The #1 Secret to My Strength Training Success

There are many "secrets" out there when it comes to getting results out of your strength training routine, and this episode is as much about a philosophy that you can employ while performing strength training exercises as it is about the #1 secret itself. If you are not already practicing this technique in your strength training routine (and judging by what you see at the gym, most are not!), then try it out and get more out of your strength training exercises.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Fitness Disrupted, a production of I Heart Radio.
I am Tom Holland and this is Fitness Disrupted. The
number one secret to my strength training success. Now, if
you've listened to my other podcasts, you know I'm not

(00:22):
a huge fan of the words secrets, but hey, I
gotta get you to click on the show. Someone commented
how they love my show, but some of the titles
are click baity, Guilty has Charged, Guilty has Charged. But
you know what, as long as I'm giving you good
information after you click, that's what it's all about. Right. So,

(00:43):
but I have to say that this case, in this case,
this holds true. This is something that I have been
doing since I first started in this industry. I am
fifty one years old now, so i have been doing
this for over thirty years and I've had great success

(01:06):
with it. And it's another simple thing. But when you
do it and you do it correctly, it makes all
the difference in the world. And it hasn't just been
a success for me, but it's been success for my
clients as well. You know, this is how I teach.
This is my methodology. Uh, It's it's nothing earth shattering,

(01:31):
but so few people do it, and that's what got
me inspired to do this show today. You know, I
need to be inspired to do my show. So I
have a whole list dozens and dozens of topics that
I want covered, and I wait until i'm inspired for
that topic. And that's when I do it because I
want you to be I want you to feel the

(01:51):
enthusiasm that I have for that topic. And I have
greater enthusiasm on different days. And this one was inspired
by me going to the gym this morning looking around
and even though there are very few people in the
gym's today, it still was an issue. And I should
also say that when I'm talking about the number one

(02:12):
secrets to success, it's consistency is a huge part of it. Right.
You can't do what I'm gonna tell you every now
and again and expect to see, you know, the results
that you would get from doing it frequently. But the
great news is that when you do it consistently, you
get incredible results and you're gonna be much more likely

(02:34):
to stick with it because you see results. And I
often talk about my first job, first real job, serious
job in the fitness industry back in college, and it
was managing overseeing a Nautilus facility. Now, for those of

(02:55):
you who are old enough to remember, the Nautilus jim
was a bunch of machines and they were the Nautilus brand,
and there was a specific way of doing them, uh
And there was one exercise, one machine per body parts.
So there was a chess machine, there was a back machine,
there was a shoulder, a bicep, a triceep, and then

(03:18):
you went legs. And it taught me so much and
I feel so fortunate, and it's so crazy to think
back because, as I've said before, I am now the
fitness advisor for Nautilus, and that is like crazy to
me to think about that. That's where I started and
then decades later, you know, that is my main client,

(03:41):
the one I work with, and the philosophy then that
I was taught. So I was trained on how to
train people at this facility and it was part of
a y m c A in my hometown. And this
is where I really got the bug for, you know,
thinking about this as a career. And you know, it
wasn't until a couple of years later after college that

(04:04):
I officially made that switch. But this is where I
learned and got in great shape. It was a summer job,
and when the summer was over, friends looked at me
and said, what have you been doing? And another thing
I learned that I did back years later as a trainer.
If I'm in the gym and I'm not working, I

(04:26):
don't train a client. I don't have a client to
train or something. I would train myself. And oftentimes trainers
who are listening to the show no that you may
have a couple of clients in the morning, then you
may have three or four hours, and oftentimes you don't
go home because home is far away or you know,
so you're there and I would either be studying for
a certification or working out. And so I not only

(04:50):
learned this simple methodology for strength training, but I saw
the results. And that's what it's about people. You know,
people can tell you their fitness philosophy, but do they
look the part, do they live the lifestyle, have they
done it long enough that they've proven it works? And
are they injury free? You know, the longer I'm in

(05:13):
this industry, the more that matters. It's always mattered. But
I just ran into a friend at the gym who
was doing and he's a smart guy has been working
out forever fit guy a little older than I am,
and he had been in the hospital due to doing
a and exercise incorrectly, and I was surprised that he

