The Mabus Scarab Blog

You have had a training partner now for the past year and you both push each other through each of your training sessions. This is a great way to improve your fitness as well as motivate yourself when someone else is standing there watching. Your coach has given these routines to you because they are proven examples of how to gain muscle quickly.  Your training regime has incorporated lots of cross training as well.  You both are fairly equal fitness level wise but for some reason your partner always  beats you in the sprint type routines whereas you are always ahead in the longer distance exercises (i.e. running and cycling). You are competitive by nature and would like to change this but have never really under stood why the sprinting types of exercises were not your best. The reason for this can be explained in three words; Twitch Muscle Fibres.

Twitch Muscles and How They Help

Twitch muscles fibres are merely individual muscle fibres that have specific duties they perform.  There are 2 categories of twitch fibres, Fast Twitch and Slow Twitch. In an average human body, half of the twitch muscles will be Fast and the other half will be Slow category fibres. Let’s discuss further:

• Fast Twitch Muscles – Fast twitch muscles use anaerobic (no oxygen required) metabolism to generate fuel for the body. These fibres can contract at a very high speed with a lot of force. The downside to these types of fibres is that they fatigue very quickly and then require rest to rejuvenate themselves.  These types of fibres are used in sprinting or quick burst movements.• Slow Twitch Muscles – Slow twitch muscles use aerobic (oxygen required) metabolism that generates fuel that can be used for longer periods of time. These fibres move or contract much slower with less force than fast twitch ones, but they also have a longer duration of use before they are fatigued.

Can I Improve?

So you might be asking yourself, can I improve the muscle balance depending on the types of exercises that I plan on using them for?  Unfortunately the jury is still out as to whether this is possible.  Studies have shown that minor changes to muscle composition is possible (i.e. from slow to fast or vice versa), but most of the change that exercise gives us is within the same muscle fibre. We have all been given a very specific set of muscles that are specific to us.  Each body is different and as such we have to use and deal with what we currently have.  The biggest opportunity from an exercise point of view is in the increasing and strengthening the number and quality of the muscles fibres that you have, not necessarily being able to change the distribution of fast and slow twitch muscles.   Despite all this, exercises are the way to a healthy long life. These exercises show us how to gain muscle quickly and allow us to keep our body ages nice and young.

So if you’ve ever asked yourself how do you gain muscles, then you need to also ask yourself what types of muscle fibres am I looking at maximizing.  Are you a long distance marathoner who needs endurance muscles (slow twitch) or a sprinter who requires fast twitch muscles. Either way, exercise and weight lifting are the keys that you will need.  Good Luck.

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