Fast twitch systems in (fighting) sports etc.
Discussion
One for Balders, 996Sp and the like - you guys doing the degrees!
Following various debates on here and a particular current one on the Self Defence thread, what are folks' views on the relative contributions of fast v slow twitch muscles and related systems in fighting based sports (so not full on 100m sprints or similar) and the ability one has to fully deplete these fibres/systems after a few minutes of punching, kicking etc.
My personal suspicion is that it would be near on impossible to take a muscle(s) to full failure from punching compared with a true failure weight set - positive and negative, forced reps, negatives etc. - the Jones/Mentzer/Yates type failure sets - or that the recovery from, say delivering a bunch of full power punches in a flurry would be quicker than from such a set of weight type work. And that even after, say 12 rounds you wouldn't (even) then be working almost exclusively on the slow twitch or endurance fibres/systems as argued.
A fascinating area (well for me, I should get out more I know) and despite loads of reading and personal experimentation on my own body.with my training I'm really interested to hear others' views and - if possible - experience.
Following various debates on here and a particular current one on the Self Defence thread, what are folks' views on the relative contributions of fast v slow twitch muscles and related systems in fighting based sports (so not full on 100m sprints or similar) and the ability one has to fully deplete these fibres/systems after a few minutes of punching, kicking etc.
My personal suspicion is that it would be near on impossible to take a muscle(s) to full failure from punching compared with a true failure weight set - positive and negative, forced reps, negatives etc. - the Jones/Mentzer/Yates type failure sets - or that the recovery from, say delivering a bunch of full power punches in a flurry would be quicker than from such a set of weight type work. And that even after, say 12 rounds you wouldn't (even) then be working almost exclusively on the slow twitch or endurance fibres/systems as argued.
A fascinating area (well for me, I should get out more I know) and despite loads of reading and personal experimentation on my own body.with my training I'm really interested to hear others' views and - if possible - experience.
Hoofy said:
Are you asking if it's possible to keep jabbing indefinitely? (Subject to not running out of energy.)
No, I'm referring to a supposed inability to deploy fast twitch systems (the ones that help you to hit hard) after a certain time sparring or fighting - as per original debate/the line taken; see the related Self Defence thread.Lost_BMW said:
No, I'm referring to a supposed inability to deploy fast twitch systems (the ones that help you to hit hard) after a certain time sparring or fighting - as per original debate/the line taken; see the related Self Defence thread.
Oh. I'm not going on that thread. 
The problem is that part of hitting is in the technique of deploying the entire body rather than just extending a limb.
Hoofy said:
Lost_BMW said:
No, I'm referring to a supposed inability to deploy fast twitch systems (the ones that help you to hit hard) after a certain time sparring or fighting - as per original debate/the line taken; see the related Self Defence thread.
Oh. I'm not going on that thread. The problem is that part of hitting is in the technique of deploying the entire body rather than just extending a limb.
Lost_BMW said:
Yep. the technique thing has been debated but the aspect now being discussed - and that I want to find other's views on - is more which systems/fibres are used/can work for how long.
It's hard to determine, though, because of the technique. I mean, you could try chain punching without putting your weight into it.Hoofy said:
It's hard to determine, though, because of the technique. I mean, you could try chain punching without putting your weight into it.
No, were trying (well, I am) to avoid technique, on an 'all things being equal' basis - i.e. for any one person irrespective of skill/technique what proportion of the force (esp. the harder punches/kicks) comes from the use/deployment of which system/muscle type, and for how long...Lost_BMW said:
Hoofy said:
Are you asking if it's possible to keep jabbing indefinitely? (Subject to not running out of energy.)
No, I'm referring to a supposed inability to deploy fast twitch systems (the ones that help you to hit hard) after a certain time sparring or fighting - as per original debate/the line taken; see the related Self Defence thread.Why, when I hit the pads, am I much faster at the start than at the end (even if i'm not winded)?
I contest it can only be because you have largely burnt out the fast twitch and are running on slow twitch.
(There are of course huge variables here so the above is a massive generalisation)
Liokault said:
Lost_BMW said:
Hoofy said:
Are you asking if it's possible to keep jabbing indefinitely? (Subject to not running out of energy.)