(05:35):
fell for making that mistake. And I don't want you
to get hurt. I don't want you to get hurt.
Do no harm. Okay, So when we come back from
the break and you get right into it, you can go,
that's so simple, and guess what do it? Do it?
All right, quick break, We'll be right back. So back

(06:06):
when I had that summer job running the Nautilus facility,
what I was taught was to teach the clients who
came in a two second four second repetition, what does
that mean? That means you raised the weight or the
machine on a two count and you lowered it on

(06:27):
a four. And that is pretty much the opposite of
what the vast majority of people do in the gym
when they're strength training. And that goes for free weights,
that goes for body weight, and that goes for machines
as well. You know, the way I like to put
it is most people are actually strength training backwards. In

(06:48):
other words, they are so focused on the up how
much weight they lift and they're losing the down. And
I'm gonna get into a little bit of the science
no real studies for this episode, but the science on
why the down is importan and what it's called and
why why it matters. And so that two second four
second contraction and repetition was the building blocks for my

(07:12):
strength training philosophy and subsequent success. And it doesn't have
to be you don't sit there and count and go
one too, you know, for you know, you don't have
to count out. But over time it's just gonna you're
gonna feel it and you're gonna do it, and it
could be a one second for second. I'm gonna talk
about that. But the bottom line is first and foremost

(07:37):
that the down, the lowering of the weight or your body,
should be slow and ideally, in my opinion and my
experience and my philosophy, it should be a little slower
than the up. And that's the opposite of what most
people do in the gym. They throw the weight up
and they let it drop to the ground. They throw
it up and they let gravity pull it down. They

(07:58):
throw it up and they look, but you pull it down.
I'm gonna talk about ego you're you're listening, You're going
this is it. Guess what. I almost never see people
doing what I'm saying. And there's a couple of reasons
for that, and ego is one of the top And
what I say to that is I could not care

(08:21):
less about impressing anyone at the gym with anything I'm doing.
I don't care. I want to be healthy, I want
to get results, and I want to be injury free.
And when someone I know comes up and says, hey,
let's compete, and do you know as many stupid whatever
type exercise, I say, no, you win, because that's not

(08:42):
my goal. And I'm not saying I don't like to
compete and do all that all that kind of stuff.
There's a time and a place, all right, and I'm
darn well not gonna get hurt in that situation. That
is not gonna happen, alright. So the first rule and
the top secret, and then there's a bunch of factors
that go along with this that I will outline is

(09:06):
to slow it down. Slow it down. So many people
just going through the fast repetitions, and that goes for crunches,
that goes for squats, bodyweight squats, that goes for bicep curls,
machine exercises, even internal external rotation, shoulder rehab prehab type exercises.

(09:29):
So fast. Now you gotta focus, and you have to
control the movement, and you have to use the appropriate
amount of weight. Okay, So again you say, oh, that's
just slow it down. Big deal. What it is a
big deal. It's an enormous deal. It's huge when it

(09:49):
comes to getting the best results in the shortest amount
of time with the least likelihood of injury. Now, I
have to preface this by saying, if you're young, you know,
if your goal is power and your goal one rep maximum,
that's different. But even so, you have to build a
base of strength first. So a lot of people say, well,

(10:12):
you know who know the industry better. They'll say, oh,
you're just talking about tempo training. Call it what you want,
I call it training. I call this good form. You
should be tempo training. You should be using the appropriate tempo. Now, again,
there are reasons why you wouldn't do this, but that's

(10:32):
not what this shows. This show is about the basics
of strength training. I just did a strength training basic
show and now this is two oh two. If that
was strength training one o one. This is strength training
two oh two, and it actually could have been in
one oh one, and and talked about at great length,

(10:55):
but slow it down, slow it down, And as I
said earlier, that could be a one to two second
raising of the weight or your body or the machine
and a three to four second lowering. And here's a
great I want to get too deep into it, but
there was a version of this many years ago, still around.

