Does every muscle grow equally ?
- Thread starter Blizz
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I think regardless it was a very interesting and intuitive question.
uh...no, I don't know the answer. But let's digress by separating slow twitch fibres from fast twitch fibres...and then again by how much of either a given individual has... in any given muscle group...and then by what type of training stimulus the muscle is stimulated with...
I don't see how it would be possible to evaluate that. But I'll bet they have some special bred mice in some lab with only fast or slow twitch fibres they can put through the paces...
uh...no, I don't know the answer. But let's digress by separating slow twitch fibres from fast twitch fibres...and then again by how much of either a given individual has... in any given muscle group...and then by what type of training stimulus the muscle is stimulated with...
I don't see how it would be possible to evaluate that. But I'll bet they have some special bred mice in some lab with only fast or slow twitch fibres they can put through the paces...
QuantumPositron
New Member
To add to what Totentanz and QD are saying about fiber composition and attachaments: My memory is sort of fuzzy on this but I recall reading somewhere that it has been determined that the trapezius has more androgen receptors than most other muscles. This could mean that your traps may grow faster than say, your biceps. The idea of individuality between muscles has been of interest to me as well. The physical placement of fibers within a muscle has been studied. If I recall fast twitch fibers tend to occur near the distal (towards your hand) end of the biceps and at the outer layers of the vastus lateralis. The soleus muscle of most people is largely slow twitch with the fast twitch fibers occuring in the lower portion towards the insertion. These are a few examples and are of interest to someone looking to shape a muscle (do your eccentrics to get those FT units). My real desire is to know if some muscles recover faster than others. Mentzer believed that a larger muscle requires a longer time to regenerate its strength. Bruce Lee believed that his forearms had to be trained every day. Tom Platz squated once per month at one point in his career. Whether these individuals are correct or simply manifesting other principles of biology (Bruce Lee: good recovery/response, Tom Platz: detraining effect) isn't something I have figured out. If muscles do recover at varying rates it suggests a new paradigm for how to structure workouts.
That's the long answer. Sorry about that. The short answer is it isn't really known. To find out get a tape measure and a notebook from Wal-Mart and begin testing what parts of your body respond best to a 90% RM, an 80% RM, etc. It could take a while.
To answer your question specifically, the two largest muscles in your calves are the gastrocenemius and the soleus. The gastroc is predominantly comprised of fast-twitch fibers in most people and is preferentially used in heavy fast movements. It would likely respond well to 90% RM training. The soleus is predominantly comprised of slow-twitch fibers. Currently the thinking is to go for high reps and thus lighter weight with predominantly slow twitch muscles like the soleus. I don't know if that's backed by research. I don't know if there is a predominant fiber type in the biceps of most people. There is a test to determine the fiber composition of your muscles. It is not backed by research but it could be worthwhile. I will quote it from the source:
<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">"Several attempts have been made to find a way to do a non-invasive (don't stick me with a needle) test for fiber composition. To date, I think the best has been devised by Arthur Jones of MedX. While this procedure may not have all the kinks worked out, it will give you a gross idea of how to train your athlete.
When the athlete is fresh, establish a 1-rep max. Then, take 80% of this max and have the athlete do as many reps as he can. If he can do less than seven reps, he has a high percentage of fast-twitch muscle fibers for that muscle If he can do more than 12, he has a high percentage of slow-twitch fibers. If he is in the middle, he probably has an equal mixture.
Don't think for a moment that if an athlete's quadriceps are predominantly slow twitch, so are his triceps. Within normal human muscle, the variation in distribution is almost endless. You will have to test all of the areas that you train." </div>
Scholastic Coach 63.n8 (March 1994): pp67(4). Thomas V. Pipes.
If you knew the fiber composition of your various muscles it would likely be that the fast-twitch dominant muscles grow best with heavier weights while the slow-twitch dominant muscles would do best with a moderate to perhaps lighter weight, based on conventional thinking (anyone reading know this for sure?). What would you do with a muscle thats 50-50? Fast twitch fibers are larger so perhaps it would be best to go heavy. Experimenting wouldn't hurt.
