Why Slowing Down Your Lifts Won’t Necessarily Make You Stronger (or More Explosive)

There’s a common belief in the fitness world that time under tension (TUT) is the key to making exercises harder, getting stronger and driving progress. But if you’ve been lifting for 5+ years, especially in strength training, there comes a point where slowing down doesn’t make you stronger—it just makes you slower.

Strength Training vs. Explosiveness

Lifting weights too slowly over time can actually train your body to move slowly. Strength is a skill, and while being strong is essential, power (force x speed) is what determines how fast you can apply that strength. Even if you incorporate explosive work (e.g., plyometrics, Olympic lifts), heavy slow lifts can still dampen your speed because your neuromuscular system adapts to moving heavy loads with control rather than explosiveness.

This is why, for me, I lift weights fast—because once you’re strong, lifting slower is actually easier, not harder. Moving the weight quickly recruits more motor units and maintains neuromuscular efficiency, which is key if you want to maintain strength without sacrificing speed.

Why Moving Faster Can Be Harder (Yes, Even in Pilates)

A lot of people assume that moving slowly always increases difficulty—but this isn’t always true. For example, in reformer Pilates, if the challenge is stability, not the load itself, moving faster can actually make the exercise harder. That’s because faster movement forces your stabilizers to engage more reactively instead of allowing you to rely on slow, controlled contractions.

Of course, control matters—but speed can be a valid progression if you can maintain control while increasing movement demand.

High Reps with Light Weights? Great for Endurance, Useless for Strength

For seasoned lifters, just doing high reps with light weights won’t get you stronger. Once you’ve built a base level of muscle and neurological efficiency, you need either heavier loads or intensity techniques to continue growing.

Here’s why:

• Strength adaptations require high mechanical tension, which light weights don’t provide unless you hit complete failure (which, at that point, is more about muscular endurance than strength).

• Muscle growth (hypertrophy) isn’t just about fatigue—it’s about the type of fatigue. If you’re doing so many reps that your CNS gives out before your muscles, you’re not building size or strength effectively.

Takeaways

1. If you’ve been lifting for years, slow reps aren’t making you stronger—they’re just making you slower.

2. Power is strength applied quickly—if you never train fast, you’re losing speed, not gaining strength.

3. In stability-based exercises like Pilates, speed can make things harder, not easier.

4. Light weight + high reps won’t get advanced lifters stronger because their CNS fatigues before their muscles do.

So next time someone tells you that moving slower always makes an exercise harder, ask them: “Harder how?” Because sometimes, speed is the missing piece.