Skinny to Strong

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 powe...

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 li...