I just came across this article that you all might find interesting about Phil Heath.
One thing written in the article sort of jumped out at me because I’ve never heard of this before or seen it discussed on T-Nation: “When Heath began prep for the Olympia he increased his reps from eight to between 10 and 12. High weight and low reps target the deep muscle fibers, the so-called fast-twitch muscle fibers and pack on mass, increase strength. Low weight and high reps target the surface muscle fibers, the slow-twitch fibers and sculpt the granite he needs for the stage…”
Is this right? Deep muscle fibers and surface muscle fibers? What do you guys say?
[quote]roland2000 wrote:
I just came across this article that you all might find interesting about Phil Heath.
One thing written in the article sort of jumped out at me because I’ve never heard of this before or seen it discussed on T-Nation: “When Heath began prep for the Olympia he increased his reps from eight to between 10 and 12. High weight and low reps target the deep muscle fibers, the so-called fast-twitch muscle fibers and pack on mass, increase strength. Low weight and high reps target the surface muscle fibers, the slow-twitch fibers and sculpt the granite he needs for the stage…”
Is this right? Deep muscle fibers and surface muscle fibers? What do you guys say?[/quote]
You are taking the statement way too literally.
The first fibers to fire are also the first to fatigue. That could also be called “surface fibers” in the context it was used.
It helps to not get that caught up on taking words out of context. They weren’t writing a peer reviewed medical journal.
Yeah I suppose I can see it, if you’ve ever heard of reverend and the makers it’s actually the lead singers brother. And I’ll return the compliment on the avi - nice
Deep muscle fibres and surface muscle fibres isn’t correct from an anatomical perspective but from a ‘metaphorical’ one as Professor X said, an average person would access slow twitch fibres preferentially and need to go out of their way to access and train fast twitch fibres. The basic idea of fast twitch for size and slow twitch for endurance is correct. It’s a very ‘newspaper’ way of writing about it.
They both hypertrophy in the same way, just to different degrees and for different reasons.
There’s much to nit-pick in the generalised statements i’ve just made but it’s correct enough for practical purposes. Read a textbook on it some time, it’s quite interesting to understand why your muscles are doing what they’re doing.
[quote]roland2000 wrote:
I just came across this article that you all might find interesting about Phil Heath.
One thing written in the article sort of jumped out at me because I’ve never heard of this before or seen it discussed on T-Nation: “When Heath began prep for the Olympia he increased his reps from eight to between 10 and 12. High weight and low reps target the deep muscle fibers, the so-called fast-twitch muscle fibers and pack on mass, increase strength. Low weight and high reps target the surface muscle fibers, the slow-twitch fibers and sculpt the granite he needs for the stage…”
Is this right? Deep muscle fibers and surface muscle fibers? What do you guys say?[/quote]
ROFL. That’s so much bullshit. that was obviously written by a guy who had no fucking clue about science and was trying to sound smart. Also, for anybody who thinks “10 - 12 reps” is high reps and LOW WEIGHT, that is pretty funny too, when you consider that high rep doesn’t actually hppen until you’re around 15-25+ reps lol. 10-12 is “normal” hypertrophy range.
@Crushkilldestroy–yes I suppose you could go out of your way to understand it metaphorically. I dont, for one, believe somebody needs to be writing a peer reviewed medical study to just get basic facts right–that should just be standard. I realize creative journalism doesn’t want to put the emphasis on sciency stuff and away from visceral tone and feel, but dammit basic fact check wouldn’t kill them would it?
That aside, nice to see bodybuilding get some decent exposure in major media outlets.
[quote]roland2000 wrote:
I just came across this article that you all might find interesting about Phil Heath.
One thing written in the article sort of jumped out at me because I’ve never heard of this before or seen it discussed on T-Nation: “When Heath began prep for the Olympia he increased his reps from eight to between 10 and 12. High weight and low reps target the deep muscle fibers, the so-called fast-twitch muscle fibers and pack on mass, increase strength. Low weight and high reps target the surface muscle fibers, the slow-twitch fibers and sculpt the granite he needs for the stage…”
Is this right? Deep muscle fibers and surface muscle fibers? What do you guys say?[/quote]
ROFL. That’s so much bullshit. that was obviously written by a guy who had no fucking clue about science and was trying to sound smart. Also, for anybody who thinks “10 - 12 reps” is high reps and LOW WEIGHT, that is pretty funny too, when you consider that high rep doesn’t actually hppen until you’re around 15-25+ reps lol. 10-12 is “normal” hypertrophy range.
@Crushkilldestroy–yes I suppose you could go out of your way to understand it metaphorically. I dont, for one, believe somebody needs to be writing a peer reviewed medical study to just get basic facts right–that should just be standard. I realize creative journalism doesn’t want to put the emphasis on sciency stuff and away from visceral tone and feel, but dammit basic fact check wouldn’t kill them would it?
That aside, nice to see bodybuilding get some decent exposure in major media outlets.[/quote]
Dude, there was nothing “science” about that entire essay…and that was really the point…to not take every written journalist column as a biology textbook.
Most of those guys barely know anything about what they are writing about.