In Supertraining, Mel Siff described situations or training goals where CAT would be most beneficial. As an athlete wouldn’t you want to use this method all the time??? Or at least on all accesory movements?
It’s a bit confusing, but athletes should always put as much acceleration on the bar as possible. It’s just not possible with specific loads. Dr. David Behm’s research is the research that says the intent to lift explosively is just as important as lifting explosively. However on certain lifts (bench, squat, etc.) it’s impossible to fully accelerate the load and there is always deceleration in the concentric range unless you throw the load off of your body. CAT is different than just lifting explosively. By definition, you’re trying to create more acceleration to compensate for the load so when you’re using maximal loads CAT doesn’t work (at least from my understanding of it).
thats what I thought, why would an athlete ever want to move slow on purpose
Because in certain situations the demands of SPP/sport practice introduce a high enough CNS intensive demand on the organism so as to yield a situation in which any additional high intensive stressors, during non-specific training, is counter productive.
CAT, DE, explosive efforts, etc, all recruit very high threshold MU’s.
We must really be specific about the preparation of a particular sport in order to more meaningfully discuss this topic.
I appreciate that post, James. I haven’t seen you on the forum lately. I guess that means all is well.
Speedkills, I have been spending a lot of time working on certain projects for my site, as well as working with my athletes, and exploring some new job opportunties. Much is up in the air right now.
It is, however, always enjoyable for me to discuss topics of interest.
Every movement you perform CAT occurs. Even in superslow exercises. There is always a period of acceleration. In terms of maximal motor unit recrutiment etc then you have to accelerate the bar as quickly possible.
As James has stated this comes with a cost but also a benefit.