That's the long answer. Sorry about that. The short answer is it isn't really known. To find out get a tape measure and a notebook from Wal-Mart and begin testing what parts of your body respond best to a 90% RM, an 80% RM, etc. It could take a while.
To answer your question specifically, the two largest muscles in your calves are the gastrocenemius and the soleus. The gastroc is predominantly comprised of fast-twitch fibers in most people and is preferentially used in heavy fast movements. It would likely respond well to 90% RM training. The soleus is predominantly comprised of slow-twitch fibers. Currently the thinking is to go for high reps and thus lighter weight with predominantly slow twitch muscles like the soleus. I don't know if that's backed by research. I don't know if there is a predominant fiber type in the biceps of most people. There is a test to determine the fiber composition of your muscles. It is not backed by research but it could be worthwhile. I will quote it from the source:
<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">"Several attempts have been made to find a way to do a non-invasive (don't stick me with a needle) test for fiber composition. To date, I think the best has been devised by Arthur Jones of MedX. While this procedure may not have all the kinks worked out, it will give you a gross idea of how to train your athlete.
When the athlete is fresh, establish a 1-rep max. Then, take 80% of this max and have the athlete do as many reps as he can. If he can do less than seven reps, he has a high percentage of fast-twitch muscle fibers for that muscle If he can do more than 12, he has a high percentage of slow-twitch fibers. If he is in the middle, he probably has an equal mixture.
Don't think for a moment that if an athlete's quadriceps are predominantly slow twitch, so are his triceps. Within normal human muscle, the variation in distribution is almost endless. You will have to test all of the areas that you train." </div>
Scholastic Coach 63.n8 (March 1994): pp67(4). Thomas V. Pipes.
If you knew the fiber composition of your various muscles it would likely be that the fast-twitch dominant muscles grow best with heavier weights while the slow-twitch dominant muscles would do best with a moderate to perhaps lighter weight, based on conventional thinking (anyone reading know this for sure?). What would you do with a muscle thats 50-50? Fast twitch fibers are larger so perhaps it would be best to go heavy. Experimenting wouldn't hurt.
To expand on what Tot said,
It's not so much that the fiber type itself dictates how one should train. It's that some fiber's types grow better than others but the bottom line is all will grow and there is no need to know your fiber type or train in a fiber type specific manner.
It's not so much that the fiber type itself dictates how one should train. It's that some fiber's types grow better than others but the bottom line is all will grow and there is no need to know your fiber type or train in a fiber type specific manner.
I dunno Dan, because of the clip QP posted. It just seems to make so much sense to me - if a muscle really IS composed of on or another type of fiber, does it not make sense that it would perform accordingly to the characteristics of that type fiber?
The question arises though, that, say you have a muscle full of fast twitch fibers allready, and it performs well with low reps/heavy weights, would it not be better to train it in the opposite manner, to accrue a balance of fibers? That is, assuming that the argument was ever settled on new fibers/expanding fibers?
If we actually grow new fibers, then opposing training would be the ticket, IMO. If we merely expand existing fibers, actuarial training would be the way. I just never saw that argument ended myself; maybe I missed it.
The question arises though, that, say you have a muscle full of fast twitch fibers allready, and it performs well with low reps/heavy weights, would it not be better to train it in the opposite manner, to accrue a balance of fibers? That is, assuming that the argument was ever settled on new fibers/expanding fibers?
If we actually grow new fibers, then opposing training would be the ticket, IMO. If we merely expand existing fibers, actuarial training would be the way. I just never saw that argument ended myself; maybe I missed it.
<div>
(quadancer @ Nov. 07 2007,08:52)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I dunno Dan, because of the clip QP posted. It just seems to make so much sense to me -
if a muscle really IS composed of on or another type of fiber,
does it not make sense that it would perform accordingly to the characteristics of that type fiber?</div>
Quad, intuitively I can see how this notion took off and became popular but physiologically it doesn't hold up.