No, I'm referring to a supposed inability to deploy fast twitch systems (the ones that help you to hit hard) after a certain time sparring or fighting - as per original debate/the line taken; see the related Self Defence thread.Why, when I hit the pads, am I much faster at the start than at the end (even if i'm not winded)?
I contest it can only be because you have largely burnt out the fast twitch and are running on slow twitch.
(There are of course huge variables here so the above is a massive generalisation)
But, since you've popped in...
How fast or hard do you think a punch would be if it were only using slow twitch fibres for the delivery?
Not every punch thrown after 12 rounds (or more - I'm old enough to remember the 15 round fights) is slow. I've seen loads of fast punches, hard punches, KO punches thrown at the end of a fight.
Obviously there is fatigue and performance overall will decline - fatigue of all sorts of systems - but I still don't think a fighter will deplete all the ability of fast twitch fibres quickly unless every single punch is as hard as possible until the muscles (and more) die. Not the norm though.
Even then the time needed to recuperate enough to throw a similarly hard punch will be much less than that needed to repeat a weight rep (same/similar weight & same/similar number of reps) once taken to the failure point - or your 'wear out' point - for the fast twitch side. Imagine punching as hard and fast as possible for say, 30 seconds and measure the decline in speed/force etc. Then wait a few seconds and I'd bet you could hit the same or similar numbers again, at least for a while.
Do a one, or whatever rep number, set with a weight to failure, say 3 reps to failure on a press and I doubt after a few seconds that same weight could be lifted even once. Chances are it would need 90 seconds or more. That's my experience of lifting, seeing others train and reading about lifting. To my mind the weight type failure is closer to a genuine fast twitch exhaustion than can be generated through punches.
Are you really much slower at the end of a session? If so how long was the session/the rounds and was every shot as hard as you could deliver? Which does not replicate an actual bout, unless you are so superior to the opponent or lucky enough to get a quick stoppage etc.
I did 6 threes tonight each off 30 second rests. Not every punch was full on - it was a mix of speed & power work drilling a number of set combinations - and some of the later punches, those where the intent was to replicate a KO shot, were as hard or thereabouts as at the start.
The same is true when I do 20 min. or more non-stop rounds with 1000s of punches thrown. There's still enough left to turn on a hard one near the end. Last week I did 1000 non stop left crosses and 1000 non stop right jabs back-to-back as a boredom breaker. The last 100 of each were done as hard as possible. Some were close to my best 'fresh', I think. But I do specifically train for this regularly. If all I did was lift weights I'd probably die quicker, agreed.
Lost_BMW said:
Oh noes! I was trying to get away from the argument and open up a discussion on muscle types/fibres/systems and training and bring in those who are qualified/qualifying in sports science etc..
I think that may be a problem. Since we started this discussion a few days ago, I have been googling fast twitch muscle and punching/boxing. There is a great deal of text about go "grow" fast twitch muscle, but very little about the failure of FTM (as i'm going to start calling it) in relation to boxing/punching.Lost_BMW said:
Obviously there is fatigue and performance overall will decline - fatigue of all sorts of systems - but I still don't think a fighter will deplete all the ability of fast twitch fibres quickly unless every single punch is as hard as possible until the muscles (and more) die. Not the norm though.
But 12 rounds is a long time. My theory is that in those 12 rounds (and again, every fight and every fighter is different, so i'm generalising) you will burn up a great deal of your FTM, then use STM or just pace yourself and throw less shots until the FTM is up again, many times over. But generally, if the "fight" is intense, you will have access to much less FTM at the end of the fight than you did at the beginning.Lost_BMW said:
Imagine punching as hard and fast as possible for say, 30 seconds and measure the decline in speed/force etc. Then wait a few seconds and I'd bet you could hit the same or similar numbers again, at least for a while.
