How To Increase Fast Twich Muscle Fibers For Strength

OP
Momado965

Momado965

Member
Joined
Aug 28, 2016
Messages
1,003
Hell yea dude. Don’t get my wrong throw some weights in there too. My main emphasis is never get too heavy where you can’t do pull ups, push ups, dips, squats anymore. I usually combine calisthenics with weight training and I find I make the best progress that way, rather than a one or the other. Im striving for some dope maneuvers like the front lever, flag pole, planche, dragonfly, etc... all hallmarks of a great total body strength/weight ratio.

Yup. I definately felt that way when I combined calisthenics and weights. In no time I achieved my best physique. There's something satisfying about doing more pullups or rather weighted pull ups. Its like winning haha!
 

Mossy

Member
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
2,043
Power movements and pylometrics
Plyometrics, I’d say as well. As far as I understand, and from personal experience, this would be the best way to increase fast twitch muscle fibers.

I’ve used JumpSoles and plyometric boxes both, which focus on the calf and legs. I’m not certain if there is a mechanism and approach for upper body.

JumpSoles:
https://www.hoopsking.com/jumpsoles-v5-0/
Plyometric Box:
Titan Fitness 16" 20" 24" Wood Plyometric Box HD Plyo Box Jump Exercise Training
 

Mossy

Member
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
2,043
Plyometrics, I’d say as well. As far as I understand, and from personal experience, this would be the best way to increase fast twitch muscle fibers.

I’ve used JumpSoles and plyometric boxes both, which focus on the calf and legs. I’m not certain if there is a mechanism and approach for upper body.

JumpSoles:
https://www.hoopsking.com/jumpsoles-v5-0/
Plyometric Box:
Titan Fitness 16" 20" 24" Wood Plyometric Box HD Plyo Box Jump Exercise Training
After thinking about this, you probably could use rubber exercise bands connected to a workout cage/rack for the upper body—using a similar pace and concentric style, as the lower body plyo exercises.
 

Hans

Member
Forum Supporter
Joined
Aug 24, 2017
Messages
5,856
For upper body: explosive pushup, for back: inverted row. Those medicine ball exercises where you throw them up and back would also be good for back and maybe delts as well, depending on how you do it.
 

Luckytype

Member
Joined
Jan 15, 2017
Messages
933
The body works on the principle of adaptation to specific stimuli.

In order for the motor unit(the muscle fiber(s) and the innveration) to change you have to prove to it that the stimuli is enough to convince it to change.

If you want accelerative power and explosive change you have to add in things that put short duration stresses, both eccentric and concentric across groups that youre targeting and keep in mind this will also affect the connective tissue and the spinal cord reflex involved in explosive movements. This is voluntary movement intention overlapped with using hardwired reflexsive response that can be precision tuned and augmented

These should obviously be done after a thorough warmup but first in routine, especially the dynamic large movements that deal with heavier loads. Studying appropriate loading and unloading techniques(example: sucking your self down slightly after landing from a simple box drop or jump, versus merely stopping) will train several componenets.

On an easy level, in simple movements, putting a more decisive force into the "lift" portion and using actual intention with the "return" portion makes a major difference here. Youre training the movement and the accelerator because you not really going to rewrite your genetics for fiber makeup, but you can make some things better.

Things to keep in mind:
This energy system has short bursts and limited fuel stores..the other systems are the overlap and replenishers.

For larger more complex movements and those that involve a body in free space there are several balance and coordination factors. Dont train past fatigue as its never that productive and with supporting groups fatiguing earlier in the early stages injury is possible

Get in, get it done - high skill and precision with full rest and be done with that type for the day. At least until the skill portion has improved
 

Runenight201

Member
Joined
Feb 18, 2018
Messages
1,942
Dont train past fatigue as its never that productive and with supporting groups fatiguing earlier in the early stages injury is possible

Second. Most power and explosive type training is incredibly exhausting and quickly drains the body’s atp-pc energy metabolic systems, and if you force yourself to continue to perform the exercise at the same intensity, the body will switch into drawing energy from anaerobic metabolic processes to generate sufficient energy to accomplish the task. Lactic acid will build up in the fatiguing muscles and the body as a whole is put into a stressed state.

If you have a healthy aerobic metabolism, through following a peaty diet ensuring plenty of carbohydrates, and have slowly built up your aerobic endurance through smart training over the course of weeks, months, years, then the body will be able to handle such small insults and recover very quickly. If that aerobic base isn’t healthy or developed, the lactic acid will stay in the blood stream, causing delayed recovery, general fatigue, and all the other negative metabolic effects that a build up of lactate does.

