The MMC Thread (Mind Muscle Connection)

yeah I totally agree

It’s interesting to hear about CAT for bodybuilding.

Usually people talk about slower, more controlled tempo. But when you think about it, pushing faster and faster is a Controlled Tempo too.

Can you tell us more about how you use the accelerating idea in your training? Like how much of your lifting is done this way? Or which lifts might be good or bad for CAT?

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I got ancy and had to search around for CAT and bodybuilding. Apparently everybody knew about it, " Super Speed" was even Weider Principle #27.

All the Recruitment and Force Production benefits of moving the bar fast are good for building muscles as well as strength.

An article called “Heavy Training without Injury with Compensatory Acceleration” recommended picking a weight you could use for 8-9 normal reps, and using CAT style you’d get 6-8 reps. The author said this put you in the right heavy rep range for bodybuilding training. He claimed it was safer, you produced the force of lifting heavier weights, without having to go above 70-75%. He said not to use this technique on sets of 8 or more reps.

I guess it’s a no-brainer that producing more force with less weight is good for building muscles. I had just always heard about CAT for low reps and strength.

Old Schooler Leroy Colbert

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Yeah, I always talked about perceived resistance because muscles have no clue how much they’re lifting, and when I realized that trying to accelerate a load resulted in more stress in a shorter time, and a better finer recruitment, it seemed a great way to spare my joints a bit.

If you find old videos of me doing barbell Curls I rarely went over 70 lbs, but would always explode the concentric and milk the eccentrics.

S

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Stumbled upon this part here, I do the same.
I tend to squat with a medium-to-wide stance width (heels about shoulder width or just a tad wider), feet pointed about 45 degrees outwards, feeling squats mostly in the medialis and rectus portion of the quads.
Then leg press with parallel feet on the bottom of the leg press plate, trying to shift the weight towards the front of the foot at every rep, on lighter sets I often end up doing half a calf raise because of it. I’ll try to incorporate the cue about screwing the feet inwards.

I haven’t really thought a lot about hack squats tho, talking about hitting various angles, I was considering doing them with a sumo stance.
Maybe not the very best option specifically for quads, but solid for inner tighs and glutes?