If you measure speed and force and number of strikes for 30 second (done with the intent of applying 100% power), then rest for say 10 seconds and repeat, something will start to drop, either force applied or number of shots is going to decline. If you do this for a third, fourth fifth and sixth time you will see a bigger and bigger decline (again, depending on whom you are testing, but I think this is true for 90% of the population).I say this based not on science but purely personal experience of doing something similar in training over a period of years. We used to do three minutes of alternating crosses one after the other, no gap, then a 30 second rest and repeat three times. You could feel the FTM drain away and the blows get slower and have less impact. I could feel this personally and in the guys I was holding a pad for.
Lost_BMW said:
The same is true when I do 20 min. or more non-stop rounds with 1000s of punches thrown. There's still enough left to turn on a hard one near the end.
If you can "turn on a hard one" my theory is that the others were not hard enough to recruit FTM so you still had it there to call on. I garentee that if you are doing 100% intent (i.e recruiting FTM) 1000s of times in a limited time period you are going to see a huge reduction in FTM fibres avaliable to recruit for a movement towards the end of those 1000s of reps. (again, a huge generalisation, you could have for example thrown 999 left jabs in those 20 mins and so had plenty left for a perfect right cross at the end)
Lost_BMW said:
Last week I did 1000 non stop left crosses and 1000 non stop right jabs back-to-back as a boredom breaker. The last 100 of each were done as hard as possible. Some were close to my best 'fresh', I think. But I do specifically train for this regularly. If all I did was lift weights I'd probably die quicker, agreed.
I'm not a great striker, I think I have been blessed with a high proportion of slow twitch muscle fibre, but if I throw jabs in isolation (jabs is a good one for this purpose as they isolate the arm more than other punches) one after the other (at 100% again), I can feel the "snap" against the pad drop away really fast, without having timed it, in maybe 30 seconds. I can continue to throw jabs, but at nothing like the speed or power of the first 30 seconds or so.Lost_BMW said:
The same is true when I do 20 min. or more non-stop rounds with 1000s of punches thrown. There's still enough left to turn on a hard one near the end.
For me, this is a key point and is a much more interesting question:If you throw a punches (which generally use similar muscle groups, so you have basic reps firing the same muscles), how much of the 20 mins are you training fast twitch and how much are you training slow twitch?
My theory is that for most of that 20 mins you are training slow twitch, especially if you can up the power at the end.
So the question i'm interested in is: Are you reducing your speed by training high reps of punches using slow twitch muscle? Are you better off doing much less, for much shorter times, but at 100% and stopping before you have to rely on slow twitch?
I'm guessing there’s a balance to be struck here between speed and endurance.
(the above question assumes that you have been training for a while as I guess that an untrained puncher will see speed and endurance gains from almost any sort of systematic punching training)
P=Fv
F=ma
Problem is that F increases if you put your body into it (F goes up as mass goes up for a constant acceleration) so as F goes up, velocity can drop for the same Power. *goes back to bed*
But, yes, you could log the number per second as the higher the speed the quicker you can chamber and punch.
F=ma
Problem is that F increases if you put your body into it (F goes up as mass goes up for a constant acceleration) so as F goes up, velocity can drop for the same Power. *goes back to bed*
But, yes, you could log the number per second as the higher the speed the quicker you can chamber and punch.
Lost_BMW said:
One for Balders, 996Sp and the like - you guys doing the degrees!
Following various debates on here and a particular current one on the Self Defence thread, what are folks' views on the relative contributions of fast v slow twitch muscles and related systems in fighting based sports (so not full on 100m sprints or similar) and the ability one has to fully deplete these fibres/systems after a few minutes of punching, kicking etc.
My personal suspicion is that it would be near on impossible to take a muscle(s) to full failure from punching compared with a true failure weight set - positive and negative, forced reps, negatives etc. - the Jones/Mentzer/Yates type failure sets - or that the recovery from, say delivering a bunch of full power punches in a flurry would be quicker than from such a set of weight type work. And that even after, say 12 rounds you wouldn't (even) then be working almost exclusively on the slow twitch or endurance fibres/systems as argued.
A fascinating area (well for me, I should get out more I know) and despite loads of reading and personal experimentation on my own body.with my training I'm really interested to hear others' views and - if possible - experience.
