I have never seen that term before in my life. The study I was referring to is actually in the Essentials book on page 162 and is denoted by footnote 147 in the second column.
I was apprently wrong, they are referring to all speed movements. For those without the book, their hypothesis is that by holding onto the bar during a speed movement, you actually are decelerating at the top and, therefore, reducing power. I think you referenced that before P-Funk. A more appopriate method would be a heavy med ball or the stuff I was doing on a counterbalanced smith machine. It makes sense, the only argument you could make is that when performing the movement with your 1RM you are also not letting go of the weight, but if you think about it, the reason you are not letting go of the bar is not because you are decelerating the bar, it is because the bar is decelerating you since the weight is so high. I guess part of the theory is also that since you are training yourself to decelerate the bar, you will also do it in competition.
A word of note, I did these speed benches with the release and actual found a drop in my bench, but I think that was due to me not being able to let the bar come all the way down to my chest because if the bar hits your chest, the counterbalancing mechanism fucks up and there is slack in the cable on the concentric portion. This actually ended up weakening me at the bottom of the movement. I think doing some full range bench stuff along with them (I was only doing those speed benches for chest at the time) may prevent this problem. There must be a counterbalanced smith machine in that gym you work out at Rocco, give em a try, your chest will hurt like a bitch.