First there is no limb muscle in the human body is made up of only one or another type, in fact most human limb muscle is about a 50/50 mix, granted there are some that the ratio leans one direction or another but overall they're about 50/50.
When you lift a load that is heavy enough to recruit all fibers then all fibers are participating. This occurs in most limb muscle at around 70% of Max, in the quads this may be a tad higher. This occurs from the very first rep. What changes with multiple reps is how the fibers increase frequency to compensate for fatigue of various motor units, but if recruited all are still experiencing the tension.
The key here being that in most hypertrophy oriented training all fiber populations are being trained and all experience growth no matter if training 10X3, 3X10, 5X5 or any other non retarded rep/set scheme.
Now speaking of how a muscle performs, yes the fiber type makes a difference in performance but again overall we have evolved (or been made too, based on your perspective) in order to perform varying tasks with varying demands and hence this is why we have mixed populations. It also stands up that the tasks performed will dictate certain physiological changes, IE phenotypical shifting.
(quadancer @ Nov. 07 2007,08:52)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I dunno Dan, because of the clip QP posted. It just seems to make so much sense to me -
if a muscle really IS composed of on or another type of fiber,
does it not make sense that it would perform accordingly to the characteristics of that type fiber?</div>
Quad, intuitively I can see how this notion took off and became popular but physiologically it doesn't hold up.
First there is no limb muscle in the human body is made up of only one or another type, in fact most human limb muscle is about a 50/50 mix, granted there are some that the ratio leans one direction or another but overall they're about 50/50.
When you lift a load that is heavy enough to recruit all fibers then all fibers are participating. This occurs in most limb muscle at around 70% of Max, in the quads this may be a tad higher. This occurs from the very first rep. What changes with multiple reps is how the fibers increase frequency to compensate for fatigue of various motor units, but if recruited all are still experiencing the tension.
The key here being that in most hypertrophy oriented training all fiber populations are being trained and all experience growth no matter if training 10X3, 3X10, 5X5 or any other non retarded rep/set scheme.
Now speaking of how a muscle performs, yes the fiber type makes a difference in performance but again overall we have evolved (or been made too, based on your perspective) in order to perform varying tasks with varying demands and hence this is why we have mixed populations. It also stands up that the tasks performed will dictate certain physiological changes, IE phenotypical shifting.
My question is about the androgen receptor (it's a kind of nuclear receptor right?):
If muscle cells have an androgen receptor (not sure if they are intracellular or on the cell's surface?) then why is it that muscle cells in the traps have a higher proportion of these little blighters? Or, if they don't, why are they seemingly more sensitive to test. levels? Folks who juice invariably get big strong looking traps even if they don't deadlift.
Without getting too 'techy' about it all, is it something to do with receptor/ligand binding affinity and if so, why is it different in the trap muscle cells?
I am really out of my depth here but it is interesting and I have never read a simple answer to this question. Perhaps there isn't one?
If muscle cells have an androgen receptor (not sure if they are intracellular or on the cell's surface?) then why is it that muscle cells in the traps have a higher proportion of these little blighters? Or, if they don't, why are they seemingly more sensitive to test. levels? Folks who juice invariably get big strong looking traps even if they don't deadlift.
Without getting too 'techy' about it all, is it something to do with receptor/ligand binding affinity and if so, why is it different in the trap muscle cells?
I am really out of my depth here but it is interesting and I have never read a simple answer to this question. Perhaps there isn't one?
scientific muscle
New Member
<div>
(Lol @ Nov. 07 2007,10:44)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">My question is about the androgen receptor (it's a kind of nuclear receptor right?):
If muscle cells have an androgen receptor (not sure if they are intracellular or on the cell's surface?) then why is it that muscle cells in the traps have a higher proportion of these little blighters? Or, if they don't, why are they seemingly more sensitive to test. levels? Folks who juice invariably get big strong looking traps even if they don't deadlift.
