I just read CT’s new article and he says that fast twicth muscle fibers grow alot faster than slow twicth. To activate fast twicth you must do low reps and heavy weight.(1-6) Slow twicth must be done with high reps. (8-12)? Most of the bodybuilders do 8-12 reps and there huge.
Am i missing something or what ?
By the way, ive been trainging like a bodybuilder and doing higher reps, and am not worried about strength. Only worried about size. So this worries me.
Mike
hmmmm, seems like a bump.
[quote]Mike T. wrote:
I just read CT’s new article and he says that fast twicth muscle fibers grow alot faster than slow twicth. To activate fast twicth you must do low reps and heavy weight.(1-6) Slow twicth must be done with high reps. (8-12)? Most of the bodybuilders do 8-12 reps and there huge.
Am i missing something or what ?
By the way, ive been trainging like a bodybuilder and doing higher reps, and am not worried about strength. Only worried about size. So this worries me.
Mike[/quote]
Since when is “8-12” reps “high reps”? It isn’t. I usually keep mine in a 6-10 rep range but to think that extra rep or two is somehow moving the category to “high reps” is a little flaky.
Since the Prof is just nitpicking and not answering the q… I’ll take a shot.
You can activate fast-twitch fibers with lighter weight and high(er) repetitions, AS LONG AS you are training to failure (or close to it).
Motor units (which are groups of muscle fibers innervated by a motor neuron) are recruited in an orderly fashion from the smallest threshold (slow twitch) to the highest threshold (fast twitch).
The body is by nature conservative, and will only recruit the higher force muscle fibers (fast twitch) if it is absolutely necessary.
At the beginning of a lighter weight set, the force requirements dictate that only the lower-threshold fibers need to be active. However, as the lower threshold fibers fatigue, successively larger ones are brought in to produce the required force.
By the end of the set, near failure, you will be activating the fast twitch fibers because they are essentially the last ones left to produce force.
That being said, training with lower reps is more efficient at recruiting fast twitch fibers because the force(resistance) is much greater. You therefore tap into the fast twitch fibers almost immediately and may more thoroughly fatigue them this way (plus regularly training to failure can be draining to a natural lifter).
As for bodybuilders lifting for “higher” repetitions and still being huge, there are other factors involved other than the rep selection that they choose (such as rest in between sets and total volume of the workout). Plus, not everyone trains the same and therefore not everyone gains the same.
Hope that helps.
cb.
[quote]Cam Birtwell wrote:
Since the Prof is just nitpicking and not answering the q… I’ll take a shot.
You can activate fast-twitch fibers with lighter weight and high(er) repetitions, AS LONG AS you are training to failure (or close to it). [/quote]
Nit picking? I don’t have the time right now to go through your entire post, but to claim that light weight focuses in on fast twitch muscle fibers as long as you go to failure is pretty loose thinking.
If you are using a light weight, chances are you are FATIGUING that muscle group and NOT actually approaching anything near FAILURE. Again, since when is 8 reps the beginning of HIGH REP RANGE. It isn’t. If someone wanted to nit pick themselves and call that a MODERATE rep range that would make more sense.
It still doesn’t erase the fact that if you are lifting a weight that you can ONLY get for 8 reps on the last set, that is pretty heavy and not much different than the guy who does it 6 reps. The one nit picking is the guy who would focus on “8” or “6” instead of how heavy the weight is in order to stimulate the fibers that actually grow the most.