Lifting speed is kind of funny.
If you lift slower the exercise is harder.
If you lift faster…the exercise is also harder.
It seems like a conundrum but here’s a simple way to understand lifting speed and how to use it to your advantage.
The root cause of muscle building exercise is really simple. You have 2 elements which are time and tension. Every exercise you do is just a way to manipulate the tension and how long various muscles are experiencing that tension.
When you lift something up at a greater rate of speed, there is a sharp increase in the amount of tension on the muscle.
When you lift slower, the tension doesn’t have a sharp increase but that tension does last a heck of a lot longer.
So both speeds are used to progress one of the two root causes of building muscle and strength. The only question is, do you want/ need to focus more on adding tension or on time?
For that, I suggest playing with the two speeds in your next workout. Do the first set slow and then the next set fast. You’ll get lots of feedback about where you’re strengths and weaknesses lie.