(11:17):
I don't want to name, it doesn't matter, but they
went really slow. I leave it at that, and the
title of the methodology was kind of that a takeoff
on that. And I would argue, ridiculously slow. And they
not only said that, you know, this was the only way,
the one way, as often as done in fitness and nutrition,

(11:39):
the one way, this is the best way. We have
some studies to kind of you know, that we can
twist to to make you believe that it's scientifically backed.
And that alone was let's just say questionable at best.
But then they even went, this is where you go
if you have any knowledge of fitness whatsoever, just common sense,
and they said, and if you do this method of
strength training, you don't have to do cardio end of story.

(12:03):
Not something you know, you just dismiss it out right
when you say something like that. All right, so let's
just do the quick math. And this is where it's
kind of fun. If you do a one second on
the up, you know, one to two and a four
second down, that's a five second repetition, right, So if
you do twelve repetitions five seconds, it's around sixty seconds.

(12:27):
And then if you go a little faster, maybe a
four second repetition fifteen reps, that's sixty seconds as well.
So it's great timing when you're kind of figuring out
what exercise to do, how much time you have, but
you think, oh, this is gonna take for No, it's
it's a minute, you know, twelve reps for five seconds,

(12:50):
fifteen reps for four seconds, and again where the down
is slightly slower than the up. And for people who
are just arting this. When I had clients, you know,
and teaching them this methodology, I just want the down
to be controlled. I'm gonna get to that shortly, something

(13:10):
called time under tension. But before I get to that,
when you do this, what do you have to do
with the weight has to be lighter? Now, I don't
mean light, I mean lighter. So here's a little test
for you. I want you to take maybe your bicep

(13:31):
curl weight or even your dumbbell chess pressed weight, and
I want you to try to do this. I want
you to go up on a two count, come down
on a three to four. See if you can do
tend to fifteen reps. Many people will not be able
to because that weight is super heavy, and I would

(13:51):
argue too heavy for most people. And when I talk
about most people, I'm talking about the goal being two
build muscle, build strength, fix imbalances, increase your metabolism through
the building of lean muscle, look better, feel better, live longer. Okay,

(14:13):
so try that. Pick a couple of exercises and try
to do a two second four second rap or even
a one second three second rap. Slow down that lowering
phase especially, and see if you can do it. Can
you do ten reps? Can you do fifteen? Can you
do three sets of that? Two to three sets of that?
The great news about this is when you employ this methodology,

(14:38):
workouts are shorter, You're gonna feel it. And when you
feel it the way you should, that means you're gonna
see results. Okay. So I often have people come up
to me in the gym and they are shocked at
how light my weights are relative to how I look.

(15:01):
They expect me to use heavier weights, and especially at
my age, there's no reason I am getting more out
of the slower repetition, the muscular time under tension. I'm
going to talk about with the moderately heavy weights because
at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what

(15:22):
that number is. What matters is how good the quality
of every single repetition is, and am I fatigued at
the end of each set? You know, if I'm doing
I generally switch between ten, twelve, fifteen reps, mostly just
for you know, mental reasons, but also like if I'm

(15:45):
at twelve, then I'm not quite fatigued yet. I got
three more. But the goal is whether it's ten reps,
twelve reps, fifteen reps, the last few repetitions are difficult
without losing form. I don't care what the number is.
If twenty pounds does it for the exercise, twenty pounds
does it, if it's fifteen, if it's I don't care

(16:07):
what the number on that weight is. I care that
I do each repetition as best as possible, and then
I'm fatigued at the end of the set number three
full range of motion, full range of motion. How many
people do these pulses with push ups? With again just

(16:28):
bicep curls, shoulder presses, They're like two three in range
of motion. Our bodies need to move through the full
range of motion. And actually there is some interesting research
into when you strength train through a full range of
motion that improves your flexibility for many people. Totally counterintuitive,

(16:52):
but it's also more natural, and it's just in my
opinion and experience, a better way to strength train full
range of motion, full repetition, not these pulses because you're
focused on the number and or you're using a weight
that is too heavy. I can do fifty really bad

(17:13):
push ups, or I can do twenty with the slow
By the way, try that. That's part of the experiment.
Do a push up where you go up on a
two count and go down on a three to four.
See how many you can do. If your goal is
to do as many reps as possible, totally different conversation.