Explosive/plyometric training is the most fun, but it really has to be done based on a solid foundational support of good health and fitness, or else the body will be overly stressed and breakdown. There are so many professional athletes who are overly stressed because they force this type of training for their sport despite the fact that they haven’t fully recovered or eaten enough...they look quite poor, accelerated aging, loss of hair, bad skin, etc...
 

Luckytype

Member
Joined
Jan 15, 2017
Messages
933
Second. Most power and explosive type training is incredibly exhausting and quickly drains the body’s atp-pc energy metabolic systems, and if you force yourself to continue to perform the exercise at the same intensity, the body will switch into drawing energy from anaerobic metabolic processes to generate sufficient energy to accomplish the task. Lactic acid will build up in the fatiguing muscles and the body as a whole is put into a stressed state.

If you have a healthy aerobic metabolism, through following a peaty diet ensuring plenty of carbohydrates, and have slowly built up your aerobic endurance through smart training over the course of weeks, months, years, then the body will be able to handle such small insults and recover very quickly. If that aerobic base isn’t healthy or developed, the lactic acid will stay in the blood stream, causing delayed recovery, general fatigue, and all the other negative metabolic effects that a build up of lactate does.

Explosive/plyometric training is the most fun, but it really has to be done based on a solid foundational support of good health and fitness, or else the body will be overly stressed and breakdown. There are so many professional athletes who are overly stressed because they force this type of training for their sport despite the fact that they haven’t fully recovered or eaten enough...they look quite poor, accelerated aging, loss of hair, bad skin, etc...

And to add: the atp:pc system technically shouldnt produce large amounts of lactate, so if this is being produced chances are the set or effort duration is a bit too long. Using the sensation would be a good indicator of undesirable fatigue of the system thus causing a glycolytic overlap.

I say this in a sense of training the system in a "purist" sense when the practical reality is there is no way to not overlap every energy system
 
Last edited:

Sapien

Member
Joined
Sep 26, 2022
Messages
418
Location
USA
Besides 11 keto dht / dht / t3. What can be done to increase muscle strength?
Below I am posting my response to the thread titled "exercise the ray peat way?" It seems applicable to your question


This is a topic I have been pondering as of late, as a peaty young male looking to build muscle safely and effectively. Ray mentions that muscle mass is beneficial as it increases RMB, and also cited studies that show bodybuilders live longer. However, he has concerns with the eccentric stuff and lactic acid production.

So in summary- a good training routine is one that builds muscle, avoids eccentric movements, and minimizes muscle oxygen debt (i.e, "the pump) as it increases lactic acid.

He once said something along the lines of "brief, infrequent use of muscle is good" (probably butchered the quote but something along those line)

His advice reminded me of a famous bodybuilder in the 80's, Mike Mentzer, who postulated that all bodybuilders are overtraining, and the principals of muscle growth only required a brief and infrequent session to momentary muscular failure. Interestingly, in Synchronicity fashion, I discovered Ray's work just weeks after discovering Mentzer. I noticed great crossover between the two. Mentzer actually cited Hans Selyes "the stress of life" in one of his books about the harms of overtraining, which blew me away. Even Mikes nutritional advice was peaty, emphasizing the importance of (simple) carbohydrates and sugar, and dispelling the myth of the whey(ste product) protein industry that you needed to overload the body with protein to build muscle.

He has some great lectures on youtube on the topic of HIT, specifically, his audio tapes: The logical path to successful bodybuilding are a MUST watch for anyone interested in the topic of building muscle. He was a very intelligent man, many regarded him as a philosopher, and after watching these tapes you will realize why. His articulate speaking manner and use of logic is extremely impressive. He dispels much of the authoritarian dogma in the fitness industry, and like Peat, attempts to teach one about the science behind the topic rather than just giving a protocol. In other words, he was a proponent of "Perceive, Think, Act".

In my opinion, the theory of High Intensity Training is the most logical, science backed theory of effective exercise, and is the antithesis of the current state of bodybuilding- high volume "pump" style workouts popularized by Arnold (Mentzer's arch nemesis).

His training was based on the work of a man named Arthur jones, the inventor of Nautilus equipment proved that brief exercise to failure is the optimal way to build muscle

There is a book titled "body by science" that goes into this in more detail for anyone interested. Mentzer also has serval books of his own

As peaty as all of this sounds, minimizing the amount of stress to the organism and only doing the bare minimum required, there is still the concern of both eccentric movements and lactic acid, albeit to a DRASTICALLY lower degree.

Coauthor of body by science, John Little (a friend and disciple of Mentzer), has a program that implements these principals of brief, infrequent maximal effort training, AND eliminates these two issues. I present to you: Max contraction training (link). He talks about how a scientist in the 50s proved great results simply by a maximal muscular contraction of just 1-6 seconds.

