March 26, 2009
Do Your Reps Properly
One of the most important pieces of bodybuilding advice I can give you is to pay close attention to the role of the humble rep. The basic building block of any workout is the repetition, or rep. There are two very important aspects to the repetition, and these are quality and quantity, and both require careful consideration. The quality of a repetition is determined by how its is executed, or by the time taken to lift and lower the weight involved. Repetition cadence or tempo refers to the speed at which the repetition is carried out. Each repetition which is performed has three phases: lower, pause and lift. To carry out a gold standard repetition requires a two second lowering phase, a one second pause, and a two second lift phase. This is known as a 2-1-2 repetition and requires 5 seconds to complete the full range of motion.
