Rep Tempo

What it is

Rep tempo is the speed of each rep, written as four numbers and set once for an exercise inside a routine. The four small boxes hold the seconds for lowering, pausing at the bottom, lifting, and pausing at the top.

How to read the code

Read the code 3-0-1-0 and you have the whole idea: a 3 second lower, no pause at the bottom, a 1 second lift, then no pause at the top. Type a number in each box, or type X for a part you want to move as fast as you can. Once the routine is saved, every set of that exercise carries the tempo as a light hint while you train.

The four parts always run in the same order, whatever the movement is. A code you wrote in March still means one thing when you open the routine again in June. Lowering is always the first number, and the top pause is always the last.

What a tempo buys you

Tempo makes a lift harder without adding a plate. A slower lower keeps the muscle under load for longer, so the same weight does more work on the way down.

Control is the other half of it. A 3 second lower is hard to fake, so a lift that had started riding on momentum has to be lifted again.

Writing the tempo into the routine also means writing it once. The number sits on the exercise rather than on each set, so an exercise with several sets takes one decision instead of one per set.

Where the hint stops

Kinoku shows the tempo beside the set and leaves it there. Nothing times your reps or checks them, and nothing blocks a set for moving too fast. The code is a target you aim at rather than a rule the app enforces.

Free, forever

Rep tempo costs nothing, on every exercise in every routine. Four boxes on a routine exercise is not the sort of thing to put behind a subscription, and the hint stays free as the rest of the routine builder grows.