When developing strength programmes there are many methods you can utilize for development of your athletes. One of my favorites for a variety of reasons is using time under tension protocols. Today, I’m going to go over what time under tension refers to, how to use it, why you might use it and when the best* time to programme it is.
*Best time is always what works best for your athletes in front of you, but either way, these protocols can be universally implemented. *
What and How
Time under tension (TUT) refers to the amount of total time spent completing an exercise or set, it’s the total time the muscle is under tension and working… pretty self-explanatory. In any sort of set and rep protocol there is always time under tension but using eccentrics and yielding isometrics are a great way at increasing the total TUT without drastically increasing the number of reps. Below we’ll go into what these are and how they work.
Eccentrics:
Every muscular action can be broken into three separate phases. An Eccentric phase, a transition or isometric phase and a concentric phase. The eccentric phase refers to the muscular lengthening phase of the exercise. Think of a squat, the eccentric portion is the downward phase, the glutes and quads are lengthening on the way down.
Let’s say a set of 8 reps takes you roughly 20-25 seconds. Now let’s increase the tempo of the eccentric portion to 5 seconds, suddenly you now have to work for 45-50 seconds per set. Your muscles have to work for longer, thus, bringing about greater adaptation. Over the course of 4-5 sets you could be increasing your total work time from 2 minutes to 4 ½ minutes at the same weight. Doubling your time doing anything is going to bring about results. This is a fantastic protocol for developing strength in a muscular action that many people tend to neglect. So much emphasis is placed on the concentric phase of movement that we sometimes see people just dropping down and bouncing into the concentric phase. Eccentrics are great for stopping that.
Isometrics:
There are two different forms of isometrics, overcoming iso holds and yielding iso holds.
Overcoming iso holds is where you have to try move an immovable object, it’s great for a PAP effect, warm ups and muscular recruitment. Overcoming iso holds are slightly different to the other two methods here because, like I said, they are primary used and excellent at delivering a PAP effect for the athlete. Imagine you set up for a squat except the J-Hooks are inverted. You have the bar on your back and you’re driving the bar into the hooks trying to move the rack. You’re not going to because that rack is bolted to the floor and impossible to move but you’re using every ounce of strength. That is an overcoming isometric. Now, if you complete a jump test before and after this, I’d put a large bet on you jumping higher after.
Yielding iso holds are more in line with greater TUT protocols so I’ll be focusing on them for today. A yielding isometric is where you stop during the rep and hold that position. Let’s go back to the squat example. A common hold is to hold the bottom position where your hips are in line with your knees for x amount of time. It’s referred to a yield because you need to decelerate and stop (yield) the weight.
Yielding holds are by far my favorite form for increasing TUT because they don’t necessarily need external load to get adaptation. When your muscle goes through movement takes in blood and expels it with every action. When we yield, we’re not allowing the muscle to move through it’s range. It was explained to me like this, you’re holding the muscle locked in a position, essentially, you’re creating an airlock where blood is not passing in or out. Therefore, oxygen isn’t being supplied to the working muscle. Adaption comes on a cellular level from the muscle realizing it needs to change.
Why
There are a number of reasons for increasing TUT and utilizing eccentrics and isometrics in a programme, notably, muscular recruitment (See above), hypertrophy, return to play, enhancing technique and breaking through stagnating strength gains.
Hypertrophy
Hypertrophy is the act of increasing the cross section of the muscle through increasing the number of fibers or the size of those fibers. Basically, you’re getting the muscle bigger. TUT protocols like the ones we’ve talked about above work because of the increased time period these muscles need to work for.
Return to Play
Shout out to Matt Taberner for this one, the Everton FC Head of Performance thought me this use last summer. Primarily focusing on lower body yielding isometrics in this situation, you can get great physical results from an athlete returning from something like a leg break. Soccer is a sport where lower leg fractures are common, and Everton have had a few recently. Matt and his staff use unloaded, high time yielding isometric split squat holds to help redevelop load through the muscle and bone but not only that, it helps increase confidence in the player that their leg is healing and able to accept these loads. Now, while this example is very specific, I like the idea of using body weighted holds in certain positions for players returning from injury of physical and psychological reasons.
Breaking Through Plateaus
Eccentrics and isometrics can be great methods for helping to overcome plateaus. It really just stems back to principal that the muscle needs to work for longer through a certain range, increasing the overall work load. However, sometimes certain positions can be a weak point and that’s where eccentrics or yielding iso holds in particular can become effective. If I’m weak in the chin up from the bottom position to the half way position, as most people are, performing eccentrics and focusing specifically on the eccentric portion from half way to full lock out is going to give me more time in that range and more strength, if performed and programmed correctly.
When
High TUT programmes are quite CNS heavy. Meaning they are quite taxing on the nervous system which can cause large amounts of fatigue. Normally I wouldn’t advise TUT for beginners, but I do have one exception to this rule. I like making use of eccentric style work when trying to teach certain exercises to some novice trainers. In particular, I have had great success using eccentric goblet squats and TRX rows. They force the beginner to slow down and learn where their body is in space.
Advanced Strength Programmes
TUT is a great tool to add to a programme for an individual who is highly trained and needs a different stimulus other than traditional tempos to elicit a response. Advanced athletes like this may also have reached their peak load. Like I said above, TUT is great for breaking through barriers. If an athlete is of high training age and plateauing, TUT can help break that plateau.
Pre-season Development
Due to the large demand TUT puts on the CNS in-season isn’t really an option for this type of training. However, off-season training programmes and pre-season is a great opportunity to get this in your programmes. It’s important to consider the total load the athlete is experiencing from SetsXreps, TUT, load and meters out on the field from total distance to high speed running if you’re lucky enough to be in a position to measure. The benefit of tracking the data and asking for subjective measures from your athletes is that you should be able to eliminate and massive spike in load which can lead to an unwanted soft tissue injury.
Wrapping it up, TUT can be an extremely useful tool in your toolbox as a strength coach when used correctly. It needs to be programmed and built up to. Avoid just ‘chucking it in’ to a session ad hoc because the risk for athletes who aren’t ready for it is too large.
If you have any other questions not answered in this post or would like to be pointed in the right direction for some research on the topic, please reach out.
Rory.