got with merging all this and it was pretty impressive. Blood flow being one of the other major benefits for recovery as even the kneesovertoesguy is also pointing out with sleding. I gained a tonne of muscle around my knees (I don't have a sledge so did deadmilling) by doing 4 minutes of backwards walking under tension daily (has frequency training built in).
One way I enjoy training is when it starts to burn that's when you begin to count 1 1 1 till you can't do anymore.
I'm 41 and I've never maxed out on anything. I've found that choosing a weight that 6-8 reps is all I can handle, or choosing a lighter weight and lowering the weight at a 4 second rate has worked the best for me
Never trying anything else and saying it is the best ....
Great video, a lot of points were covered and the explanation was really thorough!
I see Meadows "Skywalker" video and I instantly smash the like button 👍👍👍
These two made a great collab
The mixture of having an intermediate weight but still doing 6-8 seconds up and down is scientifically proven to have a major effect in the muscle groups vs the normal way of lifting.
This was an excellent video. Very interesting perspective
Love the Info.thanks..
Do it man! The two legends! 💪🏾
I recently switched over to focusing on TUT with decent weight... really brings out the pain in regards to pre existing conditions in my shoulders, back etc.... not for me - 8 reps, heavy weight, 25 seconds is my max
What i do is use a heavier weights where i hit maybe 5-8 reps or even 10....then once i hit failure or see that i am one rep away from failure i perform that last rep very slowly e.g. 30 seconds on the way down or even an isolation hold at each stage of the movement for 10 seconds each...thats my approach. I suppose after failure with the heavy weight you can do a drop set as well but the isolation hold or slow tempo after failure for 30 seconds seems really effective to me.
I got my deadlift from 225 to 465 in 8 months by basically doing nothing but 3 rep sets. My legs didnt really get bigger but they did get hella stronger.
Real world info. Superb.
This is pure "GOLD" you're giving us here John! I am so thankful I literally stumbled on your page!!!
5 to 6 reps under 85 percent max lift, is pretty much what "5 and 5 training" is all about it. and it works, i know guys smaller than me that have ripped chest and can bench more than me cuz they been doing the 5 and 5 method for a couple years doing their bench presses. From what i can see it doesn't build overrall mass as much but more strenghth, that's where my Russian friend's training method of 4 weeks comes in. 2 weeks normal bodybuilding with a few drop sets here and there, 1 week pyramid sets up to max weight or 85 percent max weight 5 to 6 reps. then 1 more week lighter weight 20 to 25 reps each set, 4 sets. it burns. trust me this works I have never taken any enhancment performance drugs other than creatine and glutamine, EAA's ect. nothing funny and i'm 40 and i can still build muscle this way, Diet is the most important thing at this age we gotta eat clean as we get older, i eat a lot of Yams , oats, bananas, veggies, spices, i love making home made masala sauces to throw on food.
@Dr retardo stronglifts.com/5x5/#gref
I put my like before watching the video...because I know jhon is great!
Great video and woud just like to add that pro cyclists also do very heavy squats and leg press movements and this is wat is causing the leg growth
Track cyclists.
Thanks
Another great video, real info
ty!
I think Ronnie Coleman proved that. Heavy weight and high reps.
made my day
"Everybody wanna be a bodybuilder but no one wanna lift this heavy ass weight".
yep, and Dorian Yates
Well arnold and franco and stuff also trained pretty heavy
Coleman lifted an ungodly amount of weight that no human was biologically capable of doing without severe consequences later down the road, now he’s paying for it. The human skeletal and muscular system just wasn’t meant for that much weight
Have some joint issues, left elbow snapping, right hip impingement, right acl sprain (healed) and scoliosis. I had to start relying more on TUT and shorter rest + increasing load when I can to help me train while dealing with these nagging issues. My goal is more leanness than size so this works out well as long as my diet is in check.
I read a lot of stuff by Steve Hollman and use his 4X training style for most of my exercises.
press ups, 8-10 reps over 50 seconds, no pause just slow movement with constant tension, add weight in a backpack to provide the correct level of resistance.
What are your thoughts on Myo-reps?
Wish someone told me this from day 1
wow dude ur videos are so good holy molly
Two knowledgable kings in one video 🏆🏆
Super good advice. Thanks!!
Glad it was helpful!
It was and I am for sure following your advice. Stay healthy ❤️! Greetings from Switzerland.
Would it be wrong to say "Maximize your time under tension for each rep, regardless of set length"? 😅
I'd love to hear your thoughts on achieving maximum tension using mind muscle connection w limited overload (vs going heavy) in this context!
Ty Eugene too!
Thanks!
