There is always more than meets the eye when you look closely at all things worth looking at.  Take this Lower Body Tempo Workout for example, at first glance it looks very basic however I encourage you to give it a go and do it exactly as I have suggested. Be strict with form and timing and you will quickly come to understand that it is not what you do, instead it is how it is done that makes the difference.

 

In consideration of the limited time of 10 minutes available through You Tube there simply isn't enough time to do record the whole workout so I chose to edit it to fit within 1 second of the 10 minute time limit.

 

The muscles of the body have blood vessels that resemble the root system of a tree. Initially the main root is quite thick and as it spreads further it branches out into finer roots that reach far in search of nutrients. The Arterial system of the human body is very similar with arteries as the main blood vessels that supply the muscles with oxygenated blood and then these branch out in capillaries throughout the entire muscle. At rest blood is pumping through these arteries however only 30% of these arteries are refreshed with new blood with each beat of the heart. The remaining 70% contain blood that is stagnant in movement however full of oxygen in anticipation of movement. Keep this in mind for a moment while you try to understand the following as it is a little deep, so if you don't get it first time then read it again.

 

When a workout is typically done by most people, the entire muscle is rarely utilized, and instead it is usually the same 30% of fibers that do all the work. When the workout is complete you feel as though you did the best you could however apart from a little pain there is very little growth in endurance, strength, or hypertrophy afterwards. The lack of real progress results in frustration setting in, and the solution is usually to add more weight, however apart from increasing your risk of injury this achieves very little and instead hurts the same 30% of fibers which means the muscle is over trained and tries to protect itself by recovering in a slightly shortened and inflexible state. This the progresses over time into adhesion between surrounding muscles and consequently eventual injury.

 

Assuming you understand all of that then I will now set out the workout for you to follow, however keep your eyes open for a new video that will be listed in my Q&A section that will address this point in more detail.

 

The workout consists of 3 exercises for Quadriceps, Hamstrings, and Calves as a warm up and pre-fatigue which will slowly but surely saturate the muscles of the lower body with blood in preparation for the final exercise which will overload the muscle entirely to failure. The tempo is two seconds for the lengthening of the muscle, one second at the top and bottom of the movement respectively, and finally one second for the shortening of the muscle. Watch the video closely and you will see this in action.

 

DO 12 reps, 3 Sets with 60 seconds rest between sets THEN START NEXT EXERCISE WITHIN 60 SECONDS

 

Exercise 1. LEG EXTENSION (Should take 6 Minutes)

Exercise 2. LYING LEG CURL (Should take 6 Minutes)

Exercise 3. DONKEY CALF RAISE (Should take 6 Minutes)

 

Within 1 minute of finishing the last set, do 3 sets of 12 reps of BARBELL SQUATS increasing the weight slightly with each set, with 1 minute rest between sets. 

 

Exercise 4a. BARBELL SQUATS (Should take 5 mins)  - Total workout time is 23 minutes.

 

NOTE: If you don't have a safe way to do Barbell Squats and want to use Dumbbells instead then you can do as follows. Select a pair of dumbbells that are 85% of the Barbell Squat weight however the TEMPO changes to 2 seconds down and as fast as possible up. Do 12 reps, rest 10 seconds, do 12 reps, rest 10 seconds, do 12 reps, then you are finished. 

 

Alternative to Barbell Squats is Exercise 4b. DUMBBELL SQUATS - put a 2cm block under your heels or a 1.25kg weight plate. Should take 2 minutes to complete. Remember to lower you body for two seconds and drive up as fast as possible without rest at the bottom or top. Repeat this 12 times and then rest for 10 seconds whilst simply standing upright and holding the dumbbells. After 10 seconds rest then do another 12 reps. Rest again for 10 seconds then do your final set of 12 reps.

 

Therefore the total workout time with exercise 4b instead of exercise 4a is is 20 minutes.

 

 

 

 Con & Niki