What and Why: Tempo and Pause

Tempo and paused variations are a huge part of programming in powerlifting. Every program I have ever done has made extensive use of tempo and paused variations of lifts. But why? And how do you tell how much tempo is right?

First things first, the obvious bit. The IPF rulebook requires a pause on the bench press, and most lifters find that this is the hardest part of the lift. So, it makes sense to program longer pauses here, to expose you to the difficult position and help you practice the pause.

It's also very useful for technique work. A tempo eccentric (way down, lengthening the muscle) or concentric (way up, contracting the muscle) can help drill in technical cues, or strengthen weak parts of the movement. By going slower, you have less momentum, and so you have to keep working through the whole movement. If you have a particular weak spot technically or on strength, you can't leverage any momentum to just pass through it without working, which helps build strength and technique where it is deficient.

And finally for hypertrophy, research suggests that a controlled eccentric is very beneficial for muscle growth. Kojic et al (2024) compared strength and muscle growth between lifters doing slow eccentric to fast eccentric squats and found that the slow eccentric group saw greater muscle growth and strength gains. Roig et al (2009) similarly found eccentric work was meaningfully better for muscle growth than concentric work, albeit with some interesting caveats you can find in their paper.

In Auriga, we recommend coaches use a standardised format, which is "X-Y-Z". For accessories, this means "X" counts of eccentric (lengthening muscle, way down), "Y" counts of pause at the lengthened position, and "Z" counts of concentric (contracting muscle, way up). A count is roughly a second.

For the squat and bench press, it's the same. So then 0-2-0 Bench is a paused bench press, with two counts at the pause, and 4-2-3 squat means 4 counts down, 2 counts paused at the bottom and 3 counts up. Of course it also means your coach hates you, as such a set is considered a war crime.

For deadlifts it's slightly different. In the deadlift you start at the bottom of the movement, rather than the top, so the order is flipped. You would do "X" counts up, "Y" counts paused, and "Z" counts down.

In fact, it's often even worse than this for the deadlift! Normally, coaches mean for you to pause at the knee (high pause) or just off the floor (low pause). It's important to know which your coach means, but for my athletes a pause is at the knee unless I say otherwise. This means a 4-1-3 Deadlift would involve 4 counts up to the knee, 1 count paused at the knee, fast up to lockout, and then 3 counts from the top down to the floor.

Sometimes, coaches might prescribe constant tension sets, where they tell you to take no rest at the easy position. This would look like "X-Y-Z-0". For a leg press, "4-1-3-0" would mean 4 counts down, 1 count paused at the bottom, 3 counts up, and 0 counts of rest at the top.

If consistent formatting is used, Auriga can better track and monitor your lifting! The Hierophant, which is the page that provides analysis and insights to your training, can monitor how your different variations are progressing in terms of strength, and can scan your programs to highlight which tempo or paused variations are leading to good progress and which are not.