Thanks 👌
John is super informative
My 2 bits worth on time under tension. I find that loaded carries and push, works wonders for me.
When i use carries as finishers i feel it works as a cathalyst on both strength and hypertrophy.
so doing heavy and medium length farmers carry (back, legs traps), simulated husafell carry (chest biceps shoulders upper middle back), long step walking prowler push legs, possibly, overhead carry core/lower back specificly........ each at least once a week as workout finisher does wonders to my overall growth. i do think the time under tension plays a very important part in that.
I accredit these effects mainly to time under tension.
seeing that the comment has become a sticky and all i thought i might qualify it a bit.
i workout at a commercial gym, focused on martial arts so i do not have access to neither farmers walk handles or a husafell stone.
so i use a trapbar for farmers walk, actually makeing it more of a frame walk than a farmers walk. but for my purpose i actually think that is a good thing. useing the walk as a finisher, by the time i get to the farmers walk i might have worked myself to a point were my coordination and mind muscle connection starts to go from fatigue. useing the frame/trapbar there is little or no technical element involved, its just to pick it up brace and walk, and i guess the ability to brace and walk, you know one foot in front of the other no matter the agony, is one of the last things to go as a result of fatigue. Grip strength and forearms is something the walk works good. so i do the walk on 2 levels: apx 50% of my deadlift 1 rm without straps to work forearms and grip. my gyms artificial gras strip is apx 70 ft so i walk up and down that, then stands at the end until the handles slips out of my grip. then for further loading and time under tension i do the same with straps and 75-80 % of my deadlift 1 rm. (sometimes when i feel like Thor i use "loose straps" so i hold it until it starts to slip and then the straps takes over, but i am not able to hold my coffee mug with 1 hand the day after so i seldom do that, it actually does not feel constructive, but then and there it feels bad ass .-)
the husafell is pure magic to me. i started doing that after a session of wood choping where i carried pieces of oak that was apx 160- 220 lbs on my chest. the feeling i had in my upper back and shoulders the next day was unforgettable, so i try to emulate that in the gym. no husafell available and really no interest in the specific strength gain from the pick up (i do other stuff to strengthen the bottom of my deadlift) , so i bought a hefty loading pin. i load that up with plates 40-50 % of my deadlift 1 rm. on a plyobox so it is at a level were i squat down to apx rack pull height, grip it, press my chest against it and stand up with it on my chest and carry. again up and down the gras runway is 1 set. I guess this would be more like a atlas stone or sandbag carry than a husafell, any way it works, and my norse genes like any kind of norse bad assery ;-) so in my mind it is simulated husafell.
3-5 working sets is the norm for me on both carries.
Oh by the way i find that walking, long step prowler push is a excellent "old mans leg press" at the age where your joints cant handle both squats/deads and legpress the prowler walk does the job and the joints stay relatively pain free, at least pain free compared to a day of squats and legpress.
I was not expecting that voice and accent from the Asian guy
@Peter Brandtman Yep, he's an Aussie
He’s Polish
Yeah imagine a world outside whatever county you live in...
@@camq-py7bs Reminds me of an old meme I saw where someone photoshopped the US onto a photo of the moon and some people thought it was the earth lol
Because you’re uncultured dumbass🤡🤡🤡🤡off yaself
Great video as always John. I would love to know your take on the negatives and loading the muscle on the eccentric part of the motion.
a little is good, but no need to get carried away with it
Had an EAAs ad before this video HAHA!
:)
thank you
I know what works.. John's methods.!!
Thank U John!👍🏾
I will say this time under tension helps with weak body parts. A video called "Weider bodybuilding series" had an exercise where you did a bicep curl and the bicep peak was right underneath your chin. You did it really slow. Weider knew time under tension worked.
When are we gonna get that mountain dog/ct fletcher video???
that wold be cool
How about going to failure?Yates was big on that; in my mind it equates more to strength gains...….
you have to go to failure, just need to be strategic about doing it...
@@mountaindog1 Do you need to go to failure only during the last 1-2 sets or you can even do it throughout all the sets after the warm-up, to build muscle efficiently? I don't go to the gym yet, but I do push ups with handles and full ROM, moderate speed, 1-2 times a week, 4-5 sets to failure with 5-8 mins rest in between....but I don't seem to be able to do more than 8 reps each time, even after weeks of doing it...I finish with dropping on the knees and squeezing out some additional reps for my last set. I literally try to "shock" the muscles as Arnold said, but it doesn't seem to work...Maybe I just need to do push ups like 2-3 times a week instead of 1 or 2? Or should I avoid failure until my last set?