Without getting too 'techy' about it all, is it something to do with receptor/ligand binding affinity and if so, why is it different in the trap muscle cells?
I am really out of my depth here but it is interesting and I have never read a simple answer to this question. Perhaps there isn't one?
</div>
The answer lies in genetic diferences between the sexes.
MALES carry more androgen receptors in the shoulder girdle. Obviously an evolutionary adaptation that causes males to beef up the upper body with their natural androgen supply, which causes bigger, stronger shoulders and sex appeal to females.
(this explains why males develop much broader shoulders than females during adolescence).
Of course when artificial androgens are used the androgens only work when bonded to a receptor and since there are more receptors in the shoudler girdle, a steroid-user will see more pronounced results in the trapezius, deltoids, etc. than in the other muscles.
(Lol @ Nov. 07 2007,10:44)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">My question is about the androgen receptor (it's a kind of nuclear receptor right?):
If muscle cells have an androgen receptor (not sure if they are intracellular or on the cell's surface?) then why is it that muscle cells in the traps have a higher proportion of these little blighters? Or, if they don't, why are they seemingly more sensitive to test. levels? Folks who juice invariably get big strong looking traps even if they don't deadlift.
Without getting too 'techy' about it all, is it something to do with receptor/ligand binding affinity and if so, why is it different in the trap muscle cells?
I am really out of my depth here but it is interesting and I have never read a simple answer to this question. Perhaps there isn't one?
The answer lies in genetic diferences between the sexes.
MALES carry more androgen receptors in the shoulder girdle. Obviously an evolutionary adaptation that causes males to beef up the upper body with their natural androgen supply, which causes bigger, stronger shoulders and sex appeal to females.
(this explains why males develop much broader shoulders than females during adolescence).
Of course when artificial androgens are used the androgens only work when bonded to a receptor and since there are more receptors in the shoudler girdle, a steroid-user will see more pronounced results in the trapezius, deltoids, etc. than in the other muscles.
QuantumPositron
New Member
Lol,
I'm afraid I can't help you there. I spent 3 seconds swimming in Google Scholar and I think I pulled up the abstract where I read this. Maybe it will give you some direction in figuring it out:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/8nlqw016glqwkbwd/
Second to last sentence reads: "In conclusion, AR content differs greatly between human neck and limb muscles."
I'd have to agree with Dan. The old school thinking of heavier for fast twitch and lighter for slow falls apart in light of the size principle: as load increases slow twitch fibers are recruited followed by fast twitch. Even if you had a muscle that was 10% slow and 90% fast your CNS would activate all of the slows first and then, if they begin to fatigue or aren't producing enough force, begin adding fast fibers. Full recruitment occurs if the load is sufficiently high or if fatigue begins to undermine performance. There is an exception, however, and that is heavy fast eccentrics. These have been shown to reverse or "violate" the size principle causing preferential selection of mostly FT fibers. Since it has been shown that FT fibers predominate in certain regions of the muscle this could give one the option of encouraging hypertrophy selectively - the 'sculpting' question.
I know I set the discussion in the direction of fiber-specific training but it was late and I was getting over some drinks.
<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE"> if a muscle really IS composed of on or another type of fiber, does it not make sense that it would perform accordingly to the characteristics of that type fiber?</div>
If by performance you mean its speed of contraction or capacity for endurance, then yes. I have read in the literature researchers noting that Olympic lifters have more FTs than endurance athletes and endurance athletes have more STs than Olympic lifters, speaking in terms of percentages. The question arises as to whether these differences are inherited or the result of prolonged training. The verdict for now seems to be that while some FT looking fibers can be retooled (phenotype shifting) to behave more like ST fibers, these differences are likely inherited. I recall reading that ST fibers do not appear to shift towards FT.