(17:33):
If your goal is to increase strength, decrease chance of injury,
fix and balances, build lean muscle. You want to go
through a full range of motion at a slow repetition.
And fourth point is why is this effective and why
does it decrease your chance of injury? You are decreasing

(17:55):
and hopefully almost eliminating momentum. You're swinging the weights. You're
not letting momentum do the work, and you can. If
your goal is to lift as much as possible or
as many reps as possible, that's different. But I don't
want any momentum or as little as possible, because the

(18:17):
more momentum I use, the less I'm getting out of
the exercise. When I work out, I want to get results.
I don't want to do a two hour workout. So
in other words, when you decrease momentum, you exponentially increase
your results because momentum. If momentum is doing the work,
your muscles are not. And if momentum is doing the

(18:40):
work and you kind of do it incorrectly, that last
repetition doesn't quite go the way you wanted it to.
That's where you hurt yourself. That's where you pull a
muscle or worse. Okay, So decreasing momentum when you slow
it down when you use moderately heavy weights or appropriate
weight for that petition, and that that tempo, you're gonna

(19:04):
decrease momentum. And number five I brought it up earlier,
but the focus is on the down for me. And
I just posted a video on my Instagram where I'm
doing a bicep curl and it's the slow up and
it's the even slower down. That's the centric contraction. Now
here's a little bit of exercise signs for you. You
know that soreness, you get the delayed onset muscle sore

(19:26):
nous d O m S. I did a show on
that way back. That soreness is primarily from the e
centric contraction the down. That's where a lot of the
muscle damage happens, where the muscle fibers get torn. That's
what strength training is. Micro tears to the muscle fibers,
and it's when it repairs itself that you get stronger

(19:48):
and you increase your muscle. So that is another reason
why the more you focus on the down, the greater
your results. And this leads to number six bringing it
all together. What we're talking about here is time under tension.
Time under tension. I want the tension on my muscle
to be on my muscle the entire repetition, and I

(20:12):
could get specific. There are ways of doing Again, I'm
just continuing with the bicep curl example where you start. No,
it's going to be too complicated, it's tough to do.
Oh well, it's not video. But there are ways to
keep tension on the muscle the whole time, little tweaks
that people who are really strong and in really great

(20:32):
shape are doing, sometimes subconsciously it's just natural. But the
point is that for the entire range of motion, the
entire time you are lifting and lowering the weight or
your body, you want tension on that muscle. Now, I
would argue, and it's not talked about enough. Is most
people shy away from that, right because it kind of

(20:54):
it's it's challenging, it can burn, right, But that's the
goal and not pain and right when you can't do
the final repetition, you stop. But that is the goal,
the most muscular time under tension that you can achieve
in every exercise. And that goes for squats and lunges.

(21:17):
If we're doing body weight, if you're holding weights, and
I've said before this is one of the problems with
let's take the forward lunch for an example, or just
walking lunges. When people tend to hold weights that are
too heavy, what happens They decrease the range of motion,
so they don't go through the full range, and they

(21:39):
lose the down because it's heavy and they don't want
to feel that it's too heavy. It's gonna it's gonna
really challenge the muscle. So so many people are better
off not holding any weight for the most part and
just slowing down and doing that really focused, slower repetition.
And that's why for so many body weight exercises, I
don't hold any weight. I just go slower and I focus.