The comparison to other sports imo always is a bit out of place. Those people might grow some muscle, but how would they look if they trained differently
Second: isn't TuT also about metabolic stress? Cause that's one of the factors some research more focused on, rather than just pure TuT.
Great video! Keep it up!
TUT can lead to metabolic stress....at some point you get cell swelling etc...so you could make an argument one leads to another. Thank you.
Heavier weights are harder to lift and automatically force the lift to slow down therefore more time under tension but harder and more dangerous to take to real failure
Therefore it's better to make a lighter weight feel that heavy to the muscle without the joint stress and dangers by slowing the lighter weight down, lifting for time not reps, focusing on form and maybe adding pauses
from time to time i've done 5 sec positives, 5 sec negatives and 2 sec hold in the contracted position for 3-6 reps TIL FAILURE, and then i increase weight once i hit 6 reps, so..... if you keep increasing load you will get bigger
Great vid! On compounds i always do 4sets of 4-6till failure and do like 2sets of 8-12 failure for extreme pump it works good for me;)
I start breaking my plateau right after I stop thinking about time under tension and start incorporating putting the muscle under tension.
Another thing people need to remember is the muscle fiber types they have. Type I are slow twitch, which are built for endurance and don't grow very big. Type II fibers are made for explosive movements and have the potential to grow much bigger. The reps you're doing need to coincide with the muscles you're trying to develop. Slow reps = type I and fast explosive reps=type II.
I'm in a phase now where I'm not tracking the used weights. Depending on the session I have my work set weights at 5/6 or 13/15 repetitions.
After a thorough warmup, 1st set: hard workset, 2nd set: con. failure, 3rd set: ecc. failure. If that isn't possible due to whatever reason, I work with straight sets and utilize intensity techniques such as cluster sets and isometric holds.
The burn of the muscle under tension at the shortest position / last few or 'actual working reps' is what will dictate what I will do.
Being mindful of loading the musclesfibers with the proper resistance is my only focus, nothing else.
Time under tension is a crucial determinant for muscle growth. Everybody claiming anything else don't understand how hypertrophy works.
Really interesting, thanks a lot for this! 😊
What about negatives. When you lower the weight slowly.
its always good to control the eccentric
Negatives and drop sets are probably the best way to force time under real tension. The down side is that its hard to do negatives on compound movements, and a lot of people think it takes longer to fully recover from negatives which means less working that muscle per week, and it may negatively impact other workouts where that muscle is a secondary muscle.
Its also not realistic to literally do negatives on every excersize for a particular muscle or muscle group
Makes sense
💪 BOOOM!!
Remember what Mentzer said, he was 90 percent dead on right!!
RIP legend
Yes very informative
John, I give you a lot of credit for this video... I have always seen that using 80% to 90% of a persons 1 rep max, is time under tension. So the weight a person uses matters the most.
Not making a rep slower. Now for older people 65 and up ) Who have not continued lifting. I do believe that high reps to failure is best because they cannot always lift heavy weights. Also no need for them to do 40 rep sets. Make the weight heavy enough that they struggle at 17-18 reps.
good post
wondering would 60 reps for biceps be too much ? for a day workout . splitted in three different sets
John u are the man!💪🏼
I take every set to failure then hold the partial (failure) rep for as long as I can before putting the weight down.
I don't have a clue if there are any benefits to this though?
Two great guys forming a formidable partnership!
Nice one
I just don't think using powerlifter who most likely, definately are using tons of gear is a fair analogy here. However, I would agree that you obviously don't need 40 seconds tut for hypertrophy. Getting stronger is a must no matter what rep range you are using. If your goal is hypertrophy.
The cyclists with the biggest legs are the velodrome sprint cyclists, not the tour de france guys. I think they also do a fair bit of leg training with weight.
I used to be a form police guy, T.U.T etc but this video is spot on , just like diets everyone is different. Check out erik kanevesky on youtube his form is crap yet he has made an astronimacal transformation ( his latest video ) which shows that what works for one person doesn't always work for others. Now im just experiementing till I find something that works for me then do it.
Not upping his doses?
@@littlehobo261 possibly but to me I don't mind folk who use gear so long as it's done responsibly and with the correct pct etc. Using gear doesn't take away from the fact they still have to eat sleep train right as well as fight through the usual I don't feel like eating right today or training today. Anyway I will agree with you be probably did play about with his doses.
So is 40 seconds tut good if its around 15 reps to failure?
yes
@@mountaindog1 thank you sir. Its so hard to balance all these different techniques
RPE some one that I have heard that they don’t count the reps until it’s hard
I think the tut thing is supposed to take like 40 seconds so if you are using weight too light and it takes you like 50 reps, maybe that takes 70 seconds, thats too long