What is T.U.T?
What is T.U.T?
Time Under Tension is Key to a Good Workout
One of my biggest pet peeves is watching people workout in a rush. Whether you’re working out against a timer or completing reps - rushing or doing the exercise quickly is NEVER a good idea. Rushing induces bad form, and bad form can lead to injuries and wasted reps. If you’re looking to build muscle quickly and safely, doing slower reps is the way to go. Workouts with slower reps cause your muscle to experience more time under tension (TUT). TUT is how much time the muscle is contracting during exercise.
Resistance training like weightlifting or bodyweight exercises incorporate TUT to build muscle, endurance and strength. The idea behind TUT is that you’ll make muscles work harder, improving strength, endurance and muscle tone. While the research is mixed on how much TUT matters, it will certainly diversify your workouts and potentially upgrade your results.
One of my favorite reasons for utilizing the TUT technique with both clients and group fitness class participants is because it forces you to slow down and focus on the concentric and eccentric parts to an exercise, thus improving your form and overall results. Let’s take a bicep curl as an example of TUT… When you curl the arm (concentric phase) and hold that contraction and then slowly lower or lengthen the arm (eccentric phase), you will see an increase in the muscle hypertrophy. (Hypertrophy is a fancy word for increasing muscle size.)
Other research has found doing eccentric and concentric movements in six seconds each led to metabolic benefits immediately after the exercise, instead of the benefits you’d typically experience a full day after high intensity interval training (HIIT).
Workouts using resistance bands maximize TUT. Unlike weight training, where it’s easier to lower your weights between reps, with resistance band workouts your muscles stay engaged during the entire movement. In addition, TUT training can be an excellent way for those who struggle to activate muscles properly, especially when rehabbing after an injury or surgery, etc. Slower movements increase your mind-muscle connection over time so that you know what to contract and which form is correct.
So, how long should your muscles be held under tension? According to the International Sports Science Association (ISSA), here are the ideal time ranges to hold a muscle under tension per set for different fitness outcomes:
For building strength: 20 seconds or less
For hypertrophy (building muscle): 20-70 seconds
For endurance: 70 seconds or longer
Overall, time under tension training is just one of many techniques to workout, get fit and stay lean. But it is one that I find to be the safest and most effective way to really understand how muscle development occurs. When you can feel your muscles working, it’s a thing of pure joy and accomplishment.
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Kim Duke is a certified personal trainer and owner of Core Performance Fitness and Training, located at 55 Bristol Lane, Ellicottville, NY. Kim resides in Ellicottville where she raised her two sons, Zach and Nik. For more information about her studio visit her Facebook page or www.coreperformancefitness.com. Kim can be reached directly at 716-698-1198.
