What kept you from being physically fit in your younger years?

Fadi said:

Hi Rugby88,

Thank you for your question Sir. As you know, our muscles are made up predominantly of two types of muscle fiber: red fiber (type 1 / slow-twitch fibers), and white (type 2) are called fast-twitch fibers. I must have been born with around 80% fast-twitch, white fibers We all have a combination of these two muscle fibers, however with some of us, one of these two types may actually predominate. So I was just lucky that I got myself involved with the right sport for the dominant fiber type I was born with.

The question then arises: can these two fibers be converted? Here's a copy and paste I found applicable for such a question.

"The short answer is no, they cannot. However, you may be able to"train up" the fibers you have of a particular type. For example, if you have 70% slow fibers and 30% fast fibers, there is some evidence that training heavy, at 5-8 RM for example, will theoretically boost the cross-section size of the 30% of type 2B fibers, if not the number. The reverse may also be true. For example, a predominantly fast-twitcher, a sprinter, maybe able to emphasize his slow fibers by running regularly for an hour or more in order to compete in long distance racers, or by doing sets with a high number of reps in the gym. Regular full-body weight training in the range 10-15 reps per set is likely to hit your type 2A intermediate fibers.

In summary, if you're a gym rat, being blessed with white, fast fibers (2B and2A) will probably give you a lifting edge in total weight lifted. If you have slow, type 1 fibers predominantly, you may not win a lifting competition anytime soon, although there is no reason why you should not be able to bulk upsubstantially."

Knowing the above, I can confidently say that when I switched over from Olympic weightlifting to the sport of bodybuilding, and began to incorporate 20, 30,and 50 repetitions within my sets (like squats), I quickly adapted without losing strength. I actually found that having built a 3 1/2 years foundation of mainly low rep training for power and strength (most often hovering around the 2 & 3 reps), I was unknowingly getting my muscles built through Myofibrillar Hypertrophy. Then when I made the switch in sport, and began to increase the repetitions during my sets, I began to achieve Sarcoplasmic Hypertrophy. I found that a simple analogy of how these two types of training works is as follows: think of the Myofibrillar as a balloon, a balloon that you are making bigger and bigger. Now think of the Sarcoplasmic part of the muscle cell as the "filling" that is going to go into that balloon. So the bigger the balloon, the more opportunity there is for it to expand and get bigger with that "filling".

Gymnastic served me perfectly because all weightlifters need to have flexibility. The sprinting was just an indication of where this young boy was heading. I was always first out of the box irrespective whether I won the 100m or 200m or not. So the indications were all there for what I found to be a sport that was tailored for me (in the sport of Olympic weightlifting).

Even the difference between my front squat and back squat made me the odd one out amongst my weightlifting peers. The usual percentage difference between the two lifts is around 15%. That is to say, that a lifter with (say) a back squat of 200kg (like I had), should be able to front squat 85% of that number, i.e.170kg. Mine was 97.5% standing at 195kg. Hence I didn't have to back squat.

I better stop here and I'm really sorry if I got carried away with my answer mate.



Fadi.

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