1. There are 4 types of muscle fibers
Type 1
2A
2B
2X
2. Your body is trying to be as 'efficient' as possible. It tries to conserve energy as much as possible.
3. For this reason, your body loves 'Type 1' muscle. Type 1 muscle is very inexpensive metabolically to have on your body or to use.
It costs almost nothing for your body to use Type 1 muscle. Your body wants to use this muscle fiber for everything. Because it is so inexpensive metabolically.
4. Type 1 is used by your body if you have to do something for a long time - for 30 mins or 1 hour or more.
Jogging - if you are jogging for 30 mins or an hour or all day long. If you are an ultra-marathoner. Your body is using Type 1 muscle.
All daily activities - talking, moving, moving your arms. For all, your body uses Type 1 muscle fiber.
In fact, anything you do upto 70% of maximum exertion, you are using Type 1 muscle fiber. Your body is going to consume hardly any calories. Your body is going to say 'hey look, how inexpensively I got his chore accomplished.'
Unfortunately, it is not helpful, if you are trying to be:
- stronger
- perform better
- burn more calories
- trying to be more metabolically active
So, you really want to increase the amount of Type 2A muscle on your body. How are you going to do it?
5. Let's say you are doing something that requires more than 70% of maximum effort.
Let's say you have to push your car uphill. Then, you may have to dip into 80% of your maximum exertion. Your body says okay, I have to dip into Type 2A muscle fiber. I don't like to do that because it is more expensive, it burns glycogen - which is the stored energy in the muscle. I could not do this all day long. I could do this may be for 15 minutes.
Body doesn't like to do that. But if it has to, it will gradually dip into type 2A muscle fiber.
6. Now, let's say you have to push your car on a little higher incline.
You are pushing and pushing your car. If you are failing at Type 2A level, then your body will dip into Type 2B muscle fiber, where you body needs to put in 90% exertion.
Your body does not like to do this. It is very expensive. It is stripping through glycogen. May be you could do this for 5 minutes.
7. Now let's say someone has put emergency brakes on your car. Now, you need to put 100% exertion.
Your body hates this. But it will dip down into Type 2X muscle fiber. It is extremely expensive metabolically. May be you could burn all of your body's glycogen in a minute and a half.
Your body does not like to do this. Your body does it only in extreme emergencies.
8. When your exertion reaches 100%.
It is going to send a message to your body. That your body needs to be stronger for greater challenges in future. It's evolutionary message.
There is a huge hormonal flush throughout your body. Your glycogen is entirely burnt up and depleted. Your insulin sensitivity gets much much better. Over a period of time, you are building muscle.
Over the next few days, your body put up more type 2 muscle fiber. If you put on a pound of type 2 muscle, it literally burns 300 calories. It is constantly burning calories, even while you are at rest or sleeping.
When you are doing this, it is extremely expensive for the body to have muscle mass on your body
- burning up all the glycogen in your body,
- flushing out all the glucose in your body
- resetting your insulin sensitivity
9. Low strenuous exercise like say jogging is hardly helpful, even if you do it for any hour. It burns few calories, type 1 muscle fiber. If you eat a muffin, it's all back to square one.
So, only strenuous exercise with exertion can make you stronger.
10. Push Ups
Horizontal push and pull.
You have do push-ups till you can absolutely do no more. Only then will you be reaching to the 2X muscle fiber.
So, short an strenuous exercise is the way to build muscle fiber. In my experience, people who do it look much better.
11. Running
While this is not exactly for burning type 2 fiber, it is helpful if you do it even for 4 minutes at a very high speed, rather than doing it for 15 mins or 1 hour at a slow pace.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlYXb1xs86U
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