Bear in mind that FT and ST are possibly arbitrary. Muscle fibers and motor units do not come with labels on the box. There are different ways to categorize fibers depending on what you want to select as the differentiating factor(s). For instance we can have tall people and short people. Or we can have tall people with brown hair, tall people with blonde hair, short people with brown hair, short people with blonde hair, etc. We can begin adding things like ethnicity, eye color, and on and on. There's an article that goes over a lot of this entitled Nonuniform Response of Skeletal Muscle to Heavy Resistance Training: Can Bodybuilders Induce Regional Muscle Hypertrophy? by Jose Antonio in Volume 4, Number 1 (pgs 102-113) of The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.
Here are some categorization schemes he reviews:
Peter et al. : claims there are 1 ST and 2 FT fiber types.
Brooke and Kaiser: claims four fiber types: I, IIa, IIb, and IIc.
Straton: claims there are seven: I, Ic, IIc, IIac, IIa, IIab, and IIb.
Ah, physiology. The deeper you go the more complicated it gets. :sigh:
Dan,
<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">
This occurs in most limb muscle at around 70% of Max, in the quads this may be a tad higher. This occurs from the very first rep. What changes with multiple reps is how the fibers increase frequency to compensate for fatigue of various motor units, but if recruited all are still experiencing the tension.</div>
Wait a second, if the purpose of rest pause in Max-Stim is to minimize fatigue and maximize mechanotransduction, and if fiber recruitment rates (times per second) increases with fatigue, then by using moderate weights in Max-Stim, aren't we sort of short changing ourselves? I mean using 70% RM causes full recruitment sans quadriceps but if we go to 90% RM, what happens in the muscle to allow this? Increased MU firing per second yes? If MU firing necessitates tension in the comprising fibers, and it is tension that is the necessary condition for mechanotransduction and all of this you have mapped out, then in order to maximize this signaling does it not follow that we should attempt both full recruitment and maximum firing rate for the recruited fibers? So wouldn't the heaviest weights be best for Max-Stim since rest pause minimizes fatigue minimizes MU rotation (minimizes total tension minimizes total mechanotransduction)?
I'm afraid I can't help you there. I spent 3 seconds swimming in Google Scholar and I think I pulled up the abstract where I read this. Maybe it will give you some direction in figuring it out:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/8nlqw016glqwkbwd/
Second to last sentence reads: "In conclusion, AR content differs greatly between human neck and limb muscles."
I'd have to agree with Dan. The old school thinking of heavier for fast twitch and lighter for slow falls apart in light of the size principle: as load increases slow twitch fibers are recruited followed by fast twitch. Even if you had a muscle that was 10% slow and 90% fast your CNS would activate all of the slows first and then, if they begin to fatigue or aren't producing enough force, begin adding fast fibers. Full recruitment occurs if the load is sufficiently high or if fatigue begins to undermine performance. There is an exception, however, and that is heavy fast eccentrics. These have been shown to reverse or "violate" the size principle causing preferential selection of mostly FT fibers. Since it has been shown that FT fibers predominate in certain regions of the muscle this could give one the option of encouraging hypertrophy selectively - the 'sculpting' question.
I know I set the discussion in the direction of fiber-specific training but it was late and I was getting over some drinks.
<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE"> if a muscle really IS composed of on or another type of fiber, does it not make sense that it would perform accordingly to the characteristics of that type fiber?</div>
If by performance you mean its speed of contraction or capacity for endurance, then yes. I have read in the literature researchers noting that Olympic lifters have more FTs than endurance athletes and endurance athletes have more STs than Olympic lifters, speaking in terms of percentages. The question arises as to whether these differences are inherited or the result of prolonged training. The verdict for now seems to be that while some FT looking fibers can be retooled (phenotype shifting) to behave more like ST fibers, these differences are likely inherited. I recall reading that ST fibers do not appear to shift towards FT.
