Dumbbell Front Squat (Tempo)
A dumbbell front squat performed to a prescribed slow tempo, with a deliberately long lowering phase.
How to do it
- Hold a dumbbell at each shoulder with the palms facing inward and the elbows high.
- Stand with your feet shoulder width apart and brace your abdominals.
- Lower over a slow count of three to four seconds, pushing the hips back.
- Reach a depth of at least parallel without letting the elbows drop.
- Pause briefly at the bottom without bouncing or losing your brace.
- Stand back up at a controlled speed and reset before the next repetition.
Key technique cue
Lower for a slow three-to-four count, no bounce at the bottom; use a lighter load than usual.
Common mistakes
- ✕ Speeding up the descent as the set gets hard, which removes the tempo stimulus entirely.
- ✕ Bouncing out of the bottom, which is exactly what the prescribed pause exists to prevent.
- ✕ Holding the breath through a long eccentric instead of bracing and breathing between reps.
- ✕ Keeping the same load as a normal set, so form breaks down before the count is finished.
Benefits
- ✓ Increases time under tension without adding weight to the dumbbells.
- ✓ Slower lowering phases favor hypertrophy in the quadriceps.
- ✓ Removes momentum, so the legs reverse every repetition.
Progression: from easier to harder
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Step 1 -
Step 2 You are here - Dumbbell Front Squat (Tempo)
- Smith Machine Front Squat
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Step 3
About the exercise
The tempo dumbbell front squat is the same movement with the clock added. Holding a dumbbell at each shoulder keeps the torso upright and the quadriceps loaded, while a prescribed count controls how long each phase lasts. A controlled comparison of one second and four second lowering phases in the squat at matched loads found that the slower group accumulated far more time under tension and gained more size in specific quadriceps muscles. Slowing the descent also removes the bounce out of the bottom, so the legs reverse the rep.
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