I have applied this routine to a degree, simply contracting a muscle as hard as possible either on its own or against an immovable object (isometric), briefly and infrequently, and I honestly have had better results doing this the past 2 months than in years of traditional bodybuilding. Each day I wake up in amazement of my progress. I will see muscles that I never knew I had; a couple days after a single pull up I noticed new muscles in my upper back that I had never seen before; after a single rep of a chest contraction I grew my stubborn upper chest more in one workout that I never seemed to build with years of bench press (
"Why I never bench press and you shouldn't either" ) .

Some examples of exercises I will do are: flexing bicep in maximal contracted position as hard as possible by using a doorknob, doing the concentric part of a pull up and maximally contracting for a few seconds at the top then dropping, contracting hamstring by lying down placing heel against the ground, holding the contracted portion of a "mountain climber" pose or sit up for abs, simply contracting my rhomboids or rear delts super hard, doing a "lateral raise" against the bottom of my work desk to provide an immovable resistance, placing my forearm against the back of my (opposite) hamstring and contracting my chest across my body, etc etc. Pretty much anything that you feel a contraction will be effective, you can play around yourself. Using weights in a manner shown in the max contraction video is probably just as if not more viable, but I have seen great results even without going to the gym. The many forms of Isometrics I mentioned, contracting against an immovable object, will provide great stimulation as it will recruit ALL of the possible muscle fibers MAXIMALLY. This is a key principal of HIT (henemens size principal), fatiguing the fast twitch muscle fibers. It can be achieved in any rep range by simply training to failure, but isometrics allow you to do so with minimal/no lactic acid as only one contraction is required.

There was a wrestler named the great gama, who is famous for going 5000-0 in his bouts (yes you read that right) , who touted the benefits of maximal isometric contractions that inspired me to use immovable objects instead of the weights shown in the max contraction video. (that and I don't have a training partner crazy enough to train this way with me lol) Essentially it is the same concept, providing maximal resistance, stimulating the fast twitch muscle fibers ( henemens size principal).

'One day after defeating an opponent much larger than he, someone asked him how he was able to get so strong.' "
“It’s really quite simple,” the Indian said good-naturedly. “In the Punjab, where I lived there was a large tree behind my house. Each morning I would rise up early, tie my belt around it, and try to throw it down.” “A tree?” the boy marveled. “For twenty years.” “And you did it?” “No, little one,” Gama smiled, “but after a tree…a man is easy.” Great gama (link) .

^ This may sound like "bro science", but it actually is an example of "Heneman's size principal" in action. When contracting against an immovable object, you are using ALL of your possible effort, thus stimulating fast twitch muscle fibers.

This all may sound unbelievable, too good to be true; is it really not only possible but OPTIMAL to train this brief and infrequently?; but when one considers the biochemistry of the subject, it makes sense. Muscles are ANEROBIC, the opposite of AEROBIC exercise. This is why sprinters have very muscular legs, while a marathon runner is almost always frail. High intensity, short duration exercise such as sprinting uses predominantly fast twitch, carbohydrate burning fibers, while jogging uses slow twitch fibers that rely on fat. It is the fast twitch muscle fibers that are a lot more prone to growth

While the principals of HIT have been demonstrated scientifically ( View: https://youtu.be/ag5YMTcAudw, View: https://youtu.be/NndeNFVf9eU , View: https://youtu.be/wVYEjFZAERw ), and shown to work in practice by the success of Mentzer and Dorian Yates, these principals have been all but forgotten. It was only through an unrelenting, thorough search for a logical approach to building muscle that I discovered HIT. I have always been unconvinced of the science of traditional bodybuilding; I would follow routines and wonder WHY 3 sets of 10 ( View: https://youtu.be/hddsfYdaZ1k ), why 2 minutes of rest, why not 53 seconds of rest? All of these arbitrary decrees never sat right with me. In science, there is no room for the arbitrary, The principals of HIT initially defined by Arthur Jones and popularized by Mike Mentzer and Dorian Yates use science and logic, rather than the arbitrary tradition based programs that are popular today.

As to why it's unknown and forgotten, I don't really have a good answer other than the fact that we live in a "dark age" to some degree, with sheeple believing whatever the popular opinion is, rather than using the logical principals created by Aristotle to cultivate knowledge. It is through the use of logic and reason that I was able to discover ray peat and the community, rather than believing whatever info the dietary guidelines told me, and these same principals of logic led me to discover HIT. As a group of logic based people who Perceive, Think, Act; rather than cultivating information simply because an authority figure told you something, I know you all will really appreciate the science based approach of HIT.

