In people who regularly lift weights, the amount of time muscles are under strain during bench presses correlates with how much total work is done and how many repetitions are completed, indicating...
Mechanism
Synthesis from 1 study
Moving the bar slower during a bench press keeps your muscles working longer, which makes them fire more and burn more energy. This lets you do more reps and complete more total work, even if the weight doesn’t change.
Most probable mechanism
When you move the bar slowly during a bench press, your muscles stay active longer, which forces more muscle fibers to fire and use up more energy. This makes you do more reps and complete more total work, even if the weight or distance doesn’t change.
Prolonged muscle contraction increases motor unit recruitment to maintain force output during sustained tension
Extended contraction duration elevates metabolic demand in muscle fibers, increasing ATP consumption and fatigue accumulation
Higher metabolic demand and sustained motor unit activity lead to greater total mechanical work performed over the set
Evidence from Studies
Supporting (1)
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Time under tension and mechanical variables in the bench press exercise at different rest intervals
Contradicting (0)
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Gold Standard Evidence Needed
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