You Have 2 Different “Official” Muscle Types

To get the results you’re looking for it’s important that your workout stimulate the right muscle fiber types.

Regrettably, every body training program is not created with this in mind, when speaking in terms of muscle fiber types.

Type A Fast-Twitch Muscle Fibers

The first muscle fiber type is called Type A Fast Twitch and is responsible for the most explosive movements, but, will fatigue very quickly.

As an example,you would mainly be using type A muscle fibers if you were to do a set of 3 hard reps for squats or bench press, .

Type A Fast Twitch muscles are inclined to have sizable motor neurons and little mitochondrial density. They also have a a low level of oxidative capacity, which means they aren’t able to utilize oxygen very well. Because of this factor they are not suitable for endurance activities, as during these type exercises , oxygen needs to be present in order to maintain muscular contractions.

The main fuel that these muscle fibers are going to use is stored muscle glycogen (glucose) and creatine phosphate. They do not use body fat at all because they are only able to repeatedly contract for up to about 20 seconds.

Type B Fast-Twitch Muscle Fibers

Type B fast twitch muscle fibers is another muscle fiber also categorized as a fast twitch muscle fiber but not to the degree that type A is.

This fiber type is mostly utilized during activities that are fairly short in duration, but all out speed.

As an example, if you were to sprint for 100 meters, you would be using mostly type A. On the other hand, if you are running at an interval of about 80-90% of your max capability for about 30 seconds, you would use more of type A.

Type B muscle fibers are intermediate compared to Type As far as being resilient against fatigue, and they contain a high quantity of mitochondrial density.

This muscle fiber type is able to use oxygen to a great extent, as demonstrated by it’s being harder to fatigue and the longer length of contraction abilities.

Slow Twitch Fiber Type

The last type of muscle fiber is categorized as slow-twitch. These are the muscle fibers you would use when running a marathon or any other long duration, lower intensity activity.

These muscle fibers have a very high quality of resistance to fatigue and have a huge capability to use oxygen..

They are fairly slow to contract, so you can’t anticipate a great deal of power from these muscles, and are not be intended for exercises that need a high measure of power.

Slow Twitch Fibers are extraordinary in terms of mitochondrial density and they have a large number of capillaries running throughout them. The main reason is to enable enough oxygen to get to the muscle tissues when doing the extended muscular work they are made for.

These Slow Twitch fibers are the muscles that will rely on fat as fuel to a greater extent than, using creatine phosphate or carbohydrates..

Training Your Muscle Fiber Types

Now that you’re accustomed to the three major muscle fiber types, we should talk about how you will train each successfully.

Since type A are your chief power generators, to enhance them you’ll need to train using exercises that require max effort for short periods like sprinting at full speed or 3 rep sets for lifting, and any type of exercise that requires sudden contraction.

To train your Type B Muscles Fibers you want to slightly decrease the force with which you are to contract while at the same time increasing the time it takes to contract..

For example you would use the 6 to 10 repetition range to train these.

Next, you improve your slow twitch muscle fibers with endurance. This fiber will usually require the longest time to train for improvement because you need to focus on going for longer periods.

If you’re a runner, run farther and translate this to any other activity. This type of muscle has the ability to go for extended periods of time so this is exactly what you want to train it to do.

So, next time you are trying to organize your training program, be sure to take the different muscle fiber types into consideration. This will help you to get the most out of your training program, getting the precise outcome you’re looking for.

Filed Under: Weight Training