Muscle Fiber Research Paper

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Brock Perry HPE295 Grier Gatlin Muscle Fibers Our body is composed of many different groups of muscles and each person has a unique composition of muscle tissue in their body. Different types of athletes usually have one predominant type of muscle fiber, that being the kind that suits their sport the best. Each one has it's own characteristics and is suited to a particular type of movement. Another way to classify these fiber types is by their contractile and metabolic properties, thereby dividing them into slow and fast twitch fibers. The first type of fiber we will look at is the type I, or slow twitch fibers. These fibers are slow to contract (hence, slow twitch), and can sustain muscular contractions for an extended period of time.…show more content…
Due to these properties, these fibers generate an explosive burst of power for a short period of time. This makes them most suitable to stop and go activities such as basketball, soccer, and hockey, as well as max output activities such as weightlifting, and many track and field events. These fibers rely heavy on the glycolytic energy system (using the method of anaerobic glycolosis to produce ATP). Type IIa fibers are in the middle of the muscle fiber spectrum, as they are less fatigue resistance, produce more muscular force, and contract at a faster speed than slow twitch fibers. The type IIb fibers are the most fatigable out of all the fibers but also generate the most power and force, and therefore are the fastest twitch muscles fibers. These types of fibers are recruited in activities that require an all out burst of power and only act for an extremely short period of time, as the total length of their contractions usually last only 7.5 milliseconds. In terms of general recruitment, they are also the last to be recruited. For example, upon normal activities, slow twitch fibers are recruited first, followed by type IIa when the type I can no longer…show more content…
Slow twitch are characterized by having long contraction rates, being resistant to fatigue, relying on oxygen as their main source of metabolism, and are used primarily in endurance type of activities that don't require a great deal of force. Fast twitch fibers on the other hand have short but powerful contraction rates, are highly fatigable due to their reliance on anaerobic metabolism that produces lactic acid, and are more suited to activities that are powerful and quick in duration. So the next time you are watching or participating in an athletic event, try and think of what type of muscle cells are involved and see if you can pick out which athletes have a predominance of that muscle type in their

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