Bear in mind that FT and ST are possibly arbitrary. Muscle fibers and motor units do not come with labels on the box. There are different ways to categorize fibers depending on what you want to select as the differentiating factor(s). For instance we can have tall people and short people. Or we can have tall people with brown hair, tall people with blonde hair, short people with brown hair, short people with blonde hair, etc. We can begin adding things like ethnicity, eye color, and on and on. There's an article that goes over a lot of this entitled Nonuniform Response of Skeletal Muscle to Heavy Resistance Training: Can Bodybuilders Induce Regional Muscle Hypertrophy? by Jose Antonio in Volume 4, Number 1 (pgs 102-113) of The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.
Here are some categorization schemes he reviews:
Peter et al. : claims there are 1 ST and 2 FT fiber types.
Brooke and Kaiser: claims four fiber types: I, IIa, IIb, and IIc.
Straton: claims there are seven: I, Ic, IIc, IIac, IIa, IIab, and IIb.
Ah, physiology. The deeper you go the more complicated it gets. :sigh:
Dan,
<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">
This occurs in most limb muscle at around 70% of Max, in the quads this may be a tad higher. This occurs from the very first rep. What changes with multiple reps is how the fibers increase frequency to compensate for fatigue of various motor units, but if recruited all are still experiencing the tension.</div>
Wait a second, if the purpose of rest pause in Max-Stim is to minimize fatigue and maximize mechanotransduction, and if fiber recruitment rates (times per second) increases with fatigue, then by using moderate weights in Max-Stim, aren't we sort of short changing ourselves? I mean using 70% RM causes full recruitment sans quadriceps but if we go to 90% RM, what happens in the muscle to allow this? Increased MU firing per second yes? If MU firing necessitates tension in the comprising fibers, and it is tension that is the necessary condition for mechanotransduction and all of this you have mapped out, then in order to maximize this signaling does it not follow that we should attempt both full recruitment and maximum firing rate for the recruited fibers? So wouldn't the heaviest weights be best for Max-Stim since rest pause minimizes fatigue minimizes MU rotation (minimizes total tension minimizes total mechanotransduction)?
<div>
(QuantumPositron @ Nov. 07 2007,12:22)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">So wouldn't the heaviest weights be best for Max-Stim since rest pause minimizes fatigue minimizes MU rotation (minimizes total tension minimizes total mechanotransduction)?
</div>
Yes, but.......
Working heavy all the time has it's drawbacks as well.
MS was a culmination of several pieces of research with one of the main players being AC Fry's review on intensity and hypertrophy in which he states that loads above 90% 1RM can and do induce hypertrophy but because the loads are so heavy the work rate of these loads general diminish. THis is why he stated that loads of 70-80% (going from memory so I may be off) are the best.
BTW
(QuantumPositron @ Nov. 07 2007,12:22)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">So wouldn't the heaviest weights be best for Max-Stim since rest pause minimizes fatigue minimizes MU rotation (minimizes total tension minimizes total mechanotransduction)?
Yes, but.......
Working heavy all the time has it's drawbacks as well.
MS was a culmination of several pieces of research with one of the main players being AC Fry's review on intensity and hypertrophy in which he states that loads above 90% 1RM can and do induce hypertrophy but because the loads are so heavy the work rate of these loads general diminish. THis is why he stated that loads of 70-80% (going from memory so I may be off) are the best.
BTW
QuantumPositron
New Member
<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">loads above 90% 1RM can and do induce hypertrophy but because the loads are so heavy the work rate of these loads general diminish.</div>
So there is a trade off thus a sweet spot. Good to know.
That's an interesting chart of fiber types vs. pH but its mostly undecipherable for me. My academic background is not in biology. I would say I am more of a technician than a theoretician in my muscle reading. I read for what is disclosed about previous research in the introduction of an article and for the results section. Barring that I go for the last few sentences in an abstract. This means there are things I will misunderstand or not pick up but a partial understanding is better than none. I am slowly learning the cell-level stuff but its mostly a side-effect of reading as much as I can within an hour each day. My primary focus has been on exercise selection and kinesiology because this information is least disputed and thus most reliable in addition to being immediately applicable. My next priority is injuries. I have gotten 4 since April so now I want to know how they are caused and how they can be avoided both in general and specifically to each lift I do. It would be great to discuss the advanced topics that Max-Stim is made from but for now all I can do is ask speculative questions.
