2-3-1-0 Tempo for bench and squat is awesome!

Okiludy

I tried pause squats and bench today as part of my deload day.I really loved the feel and the control I had during lifts. I go heavy on Mondays and Fridays and deload on Wednesdays with new phase of my program. I cut my working weights down a fair bit, squatted 315 for sets on Monday and went to 215 for sets on pause squats. It felt like I was blasting out of the hole and really felt engaged during the lift. Another great part is I was doing more of an *kitten* to grass squat than simply breaking parallel. I really went deep and because of lighter weight it really did not cause and knee tightness at all. The bench felt almost as good as the squat. Few times I actually had to force myself to control the up portion of lift as to not got too fast.

For any that don't know tempo training is concentrating on the speed that you lift at. A 2-3-1-0 is a count of 2 to lower the squat to the bottom position. Once in the midpoint or bottom position you pause for a count of 3. After you finish your pause you come up during the concentric portion of lift fairly fast at a count of one. The 0 means you do not pause at top of lift.

I would not do 2-3-1-0 as my main tempo. The pause is kind of long and the short up would be hard to do with heavy weights. Still for a deload day or working in every now and then it felt awesome.

Willbenchforcupcakes

Tempo work can be very beneficial to be included in balanced programming. I still remember a training cycle where everything including accessories was done with a 3-1-1 tempo. Insanely brutal but it did a whole lot to clean up my eccentric phases on my lifts.

Long pauses on bench are great to practise especially leading into a meet. Learning how to stay tight while waiting for a press command is insanely important. I've got some 15 second pauses coming up. My coach may be trying to kill me.