If there’s one exercise that belongs in any fitness routine, it’s squats. The squat is a movement that builds muscle strength and endurance while improving sports performance and functionality. Squatting also enhances flexibility and improves mobility and balance. There’s a reason squats are a favorite of athletic coaches, as they build strength and athletic prowess.
Since squatting is a compound exercise that works more than one muscle group at a time, the squat also maximizes caloric expenditure while providing a metabolic boost that burns more calories than isolation exercises that work a single muscle group. You can get a lot of benefits when you include a variety of squats and squat variations in your strength-training routine.
Now that you know you need to squat, what is a tempo squat and how can doing them improve your fitness? Let’s take a closer look.
What is a Tempo Squat?
Tempo refers to the cadence or pace with which you do an exercise. When you use a slow tempo, the movement is slower and more controlled and there’s less momentum. In contrast, using a fast tempo introduces momentum and reduces the time the muscle is loaded and the amount of work the muscle does. Tempo is one of the variables you can manipulate to change the stress you place on a muscle and how the muscle responds. Sometimes, changing the tempo of an exercise is all you need to break out of a training plateau.
When you do tempo squats, you use predetermined time intervals for completing one repetition of a squat. You can apply a tempo to any portion of a squat, including the concentric, isometric, and eccentric phases of the movement. The goal is to slow the squat down so the movement is more controlled. The most benefits will come from slowing the tempo of the eccentric portion of a squat.
The eccentric phase of a squat is the portion of the movement where you descend and lengthen the muscles in your lower body against whatever load you’re using, a barbell, dumbbell, or your own body weight. By slowing the tempo of the eccentric phase, the squat is a more controlled movement.
You can describe the tempo of a squat using four numbers separated by dashes, for example, 4-0-2-0.
- The first number is the tempo you use for the eccentric portion, in this case, 4 seconds.
- The second number is time spent at the lowest point of the squat, how long you pause at the bottom of the movement. In this case, you’re not pausing.
- The third number is the concentric tempo, the number of seconds from the bottom of the movement to the top, in this case, 2 seconds.
- The fourth number is the time at the top of the lift, in this case, 0 seconds or no pause.
With tempo squats, you slow down the tempo with which you squat, usually the eccentric phase of the movement. Now, let’s look at the benefits of tempo squats.
Better Body Awareness When You Squat
By slowing the tempo of your squats, you’ll gain more body awareness of how you move and will become more aware of your form when you squat. Good form is essential for getting the most out of the exercise. Many people that squat have one or more problems when they squat such as allowing their knees to fall too far forward or lifting their heels off the ground. You become more aware of these problems when you slow the tempo.
Increased Time Under Tension
Another reason to slow the tempo when you squat is to increase the time your muscles are under tension. A 2021 study found that using a slow tempo for squats led to greater muscle damage and more lactate build-up relative to performing a conventional squat, providing an additional stimulus for muscle growth. However, the study didn’t find that slowing the tempo triggered a greater release of hormones involved in muscle growth and fat burning, including testosterone, growth hormone, or insulin-like growth factor 1.
In the study, the subjects in the slow tempo group used a tempo of 5-0-3-0, and the medium tempo group used 2-0-2-0 and a load of 80% of one-rep max. The subjects completed five sets of squats using a barbell to muscle failure.
A study published in the Journal of Physiology also found that greater time under tension boosted muscle protein synthesis inside muscle cells, as well as within mitochondria. That, too, could be a boon for muscle growth.
Reduced Risk of Injury
Who needs an injury? When you slow down the tempo and develop greater body awareness, your risk of injury from squatting should go down too. When you improve the quality of your movements, your risk of getting injured drops too.
Break Through a Plateau
If you’ve reached a muscle-building plateau, changing the tempo could help you make new gains. Slowing the tempo places a different type of stress on your muscles that they aren’t accustomed to. There are lots of ways to work your muscles in a new way, but tempo training is a way to do it without adding more resistance or increasing the number of reps or sets that you do.
Less Stress on the Nervous System
Slowing a squat down increases the time your muscles are under tension without placing added stress on your nervous system. It’s not just your muscles that fatigue when you lift weights, there’s a component of central fatigue, meaning your brain and central nervous system tire too. Slow tempo squatting reduces the stress on your nervous system, so you get less mental and physical fatigue.
The Bottom Line
If your progress has slowed and you’re looking for a new way to break out of a plateau and improve your form, tempo squats could be the answer. Give them a try!
References:
Wilk M, Krzysztofik M, Petr M, Zajac A, Stastny P. The slow exercise tempo during conventional squat elicits higher glycolytic and muscle damage but not the endocrine response. Neuro Endocrinol Lett. 2021 Jan;41(6):301-307. PMID: 33714242.
Burd NA, Andrews RJ, West DW, Little JP, Cochran AJ, Hector AJ, Cashaback JG, Gibala MJ, Potvin JR, Baker SK, Phillips SM. Muscle time under tension during resistance exercise stimulates differential muscle protein sub-fractional synthetic responses in men. J Physiol. 2012 Jan 15;590(2):351-62. doi: 10.1113/jphysiol.2011.221200. Epub 2011 Nov 21. PMID: 22106173; PMCID: PMC3285070.
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