P&P #9. Focus on Speed of Action in Muscle Fibres May Be Inappropriate.
We all refer to a fairly well-established continuum of different muscle fibre types ranging from 'slow twitch' (fatigue-resistant ST) fibres to 'fast twitch' (rapid-fatiguing FT) fibres when explaining the performance differences between power athletes and endurance athletes. We conclude that a predominance of FT fibres will allow the athlete to produce greater muscular force than someone else who has fewer FT fibres. Is it the AVERAGE SPEED or peak speed of contraction that we think are the most important determinants of large force or is their ABILITY TO ACCELERATE RAPIDLY to a peak contraction what really counts?
Maybe it is even the Rate of Force Development (RFD) which really matters. Then we will have to consider if a specific class of fibres always contracts at the same speed and with the same acceleration to produce the same characteristic electrical waveform. Then, would we have to consider high RFD (or fast accelerating) slow twitch fibres versus low RFD (or slow accelerating) fast fibres to adequately understand force production? In other words, should we rather examine the exact shape of the activation wave rather than its more gross characteristics of speed? Discuss this issue.
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