Certain trainers pride themselves in taking a simple training concept, then spinning it seven ways 'til Sunday so that in the end, you're left more confused than a toddler in a titty bar.

A persistent little booger like that is tempo.

(a.k.a. rep speed)

I get a hearty chuckle anytime I see a workout with a different tempo assigned for each exercise.

Not that paying attention to rep speed has zero place in a solid strength program.

I'll be the first to admit that there ARE certain benefits to using various tempos in your training.

One of the biggest being that you can really focus on grooving your lifting technique when forced to lower the bar under control, then exploding back up. Or squatting down and pausing in the hole for three full seconds before driving up to build bottom position strength.

And yes, you can extend time under tension with slow negatives and paused reps. Which does play a factor in muscle growth.

Here's the thing, though, Johnny Boy...

Not every friggin' exercise needs a fancy 4-3-3-1 tempo assigned.

I once happened upon a training program I'll never be able to forget - as much as I wanted to pour battery acid in my eyes when skimming through it.

Written by a pro bodybuilder, every exercise listed included some crazy tempo variation that no mere mortal could possibly replicate in real life.

An example?

Back extensions with a 6-second negative, paused for 2 seconds at the bottom, followed by a 3-second concentric, and finally paused at the top for another 2 seconds before continuing with the next rep.

Worst part?

The program called for 15 reps of these back extensions with the aforementioned 6-2-3-2 tempo.

Whip out a calculator and you'll realize a set would have lasted over three minutes! And you were supposed to perform 6 (!) sets of them. Good luck trying to get out of bed the following morning.

What a joke... too bad nothing hilarious about it.

That's also one of the reasons why countless trainees fail to make any noticeable strength or size gains from bodybuilding workouts published in mainstream fitness magazines or online.

Completely made up programs that nobody ever has and nobody ever will use for gaining strength and size.

(Which is its own discussion for another day)

Some guys get suckered into tempo abuse so bad they end up working out to the tune of a metronome.

Imagine a beeping noise in your ear for 60 minutes straight while trying to lift heavy.

Sounds fun.

(Not.)

However, as I mentioned in the beginning of this email, there's a time and place for varying your rep speed to squeeze out sum mo' xtra gainz.

To learn how to get strong and awesome applying (but never abusing) tempo training, click the link below now:

http://www.NextLevelHockeyTraining.com

Yunus Barisik