As an addition to my prev. post Jose Antonio notes that because there is evidence that fibers are not distributed homogeneously within a muscle, any conclusions drawn about response to training that made use of muscle biopsies is potentially brought into question. Muscles do not grow uniformly throughout. Whether this is neglible or accounted for by some or all researchers I do not know. I don't pay much attention to the methods section.
Good to be aware of.
So there is a trade off thus a sweet spot. Good to know.
That's an interesting chart of fiber types vs. pH but its mostly undecipherable for me. My academic background is not in biology. I would say I am more of a technician than a theoretician in my muscle reading. I read for what is disclosed about previous research in the introduction of an article and for the results section. Barring that I go for the last few sentences in an abstract. This means there are things I will misunderstand or not pick up but a partial understanding is better than none. I am slowly learning the cell-level stuff but its mostly a side-effect of reading as much as I can within an hour each day. My primary focus has been on exercise selection and kinesiology because this information is least disputed and thus most reliable in addition to being immediately applicable. My next priority is injuries. I have gotten 4 since April so now I want to know how they are caused and how they can be avoided both in general and specifically to each lift I do. It would be great to discuss the advanced topics that Max-Stim is made from but for now all I can do is ask speculative questions.
As an addition to my prev. post Jose Antonio notes that because there is evidence that fibers are not distributed homogeneously within a muscle, any conclusions drawn about response to training that made use of muscle biopsies is potentially brought into question. Muscles do not grow uniformly throughout. Whether this is neglible or accounted for by some or all researchers I do not know. I don't pay much attention to the methods section.
Good to be aware of.
<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I know I set the discussion in the direction of fiber-specific training but it was late and I was getting over some drinks.</div>
QP set us all off on a wild goose chase...shame shame shame!
What a letdown after all that heavy breathing!
Thinking on Lol's inquiry about androgen receptors, wasn't there some supplement that made them more receptive, or sensitive or some such? And did that work to any degree?
I figured MS was a sort of balance between load and fatigue, otherwise 20 reps would be out of the question, and less would probably be less productive. I just don't use it much due to time. I can't understand how some guys work out in less time with it; doesn't work that way for me.
If the ratio of ST and FT is close to 50%, I can see how the point of any "twitch training" is moot. From what I read about phenotype shifting, the fibres don't actually change into other types, but are neurally stimulated or trained to act differently. But that makes me wonder if that's what happens to say, a runner who becomes a PL'er.
QP set us all off on a wild goose chase...shame shame shame!
What a letdown after all that heavy breathing!
Thinking on Lol's inquiry about androgen receptors, wasn't there some supplement that made them more receptive, or sensitive or some such? And did that work to any degree?
I figured MS was a sort of balance between load and fatigue, otherwise 20 reps would be out of the question, and less would probably be less productive. I just don't use it much due to time. I can't understand how some guys work out in less time with it; doesn't work that way for me.
If the ratio of ST and FT is close to 50%, I can see how the point of any "twitch training" is moot. From what I read about phenotype shifting, the fibres don't actually change into other types, but are neurally stimulated or trained to act differently. But that makes me wonder if that's what happens to say, a runner who becomes a PL'er.
QuantumPositron
New Member
<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">...the rep range... ...dictates which fiber type will experience the greater amount of hypertrophy.</div>
<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">...there is no need to... train in a fiber type specific manner.</div>
But it can be done though can't it? And why is this? Isoform expression yes? What is it about the rep range that determines isoform expression?
<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">...there is no need to... train in a fiber type specific manner.</div>
But it can be done though can't it? And why is this? Isoform expression yes? What is it about the rep range that determines isoform expression?