Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson is constantly training, as he’s showed us time and time again. The man heads to the gym straight off international flights, fits in sessions in the middle of the night, and even makes his workout a priority on his birthday and after the birth of his daughter.
All that work puts a ton of strain on his body, so Johnson needs to be sure that he’s not just training hard—it’s just as important for him to train smart. He often switches up the way he attacks his reps, as we’ve seen when he tackles drop sets to work to technical failure without pushing too much weight.
But there are other methods at his disposal to grow his muscles smartly. Most recently, Johnson shared a video on Instagram from a chest day workout in which he slowed down the tempo to make the most out of the eccentric (lowering) portion of the lift during a set of dumbbell incline bench press reps.
Men’s Health fitness director Ebenezer Samuel, C.S.C.S. says that Johnson’s slowdown method can be super effective. “This is a nice, safe way, to get a good chest pump without using insanely heavy weights,” says Samuel. “If you lift heavy (and we’ve seen The Rock do that many times), you need to build sessions like this in, both to hone good technique and to give your joints and tendons a break.”
But using tempo isn’t just as simple as moving more slowly than you normally would. There’s a method to the madness.
“Two keys to the Rock’s tempo in this video,” Samuel explains. “First off, it looks like he’s focusing on a two-second lower, which is forcing his chest and triceps fibers to contract eccentrically and control how they lower the weights. He’s also being ultra-explosive as he’s pressing up. By focusing on accelerating his light weight up quickly, he’s insuring that his muscles still create a ton of force, enough to spark chest growth and development.”
Want to try to use method during your next chest day? Do dumbbell incline bench presses using that 2-0-1-0 tempo (2 seconds down, no pause at the bottom, 1 second explosive press up, no pause at the top) with lighter weight than you would press if you were performing standard reps for 3 sets of 10 reps.
You can also introduce different tempos into other types of exercises, too. Check out this guide to tempo training for some more details and a plan to move slower for more growth. Just make sure to keep the weight manageable, and don’t slow down during technical or explosive movements, like deadlifts and Olympic lifts.
Source: Read Full Article