Speediance Modes Explained: Why I Use Stamina For Everything

The Modes Explained

Speediance has four main modes in the automatic weight settings: Gain Muscle, Stamina, Strength, and Custom. Inside Custom, you also have three weight mode options: Standard, Chain, and Eccentric.

Here's what each one actually does.

**Gain Muscle** sets your weight based on 12-rep capability. Your minimum option is one rep away from failure. That's intense.

**Stamina** sets your weight based on 13-rep capability. This gives you more room for warm-up sets because your working weight is further from your true max.

**Strength** is for lower-rep, heavier work.

**Custom** is where you can manually set your weight and rep targets — but there's a gotcha I'll explain below.

The Custom Mode Trap

Here's what nobody talks about: Custom mode can reset your 1RM values.

Someone posted online that they set Custom to 10 pounds for bicep curls as a warm-up, then went into a dynamic mode expecting 33 pounds for their working sets. The machine set their working sets to 10 pounds.

Why? Because when you enter a weight in Custom without the machine having a strength assessment or PR for that movement, it treats that weight as your new PR. Then it calculates all your dynamic weights from that baseline.

The fix: don't use Custom for warm-ups. Use one of the dynamic modes (Stamina is what I prefer) and set your weight lower than your working weight. The machine will give you a warm-up set below your working weight without resetting your 1RM.

My Approach: Stamina For Everything

I use Stamina mode exclusively now. Here's my setup:

- Set weight to 20 (or whatever is comfortably above your warm-up but below your working max)

- Set training to 13 reps

- This gives me a warm-up set that's challenging but not grueling

Then I add a second movement in the sequence with the actual working weight — say 29 pounds at 14 reps — and save it as a custom workout.

The machine remembers your settings. If you crank eccentric mode to max (which I do on every exercise), it remembers that too. Once you've used a movement in a particular way, it remembers across all workouts forever.

Eccentric Mode Is the Secret

Eccentric mode adds resistance on the way down. I have mine set to max on every exercise. Why? Because I'm not a strength athlete — I'm doing jiu-jitsu and need full-arm strength through the entire range of motion.

With eccentric maxed out, I'm going up with maximal force but resisting on the way down. That means I can't lift as much weight in the concentric (up) phase. My working weight drops, but the total tension through the movement increases.

This is how I've built triceps without doing tricep isolation exercises. The eccentric loading hits everything.

The Rep Math

Here's how the weight calculation works: when you set a weight and rep target, the machine calculates what percentage of your 1RM that represents. It then uses that to set your working weight.

When I did 16 reps at a 15-rep max setting on bicep curls, I expected a new 1RM. It didn't register. Why? Rounding. The machine rounds down for safety. I needed to do 14 reps to get a full pound over my previous max before it would register as a new PR.

This is different from Tonal, which would auto-adjust and sometimes skip your working sets if you failed a rep. Speediance lets you continue — if you can do the extra rep, it lets you. But it won't give you credit for it in the PR system unless you clear the rounding threshold.

The Warm-Up Strategy That Actually Works

My workouts start with multiple warm-up sets. Every set says "training" — none say "warm-up" — but they're actually assessment sets.

I bang out 3-4 warm-up exercises in sequence, then 3-4 more, then hit my working sets. If I get to the end of the warm-ups and I'm not feeling it, I call the workout right there. Sometimes I've lifted 10,000 pounds before I even reach my real working sets.

These aren't junk volume. They're helping me assess how my body feels today, relieve muscle tightness, and prepare for the working sets. By the time I reach the heavy work, I know whether I should push or back off.

The Bottom Line

Don't touch Custom mode unless you understand the 1RM implications. Use Stamina for everything. Crank eccentric mode to max if you're training for functional strength, not just numbers on a screen.

The Speediance's programming is more complex than Tonal's, but it's also more flexible. Once you understand how the modes calculate weight, you can build workouts that precisely match your goals.