  Recently introduced methods which result in shortcuts to adiabaticity,
particularly in the context of frictionless cooling, are rederived and
discussed in the framework of an approach based on Ehrenfest dynamics. This
construction provides physical insights into the emergence of the Ermakov
equation, the choice of its boundary conditions, and the use of minimum
uncertainty states as indicators of the efficiency of the procedure.
Additionally, it facilitates the extension of frictionless cooling to more
general situations of physical relevance, such as optical dipole trapping
schemes. In this context, we discuss frictionless cooling in the short-time
limit, a complementary case to the one considered in the literature, making
explicit the limitations intrinsic to the technique when the full
three-dimensional case is analyzed.
