A trainer at the gym I used to go to talked a lot about fast twitch dominant lifters and fast twitch dominant lifters. And it's good for your hypertrophy to find out which your body is more dominant in.. is this true? Also, if it is true how do you find which one you're more dominant in?
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06-05-2009, 05:08 PM #1
Fast twitch muscle fibers and slow twitch muscle fibers
AM misc brah
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06-05-2009, 05:31 PM #2
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06-05-2009, 05:31 PM #3
- Join Date: Oct 2005
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Since your muscles are composed of various fiber types, the adaptions that the different fiber types can optimally make vary with the stimuli they are exposed to - loading, time under tension, volume, rest periods, etc... However the point that gets missed is that slow twitch fibers are comparatively limited in their potential for growth so even if a muscle group is primarily slow twitch, you should definitely include some training to maximize the fast twitch fibers you've got in that muscle. And there are other factors too when it comes to targeting both types of hypertrophy - stimulation of contractile components and sarcoplasmic components.
That said, you can produce hypertrophy as long as the muscle is being adaptively challenged and a maximal amount of muscle fibers are being recruited.
Without being sampled via mucle biospy, a field test for respective muscle groups can be used to get an idea of relative distribution.
http://www.brianmac.co.uk/musclefibre.htmIt is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
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06-05-2009, 06:19 PM #4
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06-05-2009, 06:21 PM #5
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06-05-2009, 07:29 PM #6
Not to insult you, but you need to research that.
Just because the movement is slow, does not mean that slow twitch fibers are being used. Fast twitch are more geared towards anaerobic energy systems which allows for greater force output, but they are going to fatigue more quickly than slow twitch due to hydrogen build up from glycolysis.
On the other hand slow twitch fibers are geared more towards aerobic activity and have more mitochondria, etc. in order to allow for more aerobic metabolic processes to occur.
In short, fast twitch are the primary fibers that are used for most weight training activities. Slow twitch may still be producing some force output, but the bulk is from fast twitch fibers. Slow twitch would come more into play during aerobic activities like jogging, walking, etc.
It's more complex than this and I might be a little rusty in some of this, not guaranteeing it's 100% right, but slow twitch are not producing a great force when moving heavy loads.
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06-05-2009, 07:34 PM #7
It's quite hard to find out. your body isnt just all Type I or Type II, 50/50 Type I:Type II,
or some muscle all Type I, others Type II..
All that matters is how you are responding to your body. Fix your routine when you feel nessesary.
For me, my Biceps cant really push much weight at all (odd sticking point)
so i do lower weights, at higher 10-12 reps. It works for me, b/c of how my body is.
Listen to your body, try out multiple schemes and see what works best.
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06-05-2009, 09:50 PM #8
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no, heavy weight means you use fast-twitch fibers more. And in powerlifting the only reason it's slow is cus it's heavy, lol...they're actually pushing as fast as they possibly can.
From what I've read as well, slow-twitch comes into play with higher reps like 10+ or something (though you still use fast-twitch fibers there) and even more slow-twitch fibers come into play when doing unconventionally high reps like 15+ but since the fast-twitch got more growth potential, you should emphasize them more.
I believe in training both though. Doing heavy stuff at the beginning of the workout and moderate stuff in the middle and ending with a light movement or two for really high reps. That way you work both kinds of fibers, and it also means that you do heavy stuff when you're at your strongest(the beginning of the workout) and hit it hard, then use the lighter stuff to push as much blood into the muscle as possible so that you get the best of both worlds. Of course, you don't have to go super high reps at the end, it could just be 10-15 and that's good enough for most people. Then maybe adding a light 20 rep pump set at the end.
You can use a weight that 15 reps is challenging with and just seeing how many more you can get after hitting 15....or you could use an even lighter weight and just squeeze 20 reps but each rep squeezing a really hard peak contraction...but I wouldn't recommend that on leg extensions since it could hurt your knees, lol, so you can get some good peak contractions on them and then just pump out a few more reps. safety first.
x2
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06-05-2009, 11:58 PM #9
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