Great Analogy I Read Today

From Chad Waterbury...

"Think of it like a basketball game: Let's say you're a coach with a mix of big men who can rebound and score inside, and smaller guys who can run fast breaks and shoot the lights out from three-point range. If you just play the big men, you'll get murked in the open court. If you just play the runners and shooters, you'll get demolished in the paint. You need both types of players to win, just as you need to employ all your muscle fibers to grow the biggest possible muscles."

As an aside, the big men (Type II fibers) outnumber the small guys (Type I fibers) by 2:1. Low rep, high weight, explosive movements stimulation Type II fibers the best.

whats weight/height is classified as big men

Does it really matter?

Try reading again.

So strength train and build a solid base with the type 2, while mixing in some moderately heavy weights with more sets and reps for the type 1 muscle fibers. Best of both worlds. Profit. Im also looking at it as equally working out the lower as much as the upper.

explosive movement stimulation.. sorry call me a newb but can you explain to me what that means exactly

like when your lifting do it fast? :sorry:

Type IIB fibers and to an extent, type IIA muscle fibers are anaerobic. They are stimulated by the need for force/speed/power. They also have the greatest growth potential. So basically that means that in order to recruit more of these fibers, your workout must be power/speed (aka explosive) based. Does that make sense?

Edit: just to clarify - its not necessarily about how fast you perform your movements, but how much power is going into them. Using heavy weight (at about 60-90% of your 1RM) should stimulate these fibers the best.

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If you go for size... well yea great

I meant to put the epxlosive movements stimulate them.

You need force to move a heavy object. It's tough to lift something very heavy (>80% of 1RM) slowly.

It doesn't necessarily mean fast but you want to generate the most force to get the weight moving and move it fast.



It works for strength as well.