HIT 30/10/30 and Time Under Tension

A typical HIT routine (not super slow) has one doing 8-12 reps with an approximate time under tension of 5-6 seconds per rep. That gives 48-72 seconds of time under tension. 30/10/30 give about 90 seconds depending on how you do the 10 reps. Anyone else think that one the main reasons for the success of 30/10/30 has to do with time under tension being so much greater. Many experienced great results with super slow as well for a similar reason. Thoughts?

Wow, not that it hasn’t happened but this is the first time I’ve head it said on a HIT site ( besides Josh Trentine) that someone got great results from superslow !
Scott

If you think about it the 60sec chin and dip from the arm specialization cycles in most of dr dardens books work great.

1 Like

I also think that major changes do work as a shock to the system. WEIDER MUSCLE CONFUSION. Lol. There is some basis of reality for this. Just hard to be progressive if you are changing the stimulus all the time. So if you went from lower rep heavy HIT. OR Mentzer Heavy Duty to super slow you would definitely see some results at least in the short term. Not something I would want to stay on as a base system though.

Everything works for a while
Nothing works forever
Is there any long-term evidence that surpasses
plain-ole-generic rhythmic 1/1 reps?
More lifting, less thinking.
Think more about safety and long term health.

3 Likes

How about lifting those strongman Atlas Balls ? Ha ha ! True though, in the end the regular old reps will probably win out!
Scott

== Scott==
Speaking of Weider and confusion does anyone remember a Weider self defense course they sold that had this guy flying through the air with both knees up hitting someone in the head? It was such an impossible move I always got a good laugh from it!!

The only confusion came from undereducated trainees reading Weider’s eloquence.

Weider knew what he was doing!

One thing I have struggled with on my return to HIT is a slower concentric cadence. For years, I have attempted to lift as explosively as possible.

A really great posterior chain developer. All concentric too.

If you go to JoeWeider dot com you can download a PDF of the pamphlet he published in 1961, called “Laws of Physiques”. He had a lot of principles
 something like 29, according to one article that tried to list them all.

Well this topic got derailed quickly
lol

Yea it did , sorry. So back to time under tension , for most of the time I’ve lifted I’ve never paid much attention to that. There have been times I’ve probably gone way over the recommended time like when I’d do 30 rep sets and way under with 6 rep sets. It don’t know how TUT suddenly got so important but it seems it has. I’m wondering if going over or under the recommended time is really all that important so long as you’re in the ball park. I hate worrying about that kind of stuff when I’m working out.

I suppose if you are obsessed about precise rep duration, like the Super Slow guys were at one point, then it becomes natural to start tracking the total time of the set. If you are only doing 4 or 5 reps for 20 seconds per rep, then adding even a single rep is a big deal. But if you add a few seconds to the duration of the set, that could be motivating, in the sense that you have been able to progress something.

I personally don’t think it is all that relevant. Consider that fatigue rates while doing eccentric contractions are lower than when doing concentrics. (Eccentrics recruit less muscle and are energetically less taxing). That means you can, in effect, cheat on TUL just by prolonging the eccentric. So 90 seconds of TUL with 15 x 2/4 reps should be more taxing than 90 seconds of TUL with 30-10-30, since the former has more reps and somewhat less time under eccentric load.

I don’t know if it is important or not, but there has to be an ideal time to stimulate muscle growth. If it was just about strength or going to failure powerlifters would be the most muscular on the planet. But it is not the case.

I could be wrong but it seems after 90 seconds you start working towards endurance, 10 to 15 seconds is for strength/ power lifting and in between for hypertrophy ? What’s interesting is that it seems like the range jumps very quickly from strength to endurance when you consider a strength lift might take 10 seconds and a long endurance run could take an hour.
Scott

To complicate things even more, add the hybrid of extreme 30-10-30 with metabolic conditioning - and where do you end up with? Strength, hypertrophy and endurance!

The concept of TUT/TUL has made a significant difference to my training, compared to regular HVT reps. Adding the emphasis on negatives, and I had a recepy for new development. I believe 60-120 seconds is appropriate in terms of time for a set (should probably quote Darden on this, not my invention).

I suspect that the “ideal” TUL is dependent on the genetic makeup of a muscle and thus what particular muscle group is being worked. And compound movements might complicate that ideal in my own experience.

A critique of HIT programs on these forums is that it can good for overall mass but often leaves arms/‘detail’ muscle groups lagging, greater TUT helps solve this

When i used to get Hardgainer magazine back in the day I’d read it cover to cover, except for the super slow articles. Those I’d skip!