A friend of mine is soon to be certified by ISSA, and the book is written by dr squat, fred hatfield. In it he says you can calculate whether you are primarily fast or slow twitch by the amount of times you can do 80% of your max on exercises. I did this and I am now mostly fast twitch.
Any truth to this sceme?
some but not a ton. its really a lot more complicated than that, although it may be a decent indicator.
I agree with the test ut I think a batery of various isolation movements would tell you the varainces between each muscle group
ie. you could have fast twitch pecs/ slow twitch quads
what you had to do was test a lift for each bodypart.bench,row,military,squat,leg curl, bicep curl, and tricep pushdown. I only did the bench,row,military,squat, and leg curl. I found that I am primarily fast twitch. Dr. Squat had charts so you could see where you fall.
I think that this is true in some cases but not so true in other cases. Most people who lift rarely change rep range. I see very few people train between 3-5 reps so people never really tap into the nervous aspect lifting. People who train with sets of 10 are more likely to be able to more reps at a weight than some one who works out with sets of 3. The statement does have some truth but it is not that simple.
in convergent phase training u test ur 80% after u max out to see if u are increasing more fast twitch fibers
Not much truth to it, unless you include some variable(s) for training age.
I don’t put much weight into this method for determining % of fast twitch fibers because the conditioning of the nervous system is not taken into consideration. Do a search of the T-Mag back issues, many of the T-mag contributors have discussed this topic.
The method may have some merit if restricted to single joint movements. BUT to use compound movements (ie bench, row, squat, etc) is just plain STUPID, because different muscles may have different ratios of fibers (remember: all muscle groups have slow and fast twitch, the ratios vary). For example, doing this test using the bench press is flawed because the bench involves the pecs, tris and delts. After, doing the “test” which muscle group have you just determined the ratio for? The ratios of fast to slow twitch can vary between different muscles in the same person…that is why doing this type of testing with compound movements does not work.
hatfield, wasn’t he on an infomercial for some ab thing with his big fat gut hanging over his pants? anyway, train heavy 6-12 reps, once and awhile sets of 20 and you’ll get big. it IS that easy. and scott made a good point, unless its curls,extentions,leg ext. or leg curls you are always useing multiple muscles (even in those you are, just not as much) peace.
fred hatfield is an expert in exercise
The 80% test can be a very effective tool that you have in your workout tool box. It is some what flawed in that if someone has only trained at about 60% or so that may not have developed the intra and intermuscular co-ordination (ie:neural strength) to handle the extra weight, but what you should do is test your strength and how many reps you can do on a regular basis to find the sweet spot of reps sets and percentages of 1rm that best suits you! As for the idea of it being useless because the bench or squat uses multiple muscles is rediculous because the body knows movements and not muscles, what you find out when you test the bench press is combination of all the prime movers and assistant muscles and their average fibre ratio eg;tricep= fast twitch, shoulders= slow twitch and chest=fast twitch. This equates to a medium to fast twitch exercise.If it was slow/slow/fast it would equate to a slow to medium twitch exercise.You would get this result by testing the exercise and NOT! the individual muscle.The body knows movements (exercises) and not muscles! But if the goal was to increase size you would train all the different fibre types you had fast, medium and slow, with predominant time spent training the fibre type you were most prominant in. As with most methods and theories, it is just a tool,if used correctly and at the right time it will enhance you’re training. Best wishes! to you and your training!
Could you please post what the number of reps at 80% of your max means?
ie 2-3 reps = predominantly xxx fibers,
4-5 reps = xxx + yyy
6-9 reps = predominantly yyy fibers
etc
Thanks
If you do 80% of your max 1-3 times, you’re extremely fast twitch. if you do it 4-6, thats pretty fast twitch, if you do it 7-10, thats primarily fast twitch,10-12, primarily slow twitch,12-15, very slow twitch. I guess it’s better to be fast because it you are fast you are a fast gainer
Fred Hatfield is a fraudster…AT BEST! But wait, he has a PhD, he must know what he is talking about when it comes to exercise…His PhD is in SOCIOLOGY!!! WTF does sociology have to do with weight training, “hard” science and exercise physiology? NOTHING! So don’t rely on him because of some letters after his name.
Second, when he worked for Joe Weider (as if that in and of itself is not enough to destroy his credibility) he promoted Weider’s “Mega-Packs” as being developed by “world renowned scientists” and “better than steroids.” Well, guess what? Those statements were total BULLSHIT. So much so that the FDA and FTC brought actions against Weider for false advertisements among other things. In order to avoid any further embarassment Weider agreed to give anyone who bought the “Mega-Packs” their money back (losing $400,000). This just goes to demonstrate his bullshit ways.
Third, “but wait he squatted over 1000 lbs.” Well, that is a 1/2 truth, actually a 1/4 truth since it was only a 1/4 squat. While not many can truly squat 1000 lbs, a great deal more can 1/4 squat 1000 lbs. Of course, in typical Doc Squat fashion, he misrepresents the truth and makes it seem he has truly squatted 1000 lbs.
Fourth, as indicated in earlier posts, you CAN NOT determine your fiber type ratio doing compound movements. Hatfield suggesting it shows his complete lack of understanding of BASIC physiology. If he is way off on this, what else is he way off on?
My advice is get some books by people who know what the hell they are talking about. Ian King, Matt Bryzcki, Stuart McRoberts, Charles Poliquin just to name a few. These authors most certainly don't agree on everything, but they sure as hell understand science and physiology a hell of a lot better than Hatfield. Also, stay the hell away from trainers who are ISSA certified.
Dipper, HITer Scott has a good point, although you might have missed it. Hatfield’s fiber test should only be performed using single-joint movements, not compound movements. Otherwise, how would you know which muscles are fast-twitch and which are slow? Is it that (to use your example of a bench press) the tris are fast-twitch and the pecs and delts are slow, or is it the delts that are fast? Or, wait, the pecs? If you get a “slow to medium twitch” (‘medium twitch’?!? Is that a new kind of muscle fiber?) result using a bench press, it still tells you nothing about what you should do when you switch to isolation exercises. Why not go the other way, test with the isolation exercises, and then when you want to bench simply “add up” the twitches to find your optimal range on the compound movement? Seems more logical to me. Finally, ALL exercises have a “movement” associated with them, not just compound exercises. So the body would “know the movement” for them as well, right?
Might want to be a little more careful the next time you say that someone else’s ideas are “rediculous”, bud.