Bodybuilding is a fairly complicated topic when you really get down to it. It goes without saying that not everybody who walks around with decent sized muscles is an expert, so it should go without saying that almost anyone can build a pretty impressive physique without really having much more than basic knowledge. At least, some people can – and do. For others, things seem to progress more slowly and every advantage which can be had should be taken (no, I’m not saying take steroids). What I’m saying is, you need to delve deeper into researching bodybuilding, and see if you can’t find a way which works well for you, through trial and error; that’s all you have. One aspect of bodybuilding often neglected but of crucial importance is tempo. That is, how fast or slow you lift during which portions of the lift. And, what’s the difference?

Look in any bodybuilding book, on any bodybuilding forum, read any bodybuilding article, and you’ll usually see they all have one thing in common: they generally advocate slow movements.

But, why is this, and what will fast movements do?

Slow movements are made in bodybuilding for a few reasons. First of all, the type of muscle fibers (there are different types, from slow twitch to super fast twitch) which make up most of our muscle mass are worked best with slow movements. Also, these slow movements place the muscles under tension for greater time, which induces muscle protein breakdown and eventually overcompensation (growth).

Bodybuilding then, on the whole, is largely geared towards higher repetitions and slower movements because that’s what works best for sheer muscle size.

However… if you choose to do only slow movements and high repetitions, you are losing out on size, because other muscle fibers are not being worked.

For most people, then, the way is higher repetitions and slow movements most of the time, and more infrequent lower rep, heavier weight, faster repetitions, to work the faster twitch fibers.