Rep tempo for hypertrophy

I’ve noted that some prominent internet bodybuilding personalities stating that a very slow tempo causes more muscle damage than a regular tempo. First, is this true and second should isolation exercises be performed this way for powerlifters? Obviously, I would just perform my closely related powerlifting assistance exercises at a normal tempo.

Thanks!

JC,

We’ve known for awhile that very slow tempo work yields worse results and that a number of different tempos do about the same for hypertrophy : Effect of repetition duration during resistance training on muscle hypertrophy: a systematic review and meta-analysis - PubMed

As far as a slower tempo causing more “muscle damage”, no, that’s incorrect. As you likely realized, slowing down the rep changes other variables like reps completed (at a given load), load used, etc. When controlling for the work load, it doesn’t really seem like there’s much of a difference here. The Influence of Movement Tempo During Resistance Training on Muscular Strength and Hypertrophy Responses: A Review - PMC

I would stick to a controlled eccentric and fast concentric for both strength and hypertrophy improvements.

I would stick to a controlled eccentric and fast concentric for both strength and hypertrophy improvements.

I am a couple months into the Bodybuilding II template, and having never trained in this fashion before, I find I have the urge to slow the eccentric down more than I would for strength-based templates, but I have no real solid basis for thinking that. I would say I have defaulted more or less to a 3-1-0 tempo by default, whereas when training for strength, I control the eccentric as well but more to the tune of 1-0-0 type tempo.

I guess what my restless, pedantic mind really wants to know is, what tempo would you recommend for iso work on your bodybuilding templates? What about the main compound movements?

Thanks for your time,

Adam