Time Under Tension

Aesha Tahir: [00:00:00] Hi, everyone. How are you guys? Today on 9 to 5 Wellness podcast, I wanna talk to you about time under tension and how to apply it at work. Many of you know by now how much I love working out. Whether it’s strength training or distance running, I’m all about it, right?

Aesha Tahir: I spend a couple of hours every day working out, and yes, I do post videos of that, so you know it The reason I enjoy working out so much is because I believe that the gym and or the road when I’m running on the road, it’s a place of progress and contemplation, a place to push yourself and hone your ability to focus, to grow, and to achieve [00:01:00] self-improvement.

Aesha Tahir: Recently, I’ve started realizing that the reason I enjoy my time pushing myself is the lesson it teaches me for life. The self-control, the discipline, and the work ethic that I have been able to cultivate within the walls of a gym has carried over to every aspect of my life. And without a doubt, it has led me to become a more confident, self-assured, and I like to call it like a more complete individual.

Aesha Tahir: And that’s why exercise has been such a big constant in my life. And I wanna share an important concept in exercise physiology, which is applied in [00:02:00] strength training. And that concept is time under tension. For short, we call it TUT or T-U-T, which is the period your muscles are actively against resistance.

Aesha Tahir: It’s called the secret to muscle growth. Let’s talk about what is time under tension and why it matters. Now, in exercise physiology, if you’re looking to maximize your strength training outcomes, time under tension should be at the top of your priority list. Because time under tension refers to the amount of time that a muscle is actively under strain and or under resistance during an exercise.

Aesha Tahir: So while you’re performing an exercise, how much strain you’re putting on your muscle really depends on how much [00:03:00] tension that muscle is experiencing. While it’s often overlooked, this key training variable can significantly affect muscle growth, strength development, and muscular endurance, especially when paired with intentional movement patterns.

Aesha Tahir: Let’s dive into why time under tension works and the science behind it At its core, time under tension emphasizes longer durations of muscle strain, which increases metabolic stress and mechanical and mechanical fatigue, two important factors for hypertrophy. For example, let’s say you perform eight bicep curls.

Aesha Tahir: Everyone is familiar with bicep curls, right? You hold a dumbbell and/or some kind of weight, implement, and then you curl your biceps. [00:04:00] You’re flexing your arm. Now, if you’re performing a bicep curl using a two-second lift, which is the concentric phase of your bicep curl, and a four-second lowering, which is the eccentric phase, you give 40 sec- you give 48 seconds, you get a total of 48 seconds of time under tension.

Aesha Tahir: Now, compare this to eight fast reps where you’re doing two seconds up, two seconds down, right? So no eccentric control. You’re looking at 10 seconds of muscle tension in total. Now, research shows that intentionally slowing down your movements to increase time under tension, the total time a muscle is under strain [00:05:00] during a set, can boost muscle growth and protein creation Specific research which proves the benefits of this technique includes a study which was published in The Journal of Physiology, and it found that slowing the cadence of a lift, like six seconds concentric, six seconds eccentric or going down, boosts muscle fiber protein synthesis, which leads to growth of your muscle fibers. This is the process where muscle fibers repair and grow larger. In another study published in Harvard Health, slowing the tempo forces you to control the weight.

Aesha Tahir: This keeps muscles engaged for a longer period and helps build stronger muscles. Here are a few real-world ways to apply this concept [00:06:00] at work. You’re like, “Huh? How come an exercise principle can be applied to work?” Let me tell you how. Okay. First, a lot of times, a lot of my patients and clients I work with, and a lot of you listeners, have come to me and told me that at the end of the day, you feel like your whole body is tight, and you’re just so fatigued.

Aesha Tahir: So here’s a way to apply time under tension. Work in short, controlled bursts. Work in short, controlled bursts. Instead of rushing through tasks, focusing on moving slowly and carefully. Now, instead of rushing through, instead of rushing through tasks, [00:07:00] going from one project to the next, going from one meeting to the next, not taking a break, I’d suggest that you focus on moving slowly and carefully.

Aesha Tahir: This lowers stress and helps you avoid mistakes. Set a timer for 25 minutes. Focus on just one single task without looking at your phone or your messages. Yes. Tell people, “Hey, this is my time to focus, and I’m not checking my messages at this time.” And stop checking those emails at that time too. Now, slowing down your work speed gives your brain the same type of deep focus that your project actually requires.