The implications of this are staggering. The entire fitness industry is following the high volume approach simply out of tradition, not logic or science. I wonder how many people's lives would be changed with a proper approach to building muscle, how many more people would take up the sport if only minutes a week were necessary. Hell, a gym membership isn't even required! If anyone decided to try these principals out for themselves (after thorough evaluation of the logic of the theory, not per my advice , {Perceive Think Act!}), please update us with your results!

(P.S , I probably did a poor job explaining the exact science behind HIT, Henemens size principal, fast twitch muscles etc., I recommend reading the works of Dr Doug mcguff, Mike mentzer, Arthur jones and the content of Jay Vincent. This post was a spur of the moment thing after seeing this forum on the home page, I just did my best based on my knowledge of the topic)

(this is a copy of the post i made on the thread "exercise the ray peat way", I am posting it in other forums that seem related )
 

Vinny

Member
Joined
Dec 11, 2018
Messages
1,438
Age
51
Location
Sofia, Bulgaria
Below I am posting my response to the thread titled "exercise the ray peat way?" It seems applicable to your question


This is a topic I have been pondering as of late, as a peaty young male looking to build muscle safely and effectively. Ray mentions that muscle mass is beneficial as it increases RMB, and also cited studies that show bodybuilders live longer. However, he has concerns with the eccentric stuff and lactic acid production.

So in summary- a good training routine is one that builds muscle, avoids eccentric movements, and minimizes muscle oxygen debt (i.e, "the pump) as it increases lactic acid.

He once said something along the lines of "brief, infrequent use of muscle is good" (probably butchered the quote but something along those line)

His advice reminded me of a famous bodybuilder in the 80's, Mike Mentzer, who postulated that all bodybuilders are overtraining, and the principals of muscle growth only required a brief and infrequent session to momentary muscular failure. Interestingly, in Synchronicity fashion, I discovered Ray's work just weeks after discovering Mentzer. I noticed great crossover between the two. Mentzer actually cited Hans Selyes "the stress of life" in one of his books about the harms of overtraining, which blew me away. Even Mikes nutritional advice was peaty, emphasizing the importance of (simple) carbohydrates and sugar, and dispelling the myth of the whey(ste product) protein industry that you needed to overload the body with protein to build muscle.

He has some great lectures on youtube on the topic of HIT, specifically, his audio tapes: The logical path to successful bodybuilding are a MUST watch for anyone interested in the topic of building muscle. He was a very intelligent man, many regarded him as a philosopher, and after watching these tapes you will realize why. His articulate speaking manner and use of logic is extremely impressive. He dispels much of the authoritarian dogma in the fitness industry, and like Peat, attempts to teach one about the science behind the topic rather than just giving a protocol. In other words, he was a proponent of "Perceive, Think, Act".

In my opinion, the theory of High Intensity Training is the most logical, science backed theory of effective exercise, and is the antithesis of the current state of bodybuilding- high volume "pump" style workouts popularized by Arnold (Mentzer's arch nemesis).

His training was based on the work of a man named Arthur jones, the inventor of Nautilus equipment proved that brief exercise to failure is the optimal way to build muscle

There is a book titled "body by science" that goes into this in more detail for anyone interested. Mentzer also has serval books of his own

As peaty as all of this sounds, minimizing the amount of stress to the organism and only doing the bare minimum required, there is still the concern of both eccentric movements and lactic acid, albeit to a DRASTICALLY lower degree.

Coauthor of body by science, John Little (a friend and disciple of Mentzer), has a program that implements these principals of brief, infrequent maximal effort training, AND eliminates these two issues. I present to you: Max contraction training (link). He talks about how a scientist in the 50s proved great results simply by a maximal muscular contraction of just 1-6 seconds.

I have applied this routine to a degree, simply contracting a muscle as hard as possible either on its own or against an immovable object (isometric), briefly and infrequently, and I honestly have had better results doing this the past 2 months than in years of traditional bodybuilding. Each day I wake up in amazement of my progress. I will see muscles that I never knew I had; a couple days after a single pull up I noticed new muscles in my upper back that I had never seen before; after a single rep of a chest contraction I grew my stubborn upper chest more in one workout that I never seemed to build with years of bench press (
"Why I never bench press and you shouldn't either" ) .

