How to Cat Leap #07 – Arm Preparedness

Cat-Leap Arm Preparedness.

With the sudden jolt of trying to stop your entire bodyweight from sliding off the wall, the shoulders, lats, long-head bicep, pecs and many other muscles need to get used to starting in a fully contracted position at the top and slowly extending the arms into a straight arm position.
This is more of a conditioning exercise to get you prepared for holding your bodyweight. As the cat-leap distance grows, angle of trajectory changes (downwards Cat-Leap) and the landing position alters, you need to be ready to hold the bodyweight with increasing downward force.

1. Being ready for the pull on the muscles is imperative. Therefore you need to be contracted straight away. Being relaxed in the arms means that the top portion of your range-of-motion of the arm contraction is being missed and not utilised (which is arguably the strongest position of your pulling chain). This also means you won't go straight into the fully extended position instantly. ⚠EXTERNAL rotation at the shoulder joint, contracting the lats and long-head of the bicep will give you a maximum strength position on the pulling chain. I'll do videos on this at some point going into this, but for now, think that your elbows should be twisted inwards and next to your ribcage.

2. At the bottom position, do not 'hang' on your tendons. Ensure your muscles are still engaged the whole way down to bottom, and are still switched on AT the bottom.

3. Increase distance and size as you feel confident that your strength is able to take the impact.

4. As always, both sides take off!