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3 Different Muscle Fiber Types
Most People Fail To Work 50% of Their Muscle Tissue!
Did you know that even bodybuilders neglect half the muscle tissue in the body?
It doesn't take rocket science to build bigger muscles. However, it does take a certain knowledge and application of that knowledge in the gym and in your diet.
And the Truth is, the Sooner You Act, the Sooner Your Muscles Start Growing!
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Training the Different Muscle Fiber Types
There are 3 different kinds of muscle fiber types found in the human body. We will briefly examine each of these three different muscle fibers and describe the training methods that would typically activate the type of muscle fiber mentioned under the description.
Type I Muscle Fibers:
Type I muscle fibers are generally called slow twitch muscle fibers because they split ATP at a very slow rate and have a slow rate of contraction velocity. These slow twitch muscle fibers are also slow to oxidate because they contain a large amount of myoglobin and plenty of little mitochondria with lots of blood capillaries feeding the muscle fiber.
Although type I muscle fibers are slow to oxidate with a slow contractile ability they are highly resistant to fatigue because of this. Slow twitch muscle fibers have a much higher capacity to generate ATP using oxidative metabolic processes compared to other types of muscle fibers.
To work your slow twitch muscle fibers you need to do slower tempo, higher reps, more sets with shorter rest periods.
Type II A Muscle Fibers:
These muscle fibers are generally called fast twitch muscle fibers because they are able to oxidate very fast unlike slow twitch. They also have a lot of myoglobin, plenty of mitochondria with lots of blood capillaries to supply the glycogen oxidative metabolic processes.
All Type II A muscle fibers or fast twitch muscle fibers are red and can split ATP extremely fast to generate energy and have an ability to contract extremely fast and are also very resistant to fatigue. The Type II A muscle fibers are not commonly found in humans but is common in most animals of prey.
To maximize your muscles with fast twitch fibers, you'll need to train with low to moderate reps (e.g. 4 to 8 reps), rest periods of around 1 to 2 minutes and a moderate training volume (too much volume will compromise recovery).
Type II B Muscle Fibers:
The Type II B muscle fibers (also known as Type II X) are also called fast twitch because they have fast glycolytic muscle fibers but unlike the Type II A muscle fibers mentioned above they have a very low amount of myoglobin with very few mitochondria. They also do not have many blood capillaries feeding the muscle.
The Type II B muscle fibers are called white muscle fibers because they generate ATP without the use of oxygen (anaerobic) and are unable to supply the skeletal muscles with ATP on a continuous basis like Type I muscle fibers. These white muscle fibers can contract very quickly but reach fatigue easily.
To work your fast twitch fibers you should use a faster tempo, lower reps, not too many sets and longer rest periods.