I've quoted this so I can tryu and answer as best I can...Following various debates on here and a particular current one on the Self Defence thread, what are folks' views on the relative contributions of fast v slow twitch muscles and related systems in fighting based sports (so not full on 100m sprints or similar) and the ability one has to fully deplete these fibres/systems after a few minutes of punching, kicking etc.
My personal suspicion is that it would be near on impossible to take a muscle(s) to full failure from punching compared with a true failure weight set - positive and negative, forced reps, negatives etc. - the Jones/Mentzer/Yates type failure sets - or that the recovery from, say delivering a bunch of full power punches in a flurry would be quicker than from such a set of weight type work. And that even after, say 12 rounds you wouldn't (even) then be working almost exclusively on the slow twitch or endurance fibres/systems as argued.
A fascinating area (well for me, I should get out more I know) and despite loads of reading and personal experimentation on my own body.with my training I'm really interested to hear others' views and - if possible - experience.
Firstlty the fact that one has fast type 2b, medium type 2a and slow type 1 twitch fibres is really not the case. It is a contium, even muscle fibres which present very high tybe 2b characterisitcs will still be oxadative to a certian extent. there will be some fibres that are half way between 2 types also for example. Also, a single muscle fibre will often vary in characteristic along it's length, so one end may be more glycoloytic and the other oxadative.
The above means that "fast twitch" fibres can also use aerboic matabolism as their fuel, just not as effectivly as a "slow twicth"
The type of training the boxers do will also change the characteristics of these fibres, and I would say that boxers will do this to more of an extent than other sports due to the nature of the sport. By doing circuit training, repetivitive bag work etc they are doing high repetition, medium/high loaded work. This makes the type 2 fibres become more oxaditive and reduces the exhaustive effect that they will suffer during a boat of fighting.
So in general the predominant energy systems that supply the fast energy are ATP/PC and the glycolytic energy system. They will still be using these throughout the entire fight as they will get a chance to re stock during periods where no jabs are taking place, or between round.
The exhaustive effect you see during weight sets is almost certianly not due to lack of fuel for the muscles either. Fatigue is not a particulalry well known area in terms of true facts as there are many theorys which I can touch up on if needed, for example increasing pottasium levels. This rings true for boxing also, thich is why you can see the guys go on for many rounds. Take increase K+ as an example, this will be accumalative which will be why they are more fatigued at the end of round 12 than at the end of round 1. They will still have plenty of fuel when they finish. Glycogen levels only really become an issue in ultra long distance events.
HTH - happy to answer questions/go into more depth/argue the toss with people who think I'm wrong
balders118 said:
The type of training the boxers do will also change the characteristics of these fibres, and I would say that boxers will do this to more of an extent than other sports due to the nature of the sport. By doing circuit training, repetivitive bag work etc they are doing high repetition, medium/high loaded work. This makes the type 2 fibres become more oxaditive and reduces the exhaustive effect that they will suffer during a boat of fighting.
This is Interesting.Can you expand on that please?
Liokault said:
Lost_BMW said:
Oh noes! I was trying to get away from the argument and open up a discussion on muscle types/fibres/systems and training and bring in those who are qualified/qualifying in sports science etc..
I think that may be a problem. Since we started this discussion a few days ago, I have been googling fast twitch muscle and punching/boxing. There is a great deal of text about go "grow" fast twitch muscle, but very little about the failure of FTM (as i'm going to start calling it) in relation to boxing/punching.True! But there is quite a bit about force curves related to how they imply training should change over a cycle/training camp.
Lost_BMW said:
Obviously there is fatigue and performance overall will decline - fatigue of all sorts of systems - but I still don't think a fighter will deplete all the ability of fast twitch fibres quickly unless every single punch is as hard as possible until the muscles (and more) die. Not the norm though.
But 12 rounds is a long time. My theory is that in those 12 rounds (and again, every fight and every fighter is different, so i'm generalising) you will burn up a great deal of your FTM, then use STM or just pace yourself and throw less shots until the FTM is up again, many times over. But generally, if the "fight" is intense, you will have access to much less FTM at the end of the fight than you did at the beginning.that's kind of what I was getting at - that in a longer fight not every punch will be full on and that we do use a mix of muscle types/systems - but that if correctly paced there is still enough left to throw near "hard as possible" punches later on. The fighters who do burn out to the point they have no power left later will generally end up being unsuccessful; certainly less successful than if they used better tactics.