Aesha Tahir: Second, take short active pauses. Resting between mental [00:08:00] sets helps your brain stay sharp and avoid burnout. So after a 25-minute block of work, take a 5 to 10-minute break. Step away from your computer. Holding a mental stretch or a squeeze for a short time after work increases blood flow to your brain and fuels your brain for the next task.

Aesha Tahir: Now, this next technique of applying time and attention is my favorite. Use the STOP, S-T-O-P, method to handle pressure. Okay. When a big issue pops up at work, your natural reaction might be to panic, just to react right away, send a, an email that, “Hey, you need to do this ASAP.” No. Actually, that’s the time when you need to pause, and I like to suggest, like, you should practice [00:09:00] a tactical pause at that time.

Aesha Tahir: Take a quick moment to look at the situation without judging it. Yeah. Don’t judge the situation. Don’t judge the people and/or your team involved. Just take a breath. Yes, breathe so that you can feed your brain some oxygen, right? And that would help you to think clearly about your next step.

Aesha Tahir: And that would come in handy for you for handling any kind of stress at work. Instead of firing off a quick angry email, keep yourself under mental tension, controlled mental tension. Take three [00:10:00] big deep breaths, which are called the diaphragmatic breaths, so you’re gonna fill your diaphragm or your belly with air, and then let it all go three times before you type that email.

Aesha Tahir: This slows your response time and gives you control over the situation, much like a slow, controlled, eccentric phase of a lift in the gym Now, this last one is my favorite one because a lot of you have DM’d me about it, like, “How do I deal with difficult people at work?” And I’m always like, “Okay, well, this is a good one.”

Aesha Tahir: And I think it has a lot of, like, connection to time under tension. So when you’re working with someone and/or just someone in your organization is [00:11:00] there, and you know that that person pushes your buttons, your natural instinct is to react instantly. So now, if you hold that reaction for five to 10 seconds, just like holding a heavy plank, you give yourself time to choose a kind and helpful response rather than an explosive one.

Aesha Tahir: So here are a few ways that you can apply time under tension to your work starting today. Now, I also wanna share with you how I’m applying- Time and attention to my goals this year. There are three ways that I’m applying time and attention to my goals. I’m trying to slow down. I tend to rush just like you guys.

Aesha Tahir: You know, once I’m done with one [00:12:00] episode, I’m al- already thinking about the next 10, and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, I have to get that guest ready. I have to get that script ready. I have to get those pointers and questions done for that guest, and I have to do this for my social media, um, strategy. And oh my goodness, I haven’t even uploaded this podcast the You- on the YouTube channel.”

Aesha Tahir: So all of these things I’m going through, and yes, I tend to rush. Like, I don’t give myself a break at all. I’m like, “Okay, after I’m done with this, I’m gonna do this and I’m gonna do this.” So all of that is a lot of like, what? Mental load right here in your brain. So I have told myself and I’ve promised myself that I’m gonna start slowing down.

Aesha Tahir: I’m not gonna rush through tasks just to check them off the list. But instead, I’m gonna put intentional time and [00:13:00] energy into my projects. Second, I’m also gonna try to control the negative. A lot of times when obstacles come your way, which they just do, right? It’s part of business. It’s part of life. And what happens is we tend to view them as roadblocks, and yeah, I’m guilty as charged.

Aesha Tahir: I tend to do that all the time What I’ve started realizing is that those roadblocks, those obstacles, are actually the resistance That I need to grow, and that is the resistance that I need to manage my projects and my, my projects and my business [00:14:00] constructively. So I’m gonna start seeing those o- obstacles as what?

Aesha Tahir: Constructive resistance. That’s a concept of time under tension. And lastly, I’m gonna hold the contraction. A lot of times I’ve noticed this for myself that, you know, when I’m going through a rough patch, especially for my podcast or my business, I wanna just get out of it, right? So instead, I’m actually gonna let that resistance…

Aesha Tahir: I’m gonna hold that resistance. I’m gonna hold the contraction. And a lot of times that looks like staying consistent with my effort every single day, because the accumulated time that I’m gonna spend under pressure is exactly what transforms potential into [00:15:00] true strength. So thanks for listening to me today.

Aesha Tahir: Now, okay, before we go, I want you to do me a big favor. Hit Subscribe wherever you listen to 9 to 5 Wellness. It helps me get this message across to many more people. And please, if you find this podcast helpful and if you’re enjoying it, leave us a review, because the reviews that you leave are read by our potential listeners and it gets that podcast across to more people.

Aesha Tahir: Thank you so much for tuning in today. I’ll be back soon with another episode. Bye for now

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Aesha Tahir (@tone_and_strengthen)