Focus on the time and tension components of your exercise technique for huge size and strength gains. “Your Muscles Don’t Count But They Can Tell Time.” This is something I say to my clients a lot to help them understand that while counting reps is important, it’s how much time to take to do each rep that counts. Don’t believe me? Excellent. I want you to do the same thing that I have all my clients do when they don’t immediately buy into this idea. I want you to do two sets of 10 reps of push ups. On first set, I want you to perform those 10 reps taking 2 seconds to lower and 2 seconds to push back up. On the second set, I want you to take 5 seconds to lower and 5 seconds to push back up. Which one was harder? The second set was, right? But why? Well, the fist set you took 40 seconds to complete those 10 reps. On your second set, you took 100 seconds to complete 10 reps. That’s over twice the amount of time of time that it took to complete the first set. Again, muscles tell time a lot better than they can count. Time Under Tension Time under tension (or TUT for short) is a commonly used term in the strength and conditioning and bodybuilding circles. In short, TUT refers to how long the muscle is under stress during a set. Look around in the gym. You’ll see different lifting speeds and different times under tension. Some lifters will be doing their reps as fast and aggressively as possible while others use slow and controlled speeds. Research show that the time that a muscle works and tension (tension = how heavy the weight is) are key factors in determining muscle growth. By putting the muscle under longer bouts of tension, you can cause more muscle breakdown leading to the sleeve-busting muscles that you’re working so hard for. Listen to this episode for the practical tips on how to use time under tension training to get the best results!