Researchers, trainers and clinicians have all suggested that to facilitate the greatest improvements to athletic performance, the resistance-training programme employed by an athlete must be adapted to meet the specific demands of their sport. Therefore, it is conceivable that one mechanical stimulus, or resistance type, may not be appropriate for all applications. Traditional free-, weight or mass based training is excellent in achieving strength and rate of force development, however this approach might be limited in achieving velocity specific adaptations, and specificity of sports specific movements might be limited. Other systems, such as pneumatic systems, have been introduced to achieve velocity-specific power. However, there is no empirical evidence of this. Future research should target advantages and disadvantages of different resistance systems to performance.
1080 Motion comment: One answer to this would be to create a system that could target both load and speed in sport specific movement patterns. Furthermore, the ability to set load and speed at different levels in the concentric and eccentric phase would add an additional benefit. The ability to do this with different resistance settings would open up new possibilities in research and performance specific development.
