Monday, July 13, 2009

Fast Twitch vs Slow Twitch

So you have probably all heard of fast twitch muscles and slow twitch muscles. They have different qualities and as such should be trained that way. If your a great marathoner/triathlete, your probably a slow twitch machine, if you could dunk a basketball and your 5'8" your probably a fast twitch freak. But most of us are somewhere in between, so a quick easy test is as follows.

Test your 1RM max in any type of movement you like. Wait 10 minutes and take 85% of that and see how many reps you can do of that weight.

0-4 reps = fast twitch
5 reps =intermediate
5+ reps =slow twitch

This gives a pretty good indicator of what fiber make up you are for that type of movement. Try it out and let me know what you discover!

2 comments:

  1. I read about this test several years ago from Charles Poliquin.
    I never did it, but I wonder how much you can influence it with you recent training history.
    If you've done a lot of high rep training you might get more reps with 85% 1RM than if you've done a lot of singles and doubles recently.

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  2. Yea...that's where I learned the test. Your training history absolutely will influence the outcomes. But I believe Charles states that after training with the right protocols that your true nature starts to shine through.

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