(22:03):
Because here's the thing. It's something I've talked about on
different shows, neuromuscular facilitation. As you get more advanced, the
longer you exercise, the longer you strength train, you are
learning to recruit more muscle fibers. And that is the
great news. So that's why someone like me, who has

(22:25):
done this for a really long time, my workouts are
shorter because I recruit more muscle fibers with every single repetition.
And that just took time and correct form and the
appropriate amount of weight and everything I'm talking about. But
that means that you do reach a phase where it's maintenance,
where you don't have to do as much. So for
people go, oh, I don't want to have to do

(22:45):
what I did to achieve this, and you won't. You
won't because you are recruiting more muscle fibers. That is
why you don't see physiological changes in the mirror when
you first start a resistance any program, because the body
is learning to connect to the muscle fibers first. Then
it's going to start making changes you can see in

(23:06):
the mirror. But first it has to learn how to
recruit the muscle fibers. And when you go slower and
when you use the appropriate amounts of weight, you are
going to see those results quicker. And again I could
just hear people going, oh, it sounds too simple. It's
who's doing this, show me in the gym. And that's
a great talking point. On the rare occasion I see

(23:27):
people actually doing these slower repetitions almost without question, they
are in great change. It just goes without saying if
they're employing this technique, it is I can't even think
of a time where I've seen someone and said, wow,
you know, I'm surprised they are not that that they
don't look different. And that's what I talked about. When
I first started in the industry. I studied, but I

(23:50):
also studied the people. I looked at the people in
the gym who seemed to be doing it right, who
had healthy physiques, gave off healthy energy, and I said,
I'm gonna do what they do, and this is how
they did it, all right, wasn't wasn't many, But that's
why so many people don't see results. This is one
of many reasons, but one of the top ones when

(24:12):
it comes to strength training. See your goal maximum muscular
time under tension, and to do that, you slow it down.
You gotta use lighter weight, and you have to This
is where it all comes together. You have to use
proper form. And proper form is that full range of motion,
proper form, appropriate amounts of weight, slow it down, all right,

(24:35):
final break and pull it all together. But I can't
stress enough that. Yeah, I could make it sound really complicated,
and I could use some big exercise science terms and
tempo training all this kind of stuff, and that's that's
how you need and that's not what gets your results.
And I am living proof of this at fifty one

(24:58):
injury free and you know sarcopenia. I'm in better shape
probably now than I definitely was at thirty. So if
you put in the time, if you employ the right strategies,
will absolutely get amazing results. All right, final break, We'll
be right back. So you're gonna try it. That's your homework.

(25:29):
Your homework is whether you're at home or the gym,
And just start with a push up. I want to
see and let me know, reach out, reach out. I
want to know how many push ups or how many squats.
Let's do push ups. If you're a push up person,
how many push ups you can do when you go
up on a two count and come down on a

(25:51):
three to four. Let me know see how much you
feel that time under tension, how different it feels you
got get away from the numbers. And that's where the
ego comes in. Ego will get your hurt. Ego will
decrease your results. And you know, people at the gym,

(26:14):
everyone's into themselves. You know. I used to quients, We're like, oh,
everyone's looking at me. I was like, no, everyone's looking
at themselves. People are just you know, everyone is self conscious,
whether you believe that or not, and most people, the
vast majority, just focused on themselves. So let that all go.
It's a whole another show, but it's you, and it's

(26:37):
you getting the most out of your workout, and it's
you not getting injured. And when you employ these techniques,
you know, it's not if, but when you will get results.
And what I love is coming up on a year
of doing this podcast, I'm starting to get so many
people reaching out saying how by utilizing the advice and

(27:02):
giving a time, they have made incredible gains and changing
their lives. I received one last night absolutely blew me away.
And that's what I do this for. It is exactly
what I do this for. I want to hear that
you are living your best life, that you are exceeding
your expectations. That's what this show is about, getting you

(27:25):
the greatest results in the shortest amount of time with
the least likelihood of injury, so you can live your
best life. All right. Let me finish up with just
something known as drop sets. I should do this as
a as a fit tip, but it goes to what
we're talking about here. So when you actually employ this
type of technique. Let's say you do one set, you're
doing a lap pull down, and you're going slow, and

(27:48):
let's just for throwing out a number. You're using sixty pounds. Well,
I've been doing this long enough to know when I
get to that last repetition, go you know what I
don't think I'm getting. Let's say we're doing that, I
already say rap, let's say fifteen reps. I know just
because again I've been doing a long time. When I
finished that first set, pretty much whether or not I'm
going to get fifteen of the next one. So there's

