The Effect of Resistance Exercise Movement Tempo on Psychophysiological Responses in Novice Men

Tavares, VDdO, Agrícola, PMD, Nascimento, PHD, Oliveira Neto, L, Elsangedy, HM, and Machado, DGS. The effect of resistance exercise movement tempo on psychophysiological responses in novice men. J Strength Cond Res 34(5): 1264-1273, 2020-This study aimed to compare the effects of movement tempo in resistance exercise (RE) on psychophysiological responses in novice men. Seventeen novice men (24.5 ± 3.2 years; 79.3 ± 8.22 kg; 1.76 ± 0.06 m) performed the 10 repetition maximum (10RM) test for bench press and knee extension in 2 sessions (test-retest) and 2 RE training sessions with different movement tempos in a random and counterbalanced order (4 sets of 10 repetitions). The low tempo RE (LTRE) session was performed using 50% 10RM with 3-0-3-0 seconds (concentric, pause, eccentric, and pause, respectively). The moderate tempo RE (MTRE) session was performed using 80% 10RM with 1-0-1-0 seconds (concentric, pause, eccentric, and pause, respectively). Affective valence (Feeling Scale), perceived activation (FAS), attentional focus, and ratings of perceived exertion (Borg 6-20) were reported after each set. A two-way analysis of variance with repeated measures showed only a significant main effect of the set (all ps < 0.05), indicating changes between sets but not between LTRE and MTRE. In addition, a paired-samples t-test did not find significant differences between LTRE and MTRE, on average, in any psychophysiological responses (all ps > 0.16). Thus, for the protocol tested, there is no psychophysiological advantage to using either LTRE or MTRE in novice men. From a practical perspective, for psychophysiological responses, the present results suggest that it is up to the trainer/coach to decide which RE movement tempo to use, which will depend on the purpose of the training period, specificity, client tolerance of and preference for exercise intensity, and movement tempo.