"Explosive?"

[Tock]

What is meant by the term "explosive" as used to describe how lifts should be performed? I've seen a couple references to the term in my wanderings . . . Does it mean starting out hell-bent-for-leather like a drag racer and trying to force the weight up as fast as possible in the first few inches of the lift?
Thanks,
--Tock

[Warrior]

Explosive would be 2 seconds or less in the positive range.

[Tock]

Thanks, Warrior . . . hah, I figured it was normal to push the weight up in 2 seconds or less, dunno why someone had to come up with a special term for it . . .
Ya learn something new every day . . .

[Warrior]

You'd be surprised how much you have to focus on an explosive tempo. Count yourself - or have someone else count for you next time you lift heavy. You'll see a 1 or 2 second contraction is not that easy when using heavy loads - if you need to be more explosive, either you are not thinking about it or you are using too heavy a weight.

When you start lifting really heavy you start to slow down more and more when contracting. And it can be very helpful to switch up to something where you peel back a few plates and go for a more explosive tempo again to get past a strength plateau...

Most common would be a 4-0-2-0 tempo - or 3-0-2-0 for shorter range movements. That gets a good slow negative with a forcefull/explosive contraction. But suddenly switching up to a 2-0-2 or faster (like a 2-0-1) training cycle can help with strength (more than it does for size).

BTW - tempo is written like this:

negative (squeezing) - middle position (contracted) - positive range (pushing/pulling) - beginning position