Mindlessly moving weight around in the gym can leave you with half the results that you deserve.

In any exercise, how you perform your reps can dictate what kind of adaptation you get from the exercise.

If you aren't intentional at all about this, you may be leaving gains on the table.

Some repetition styles can optimize your ability to contract the muscle quickly.

Some repetition styles can improve your tolerance the muscle being in a more stretched position under load.

For the purpose of optimizing muscle growth specifically, there is a specific technique you should follow for all of your reps that will ensure you get the best results possible. [1]

To get this right, there are 4 points you should implement:

Concentric portion

The concentric portion of a repetition is when you are actually lifting the weight.

In other words, in a squat, it is the part of the rep where you are standing up.

You should perform this portion of the rep about as fast as you are able.

If you are using enough weight for the exercise, the weight still won't move very fast.

With each rep, as you become fatigued, the maximum speed at which you can move the weight will decrease.

Eccentric portion

The eccentric portion of a repetition is when you are lowering a weight.

In a squat, this is the descent.

This part of the rep needs to be controlled. The total time you spend lowering the weight should last ~2-4 seconds.

Spending more time than 4 seconds lowering the weight hasn't been shown to be better, but spending less than 2 seconds has been shown to be worse.

The real key here is to make sure that it's you lowering the weight, not gravity.

Pauses

As a general rule of thumb, it is good practice to pause for ~1-2 seconds at the top and bottom of every rep you do.

In a squat, this means pausing when you're standing upright as well as when you are at the deepest part of the squat.

This serves two purposes:

First, it helps to standardize your reps in each set and in each session. This makes progressing your load that much more predictable.

Second, it helps to keep the movement stable, allowing you to focus on the contraction instead of balancing the weight or using momentum.

Range of Motion

Performing an exercise with less weight but greater range of motion will build more muscle than using more weight with less range of motion.

For instance, squatting to full depth will require you to use less weight than if you were doing quarter squats. However, opting for the full depth squat will build more muscle in almost every instance.

Now, bear in mind, full range of motion on any exercise may mean one thing for you and another thing for someone else.

So, when I recommend you use a full range of motion, what I'm saying is to use the full range of motion you have access to yourself.

Put into practice

I'm going to stick with the squat, because it's easy to visualize.

If you're doing squats with the sole intention of building muscle from the movement, your reps should look like the following:

• Go down into the squat for ~2-4 seconds

• Pause at the bottom for ~1-2 seconds

• Stand back up to the top as fast as you can

• Pause at the top for ~1-2 seconds

• Repeat until you cannot physically perform any more reps