Lost_BMW said:
Imagine punching as hard and fast as possible for say, 30 seconds and measure the decline in speed/force etc. Then wait a few seconds and I'd bet you could hit the same or similar numbers again, at least for a while.
If you measure speed and force and number of strikes for 30 second (done with the intent of applying 100% power), then rest for say 10 seconds and repeat, something will start to drop, either force applied or number of shots is going to decline. If you do this for a third, fourth fifth and sixth time you will see a bigger and bigger decline (again, depending on whom you are testing, but I think this is true for 90% of the population).Yes, I agree it will drop but not so drastically and with less recovery time needed than a true failure as implied in a set of weights 'failure'/fast twitch depleted fully(ish) scenario (as when most people use the phrase). Again, based on experience including back-to-back circuits with my brother using an Imptech force pad. We might try, say 30 seconds on, or 10 punches on, as hard as we could (competing for scores!) then back on when the oppo stopped. Again and again. Force didn't drop nearly so drastically as it would on weights to failure as I'd suggested in earlier posts.
I say this based not on science but purely personal experience of doing something similar in training over a period of years. We used to do three minutes of alternating crosses one after the other, no gap, then a 30 second rest and repeat three times. You could feel the FTM drain away and the blows get slower and have less impact. I could feel this personally and in the guys I was holding a pad for.
Lost_BMW said:
The same is true when I do 20 min. or more non-stop rounds with 1000s of punches thrown. There's still enough left to turn on a hard one near the end.
If you can "turn on a hard one" my theory is that the others were not hard enough to recruit FTM so you still had it there to call on. I garentee that if you are doing 100% intent (i.e recruiting FTM) 1000s of times in a limited time period you are going to see a huge reduction in FTM fibres avaliable to recruit for a movement towards the end of those 1000s of reps. [A.] I don't think any one punch or kick can fully recruit (only?) or, especially, deplete fast twitch muscles, so you could get a number of 100% intent punches before a decline BUT, again, the recovery would be quick, if trained correctly. [B.] Agreed, not all the punches in a round, say, would be 100% but many would be too fast and hard for me to believe they only recruit slow twitch fibres.
(again, a huge generalisation, you could have for example thrown 999 left jabs in those 20 mins and so had plenty left for a perfect right cross at the end)
Lost_BMW said:
Last week I did 1000 non stop left crosses and 1000 non stop right jabs back-to-back as a boredom breaker. The last 100 of each were done as hard as possible. Some were close to my best 'fresh', I think. But I do specifically train for this regularly. If all I did was lift weights I'd probably die quicker, agreed.
The 1000 rep sets mentioned were all one punch to the end then switch, so the last ones would be as hard as possible of the same punch and, if not absolutely as hard as my best still not massively down. True, not every one of the 1000 was 'full on', mimicking a real bout, but they were generally OK, not just pushes or prods! Again, in the past this has been measured on the force pad.I'm not a great striker, I think I have been blessed with a high proportion of slow twitch muscle fibre, but if I throw jabs in isolation (jabs is a good one for this purpose as they isolate the arm more than other punches) one after the other (at 100% again), I can feel the "snap" against the pad drop away really fast, without having timed it, in maybe 30 seconds. I can continue to throw jabs, but at nothing like the speed or power of the first 30 seconds or so.
[b]And again, I agree - there will be a fall off but I don't see that as a full depletion of the fast twitch and a switch to slow twitch only, esp. for the rest of a fight, as the recovery times are quicker and thee is a better balance across systems/types than in a typical low rep set of weights.[/b\
Hoofy said:
You need something that registers the speed of a punch so it will tell you whether you're punching quickly or slowly.
See above re. use of the Imptech pad. when I can afford it I'm going to invest in one of these:http://www.mmaprospectsuk.com/features/vital-infor...
Mouth waters!
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