(28:11):
a technique we can use because I want the last
few repetitions to still be difficult, and maybe I want
to stick within that fifteen rep range. So if I'm
doing sixty pounds and I did fifteen reps, and I
go that last one that was kind of ugly, that
was close, still had good form, then you drop the weight.
Drop sets. I utilize this technique all the time, and

(28:33):
most people there's another way. Most people increase, right, you
go six, Well that's one way, and it's neither right
nor wrong. It's different. But when you start with the
weight that's going to challenge you, that first set and
you go slowly, chances are really good that you're gonna
maybe want to drop the weight. So, in other words,
just another way to do it. Drop sets. So if

(28:53):
you're doing two to three sets same exercise, you do
sixty pounds fifteen reps, then you go fifty pounds, and
if you're doing it right and the weight is correct,
you will finish that second set just as hard. It
will be just as challenging as your first. And this

(29:14):
is where you know you're doing it right. And then
if you are doing a third set and you drop
down to forty pounds, let's say, and you do that
fift threat and you go that was just as challenging
as the first and the second. That is where you're
gonna start to really see results. And sometimes you may
go sixty pounds, fifty pounds, fifty pounds, And this is

(29:38):
the learning. This is why it takes time, and this
is why the amount of weight you choose is so crucial,
and many people liftweights that are too light and many
too heavy. When you utilize this technique, time under tension,
slowing it down, focusing on the quality of every single repetition.

(30:00):
I mean, I look at my strength training workouts, it's
like a performance. I want it to be as high
quality as possible. I'm not just getting through it, because
what's the point in that. I want it to be
as effective as possible. And so I'm focused on every
single exercise and every single repetition of every single exercise

(30:20):
because that's gonna get me results, because why do it
if you're just rushing through it? And that's why you
have to find exercises and routines that you enjoy. And
when you start to see the results, you're gonna start
to enjoy more and more types of exercises and routines.
So there you have it. My number one secret to

(30:41):
success in my strength training is going slower and using
moderately heavy weights. Because of that slower repetition and focusing
on the quality of every repetition push ups. If I
do twelve, and twelve fatigues me that day, maybe I've
been doing other exercises or workouts. That's all I care about.
I don't care that I normally do whatever the number

(31:03):
is twenty five. If it fatigues you, it changes you,
and I don't want to get hurt. They'll say that
over and over and over again, because I want to
be running when I'm ninety, I want to be riding
my bike when i'm a hundred, I want to be
on that stand up paddle board when I'm a hundred
and five, and getting hurt doesn't help those things. All right,

(31:26):
thank you so much for listening. I know, secret it's
kind of a buzzword and whatever, but you know what
got you to listen, right, And like I said, if
you take this advice, it is not a matter of if,
but when. Give it time, do it and see what happens.

(31:46):
I am Tom Holland and if you could please rate
the show, that would be awesome. Just take two seconds
subscribe to the podcast with some amazing guests coming up
I can't tell you yet, and a bunch of podcasts.
If you're new to the show, go back. There's so
much stuff. And again I just said it earlier, but
my goal with my career just to help people change

(32:08):
their lives for the better. That's it. My books, my videos,
this show, that's what it's about. And I've kids and
I want to be a great role model for them
and I want them to live their healthiest lives. So
just know that that's what I'm selling here, trying to
break through the myths and misinformation and help you look better,
feel better, and live longer. Do you want to reach out?

(32:30):
Let me know how the push up thing goes? Two
seconds on the up, four seconds on the down. How
many can you do? Tom h Fit is my Instagram
as well as Twitter, Tom h Fit and Fitness disrupted
dot com. You can reach out to me right through
the website and I love to hear from you. Any
topics you want covered, any questions you have, let me know.
All right, thank you for listening again. I'm Tom Holland,

(32:53):
exercise physiologists, certified sports nutritionists, and the lover of everything fitness.
Thank you for listening. And remember there's three things we control,
how much we move, what we put into our mouths,
and our attitudes, and that is awesome. Thanks for listening,
Have an awesome day and believe in yourself. Fitness Disrupted

(33:18):
is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
from my heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.