Pause reps are a great tool that can improve the quality and safety of your training. There are many reasons to use them, this article isn’t an exhaustive list but will cover the main benefits.

 

Pause Reps for Safety and Positioning

Safety is the most common reason that I utilise pause reps. The general rule I have for these is that there should be a clear stop in the lift and someone watching should be able to tell there is a slight pause.

There are reasons to include longer pauses but if safety is the main reason for including a pause there is no need for them to be super long.

An example of what I mean with a 105kg/231lb pause dip.

 

As you train for longer and longer you realise that as long as you consistently  you will get pretty strong and muscular. Injuries are a major reason that many experienced lifters fail to reach their potential.

I’m sure you’ve talked with many older lifters who have told you how they used to lift heavy like you until they accumulated a bunch of injuries. The stronger you get the more likely you are to injure yourself unless you get smarter about your training.

It’s pretty hard to injure yourself deadlifting 60kg (135lbs) for reps no matter how cat backed your form is. You just aren’t strong enough yet, your connective tissue can probably handle it even if your put your body in horrible positions.

When you’re deadlifting 260kg (575lbs) for reps this becomes a completely different issue. Sure there may be some people with blessed genetics who can get away with significant lumbar (lower back) rounding even at this weight but there are waaaay less than there would be at 60kg.

Pause reps help decrease injury risk as the highest forces your body is subject to during a rep occur when there is a rapid change in direction. Your body experiences higher forces when you don’t pause and try to fully utilise the stretch reflex.

Injuries are most likely to occur when your body is subject to peak forces.

In many instances the hardest point in a rep to maintain position in is when initiating the concentric (lifting portion of a rep).  This is the transition point between the eccentric (lowering portion) and concentric. For example the instant after the bar touches your chest on the bench press and you try to push it back up.

It’s much easier to hold position with even a pretty short pause (I’m talking half a second). This will decrease some of the stretch reflex you get (but not all). And will make the lift much safer with a minimal effect on the forces produced.

The combination of losing the most stable/safe position and being subject to peak forces is a recipe for injury.

Pause reps also help reveal errors in form, when holding a position it’s much easier to tell if something feels off or there is misplaced muscular tension.

Pause reps are particularly useful where recovery is limited/fatigue is high such as during a cutting phase, or on training days/periods that are programmed to be a little easier on your body.

 

Pause Reps for Weak Point Strengthening

If you want to be stronger in a specific position you should spend more time in that position under load. Despite how simple this is many people forget about this when it comes to programming their training. They’re quick to throw in extremely complex variations that seem cool when a lift is stalling.

Not to say an incline close grip bench press with chains won’t have good carryover to your flat bench, but I wouldn’t recommend starting so far removed from the main lift when it comes to choosing assistance lifts.

Firstly you need to establish if you’re ACTUALLY weak where you think you are. The weakest point is where the bar starts to decelerate the most, NOT where you fail the rep.

When the bar decelerates the most (slows down) this shows that the force (strength) your body is producing at that specific joint angle is the most removed from the force required to lift it.

At this point if you’re moving the bar fast from the bottom of the rep the momentum will actually carry the bar a bit past this weak point.

-This is usually due to a combination of some degree of

-muscular weakness

-relatively weak joint angles due to positioning of the joints relative to one another 

-how specific muscles change their force output at different position in their contractile length (strength curve).

You can pause on both the concentric and eccentric of the rep but in most cases I think it’s more beneficial to pause on the concentric (way up) when your goal is strength and hypertrophy.

In both cases stressing your nervous system and thee muscular system in a way that they improve holding that specific position.

Both of these isometric contractions will have carryover. Teaching your body to be strong and explosive on the way up from that position will be superior in most cases.

 

Opportunity Cost

If the weak point isn’t right out of the bottom of the rep then trying to improve the force production out of the bottom so that you get more speed from there is also an approach that can be used to improve a specific lift.  However this isn’t always the best approach.

We need to think about opportunity cost. Put simply what do you miss out on in trying to improve your speed and force production from the bottom.

You don’t have infinite recovery resources and time to train. It makes the most sense to prioritise improving strength in the position(s) that would lead to the largest increase in your main lift  given an equal amount of recovery resources and time spent training.

Let’s say you can never lock out your bench press when it gets difficult, the bar always stalls an inch before lockout. Now you COULD try to become even faster off your chest.

If you’re doing a raw bench press and this always happens to you, your triceps are most likely disproportionately weak since this is an unusual sticking point. With balanced development through the chest, front delts and triceps this will be very rare.

In this case your chest (the biggest contributor to speed out of the bottom) would probably be closer to your genetic limit (not that you actually know what this is) than your triceps are.The closer you are to your genetic limit the slower you’ll progress.

Therefore you would get a bigger increase on your bench from putting more focus on your triceps. The same recovery and time investment will yield greater dividends in terms of your bench press strength.

 

Pause Reps for Hypertrophy

To stress a muscle spending more time (pausing) under load where it’s being stretched (chest at the bottom of a bench press/weighted dips) can help muscle growth. Stretch under load is shown to be a noticeable factor to hypertrophy. You can also pause in the part of the movement pattern where that specific muscle is doing the most work.

For example, the main function of the lateral deltoids is to move the upper arm (humerus) out to the side of your body. Using a slight pause on  lateral raises when your arms are parallel to the floor is an effective variation.  This is when the weight is furthest from the pivot point and where the lateral deltoids are doing the most work. Whereas with your arms held parallel to your sides there is next to no stress being put on them, you can barely even feel them at the start of the rep.

 

When not to use Pause Reps

Pause reps are a great tool but that doesn’t mean you should use them all the time. There are instances where they could be a worse option than “normal reps”. Pause reps will remove all/some of the stretch reflex. Depending on how long you pause for, even a full second pause there will be some of the stretch reflex left.

The longer you pause the more elastic energy dissipates and the less of a stretch reflex you get. On some exercises you can utilise a stretch reflex as well as bounce off your body (particularly with larger lifters to move more weight) such as in this case of Pat Mendes’ legendary 800lb (363kg) beltless high bar squat.

This is freakishly strong but I guarantee he couldn’t have done this lift at this time with a full 2 second pause at the bottom due to these factors. And if someone could do this with a full 2 second pause at the bottom they’d be able to lift even more by utilising the full stretch reflex.

When you’re training for speed/power and peak force production (absolute strength) pauses will inhibit some/all of the stretch shortening cycle.

They are better utilised on exercises and days/phases of training where you’re not actually testing/displaying these characteristics , just when building up the base.

When training for hypertrophy and general strength (most people including myself) pause reps can be programmed year round in some way if you understand how to use them correctly.

Interested in coaching to take your progress to the next level?