Some examples of exercises I will do are: flexing bicep in maximal contracted position as hard as possible by using a doorknob, doing the concentric part of a pull up and maximally contracting for a few seconds at the top then dropping, contracting hamstring by lying down placing heel against the ground, holding the contracted portion of a "mountain climber" pose or sit up for abs, simply contracting my rhomboids or rear delts super hard, doing a "lateral raise" against the bottom of my work desk to provide an immovable resistance, placing my forearm against the back of my (opposite) hamstring and contracting my chest across my body, etc etc. Pretty much anything that you feel a contraction will be effective, you can play around yourself. Using weights in a manner shown in the max contraction video is probably just as if not more viable, but I have seen great results even without going to the gym. The many forms of Isometrics I mentioned, contracting against an immovable object, will provide great stimulation as it will recruit ALL of the possible muscle fibers MAXIMALLY. This is a key principal of HIT (henemens size principal), fatiguing the fast twitch muscle fibers. It can be achieved in any rep range by simply training to failure, but isometrics allow you to do so with minimal/no lactic acid as only one contraction is required.

There was a wrestler named the great gama, who is famous for going 5000-0 in his bouts (yes you read that right) , who touted the benefits of maximal isometric contractions that inspired me to use immovable objects instead of the weights shown in the max contraction video. (that and I don't have a training partner crazy enough to train this way with me lol) Essentially it is the same concept, providing maximal resistance, stimulating the fast twitch muscle fibers ( henemens size principal).

'One day after defeating an opponent much larger than he, someone asked him how he was able to get so strong.' "
“It’s really quite simple,” the Indian said good-naturedly. “In the Punjab, where I lived there was a large tree behind my house. Each morning I would rise up early, tie my belt around it, and try to throw it down.” “A tree?” the boy marveled. “For twenty years.” “And you did it?” “No, little one,” Gama smiled, “but after a tree…a man is easy.” Great gama (link) .

^ This may sound like "bro science", but it actually is an example of "Heneman's size principal" in action. When contracting against an immovable object, you are using ALL of your possible effort, thus stimulating fast twitch muscle fibers.

This all may sound unbelievable, too good to be true; is it really not only possible but OPTIMAL to train this brief and infrequently?; but when one considers the biochemistry of the subject, it makes sense. Muscles are ANEROBIC, the opposite of AEROBIC exercise. This is why sprinters have very muscular legs, while a marathon runner is almost always frail. High intensity, short duration exercise such as sprinting uses predominantly fast twitch, carbohydrate burning fibers, while jogging uses slow twitch fibers that rely on fat. It is the fast twitch muscle fibers that are a lot more prone to growth

While the principals of HIT have been demonstrated scientifically ( View: https://youtu.be/ag5YMTcAudw, View: https://youtu.be/NndeNFVf9eU , View: https://youtu.be/wVYEjFZAERw ), and shown to work in practice by the success of Mentzer and Dorian Yates, these principals have been all but forgotten. It was only through an unrelenting, thorough search for a logical approach to building muscle that I discovered HIT. I have always been unconvinced of the science of traditional bodybuilding; I would follow routines and wonder WHY 3 sets of 10 ( View: https://youtu.be/hddsfYdaZ1k ), why 2 minutes of rest, why not 53 seconds of rest? All of these arbitrary decrees never sat right with me. In science, there is no room for the arbitrary, The principals of HIT initially defined by Arthur Jones and popularized by Mike Mentzer and Dorian Yates use science and logic, rather than the arbitrary tradition based programs that are popular today.

As to why it's unknown and forgotten, I don't really have a good answer other than the fact that we live in a "dark age" to some degree, with sheeple believing whatever the popular opinion is, rather than using the logical principals created by Aristotle to cultivate knowledge. It is through the use of logic and reason that I was able to discover ray peat and the community, rather than believing whatever info the dietary guidelines told me, and these same principals of logic led me to discover HIT. As a group of logic based people who Perceive, Think, Act; rather than cultivating information simply because an authority figure told you something, I know you all will really appreciate the science based approach of HIT.

The implications of this are staggering. The entire fitness industry is following the high volume approach simply out of tradition, not logic or science. I wonder how many people's lives would be changed with a proper approach to building muscle, how many more people would take up the sport if only minutes a week were necessary. Hell, a gym membership isn't even required! If anyone decided to try these principals out for themselves (after thorough evaluation of the logic of the theory, not per my advice , {Perceive Think Act!}), please update us with your results!

(P.S , I probably did a poor job explaining the exact science behind HIT, Henemens size principal, fast twitch muscles etc., I recommend reading the works of Dr Doug mcguff, Mike mentzer, Arthur jones and the content of Jay Vincent. This post was a spur of the moment thing after seeing this forum on the home page, I just did my best based on my knowledge of the topic)

(this is a copy of the post i made on the thread "exercise the ray peat way", I am posting it in other forums that seem related )
Very interesting!
 

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom