How To Get Bigger Type II Fibers
What's up guys? Welcome back to the THP Strength podcast. Today, we're gonna talk about fast twitch muscle fibers. This guy's twitching.
Isaiah:What is that?
John:That is like a like a squirrel of all things. Anyways, we're gonna talk about how you get more fast twitch muscle fibers, if that's even possible. We'll talk about hypertrophy, hyperplasia, whether or not steroids and drugs impact your type two muscle fibers Intent. Intent, and what the implications are on your injury risk. Anyways, getting into it.
John:I'm John Evans, Eicher's the highest jumper in the world. Is highest jumper in the world. Isaiah Rivera is 50.5. And you could say
Isaiah:The way I'm talking it.
John:He's got quite
Isaiah:There's the tattoo.
John:He's got quite a bit of type two muscle fiber. You're a betting man. How much do you have?
Isaiah:Yeah. My Well, were to slice my mass's media out.
John:I think there was like this interesting I don't know where I saw this, but they looked at cross sectional area slivers and there wasn't as much type two muscle fiber in weightlifters as I thought, like relative to type one. But the whole conversation is a bit of a moot point because it's one dictated by your nervous system. That's actually what determines the muscle fibers. The brain innervates the muscle. The muscle adapts to the fact that it has more innervation so it needs less oxygen which is what makes it a white muscle fiber when you're looking at it underneath the microscope.
John:Did you know that?
Isaiah:No, I did not know that.
John:So if look at a cross sectional area for a muscle cell, what it looks like is like a beehive almost, because you're chopping it in half and you have all the sarcomeres, which the muscle cells are little like circles when you cut them in half. And yeah, the red ones are the ones that were dark black are the ones that are receiving more oxygen. That's why like Is
Isaiah:it from blood? Like the blood, like it's Yeah.
John:Yeah. So like if you've ever, this is gonna be gross, but like when you eat turkey and you have dark meat and white meat Yeah. Dark meat is type one fiber. White meat is type two fiber.
Isaiah:You know my dad? I remember once. This is when I was like You can
John:talk into your mic. Just put it like elbow
Isaiah:on the Please don't
John:hit me. Elbow elbow on your leg. That's the distance I want you to hold it.
Isaiah:Okay. Yeah.
John:Yeah. Perfect.
Isaiah:So You can hold it a little. When I when I was when I was little, I remember I was eating, and then my dad told me that. He's like he's like, you see those white the white meat? That's the one you want. Type
John:two. Yeah. Type two? That's actually sick. Yeah.
John:Because there's no oxygen
Isaiah:in there. And that's the day I I started making them in my body. Was like
John:Started meditating it into into existence.
Isaiah:Actually, speaking of which Me. Okay. What what are the benefits to type two versus type one? And can you make yourself have more type two?
John:The benefit is that type two fiber is innervated by alpha motor neurons, which are bigger nerve cells. They are more easily able to transmit action potentials down them and they're more easily nerves have to meet a threshold. There's a gradient potential and then that gradient potential adds up and leads to an action potential. Once that action potential fires, it moves down every consecutive nerve all the way to the muscle and then it innervates, depending on the nerve, a lot of muscle fibers, and that muscle fiber leads to a muscle contraction, which as we know in the lever system that is our body, leads to locomotion. So the better you're able to innervate the alpha motor neurons, the more force you're able to recruit.
John:We also have something called the size principle, which means that we recruit the smallest to the largest motor units in that order, meaning we have the small ones first and then the largest motor units last. And so if you have a lot of alpha motor neurons, that means that they're more sensitive, so they recruit earlier, and we recruit more muscles whenever a motor unit does fire, which is really, really beneficial if you're trying to generate a lot of force, right? You have bigger muscles or more muscles firing at the same time and they're synchronized in unison and that leads to a lot of force, faster force. So that's the benefit. Get
Isaiah:muscles even faster.
John:Bigger, more explosive muscles recruiting at the same time more quickly, more sooner than people who are less, who have less type two fibers. That's the big benefit of it. So it all comes back to the brain and your nervous system. And then can you get more type two fibers? That is the question.
John:You can't necessarily get, you can't have bigger neurons innervating more type two muscle fibers. All the muscle fibers you have in the body you have. All that happens is that you increase the size of those muscles. So the neurons aren't gonna change. You're not gonna get more neurons.
John:You can't like that's why when you have a sever of your spinal cord, you're paralyzed, right? Yeah. Because you can't regenerate those on your own. And the same thing is true for the motor units. You can't you can't innervate more muscle fibers from a given neuron, and you can't decide how many muscles are innervated by a given neuron.
John:However, we have a lot of neurons in the human body. We have a lot of plexuses that come out that are fairly thick for every single human, and you can determine how those muscle fibers contract via intent. And this is why intent is so important. So the harder you try, the more type two fibers you are able to recruit. Even though you might have an easier time recruiting more type two fibers than I do, because you are more explosive, you have better neurons for it, I can train my brain to innervate those sooner, even though it might not be as soon as you.
John:I can train it to innervate better than what it currently does and train those motor units to not react, but I would say have an action potential happen quicker. And if that happens, what happens is you start recruiting type two fibers more readily because you're trying harder, you're intense higher, your nervous system is saying try as hard as you can, you know, more frequently. What happens is those type two fibers are getting a lot of force through them really frequently, right? And as a result, they get bigger. So even though you're not recruiting more type two fibers, the type two fibers you have are getting bigger.
John:You can think about it like, I love cars because they're great analogies, and you let's say you have a V six, right? And you have a two liter or 2.5 liter V six. You've got a V 10. You've got a 5.2 liter V 10. If I only have a 2.5 liter V six, I can bore that engine out and I can now get it to 3.5.
John:Maybe I'll never be a 5.2 V 10, but at least I can be a 3.6 liter V six. So I have a bigger displacement which allows me to use what I have, right? That's
Isaiah:similar. You can throw a turbo in there. You can throw
John:a turbo in there. Yeah, that's
Isaiah:like your dented Bigger fuel injectors.
John:Your fuel injectors. That's like getting more coordinated, having the pistons fire at the right time, getting more boost sooner. That's what training does, right? You get more coordinated and you use,
Isaiah:So would you you have say you're a human body tuner?
John:I wouldn't say a tuner, I'm a fabricator. And a tuner. And a tuner, you're both. I'm a fabricator. I go in there and I'm like, alright, let's rebuild this engine.
Isaiah:Let's make it
John:bigger and better. And if I can put a turbo in there, I'm like beyond a mechanic. I'm an engineer.
Isaiah:I'm an engineer. Yeah. That's cool.
John:I don't you can't engine swap, but you can you can make the engine better that you have. That maybe that's a better way to way to
Isaiah:say Let's let's talk some actionable things.
John:So we know Intent. Intent. Intent. Intent. Intent.
John:Intent.
Isaiah:Is there are there any downsides to having too like, much let's say you Yes. An athlete listens to this, and they're doing the warm up set. Every rep is Right? Every every single rep. Maybe they're a mid hypertrophy cycle.
Isaiah:Like, you pick up They're doing four by 14 squat, and every rep is intent. Then they go to hip thrust four by 10. Every rep is intent. Then they walk out of the
John:gym instead of walking. Sprint.
Isaiah:They sprint into their car.
John:And they sit down as fast as they can.
Isaiah:Yeah. Drive the steering wheel. They they move like a squirrel. Boom. Boom.
Isaiah:Is there is there any downsides to that?
John:Yeah. You you're gonna get hurt really quickly because we're not designed to do that. Our bodies are designed to be distance runners, actually. We're designed to outrun gazelle to the point that they can't run anymore a lion, and then we still can keep running and hit them with a spear cause we have a big brain and high endurance. That's what our bodies are built to do is bipedal humans that were meant to run on two feet for long periods of time.
John:Very well designed for that.
Isaiah:So you're so with the car analogy, it's not just that you're an engineer slash tuner slash engine rebuilder. You're doing that with Honda Accords constantly.
John:Because it's like All
Isaiah:the time. It's a car that isn't the the human body is a car that isn't meant to go Yeah. Yeah. It's I
John:get like, human beings are we're like the most reliable vehicle, right? We're meant to go for a really long time with, it's like if Tesla actually backed its claims, but we'll keep it petrol for the sake of the analogy. We're like a Camry. We're meant to go for 250,000 miles with minimal maintenance, you know, and whatever else. But I'm trying to take Well, that
Isaiah:distance run, lift lightweight, Exactly. Eat Live a long time.
John:Stay light. But what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to make that Camry a I mean, in your case, like the most powerful machine I possibly can. It's maybe a like a bulldozer, but not more. But but, like, super, super like a truck, like a big old
Isaiah:Like those dragster cars, like the dragster pickup trucks. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Isaiah:Well, it's like
John:a TR I think of like the TRX. It's like a 6.2 liter V eight beastly tank of a torquey vehicle. Right? You're not necessarily going you're not Usain Bolt. So if that's a, you know, a drag car or and we're not a football player, so we're not a Formula One vehicle, or we're not a team sport athlete or basketball players, like a kinda like a Formula One car.
John:We're not a Le Mans, which is like a tweener with distance. You gotta have endurance. So that's like a decathlete maybe or something like that. Yeah. Kinda.
John:You gotta be able to go around a course for like
Isaiah:Just it's just torquey. I'm just trying to beat someone at the red light.
John:Exactly, bro. You're at the light. Go. How fast can you pick up and go? That's like you.
John:Just you're fucking dump truck power. And yeah. So I'm trying to take Camrys and make them make them that. And if you're like a one foot jumper, you're like a like a Corvette.
Isaiah:Yeah. Let's go with
John:a Corvette. You're a Corvette. Little bit versatile, change of direction, kind of, not really. But you got you got higher high end, higher revving. Alright.
John:Not as torquey as you.
Isaiah:Alright. Cool. So I guess the the takeaway is lift with max intent.
John:Lift with max intent for sure.
Isaiah:What type of what type of, like, exercises would recruit more type two muscle fiber? Like, let's let's assuming max intent, what type of training would you do as well?
John:To recruit max intent? Like, exercises? Yeah. Ollies. Ollies are really good.
John:The second pull is amazing for that. Hex bar jumps, barbell squat jumps, dumbbell squat jumps. Any jump that you're doing with a weight is gonna be really good. Really, really good because you have to have high intent. Assuming you're jumping as high as you can or as hard as you can.
John:That's why I always say jump as hard as you can to recruit as much type two fiber as possible. Squats can be really good for increasing cross sectional area of all muscle fiber, but if you are capable of lifting heavy and fast, I like guys too. Like yesterday I did, two days ago I did high intent calf raise, seated calf raise, lying hamstring curl, and I did high intent I didn't and cleans. On the squats I won't because my knee is so delicate and it gets so much loading that I don't necessarily want to mess with that. But if you could, that would be even better, right?
John:Is push intent on that. The downside is your nervous system gets messed up. It's very hard on your connective tissue, so you have to be very healthy and robust. I'd say one of the things that you actually one of the reasons why you're so effective at what you do, and I said this in the dunk camp lecture, is because you're a well oiled machine when it comes to moving efficiently. You move very efficiently and despite a lot of the damage that you've done to your body through over jumping, you're able to overcome that because you move so efficiently.
John:You're always hammering the nail in straight. Whereas like me, the nail's always facing a little bit slanted and every time I hammer it in it gets a little more bent or something like that. So I'm really limited in the number of strikes I can take. For you, it's like I can hammer that nail down the center as many times as I want because you move so efficiently. Know, biomechanically, you're stressing tissue appropriately the way it's meant to be stressed, which means I can increase the training load a lot higher than I can for other people, and I can include intent where other people might not be able to.
John:So definitely doing that to increase your type two cross sectional area. Like I said, you can't increase the number that you have, but you can increase the volume of that muscle fiber. And there was a research study done by Mike Stone. He's the researcher out of ETSU. His wife, Meg, is like a world class discus thrower.
John:He works a lot of Olympic weightlifters. They basically had grad students stand behind their bobsled athletes and their weightlifters. And every single rep, they would say like push, push, push, push, push, as hard as they could on a squat and a clean. They didn't look at health levels, but what they saw is that the cross sectional area of type two fibers, they measured pre and post for the same individuals, and their cross sectional area of type two fibers increased a lot, like a lot. So they do a lot of pulls, not even a lot of power cleans.
John:Anything technically limited, they minimize. Right? So they always go with intent. They always try to manage the volume of those high intent exercises. And that's pretty much it.
John:That is the most important thing. Spring is another really good way. Jumping, you'll even have that happen to some extent.
Isaiah:It's crazy with jumping. I don't think people realize
John:That's on a concentric phase, by the way, which is interesting. We haven't really looked at maximizing eccentric velocities to do that, but we do recruit more type two fibers in eccentric activity.
Isaiah:But but with jumping, I I think people it's a lot more prevalent than we think. People not jumping with max intent in their jump sessions.
John:I don't even do it sometimes.
Isaiah:I I you know when I realized that? Like, when I was testing 51, I wasn't even feeling that good. Flight times point nine seven plus. When I look back at the video, I was really close to touching 51. And then my my knee was hurting on the jumps, and I was trying.
Isaiah:That's the other I was like Trying to start trying as hard as I could. And I was like, woah. Like, I think even when I do my dunk sessions
John:You're not
Isaiah:at a 100%. I'm like very rare. Like, it might
John:I always be one tell guys that's why it's important to test your vertical regularly and use it as a tool for training. Yep. Like, jumped extremely well at camp. Right? Better than I've seen him jump since 2018.
Isaiah:And he was using
John:the And he was using a vert trainer because his intent was able to be so incredibly high on that activity.
Isaiah:My flight times on Vertex
John:That's why I like that. You can cut the volume down so much. Yeah. Like you could do 10 to 20 high quality jumps and you're just gonna get better at vertical jump because you're regularly seeing high intent Yeah. Jumping.
John:Like even if you test like shit, it doesn't matter. You're not using it as a tool to test. You're using it as a tool to push intent. It could be an arbitrary height. You could not have the sticker on it to tell the height.
John:Yeah. Just put it at something you can't touch and go touch it.
Isaiah:I just try to touch it.
John:Try to touch it.
Isaiah:Bro, my my flight times when I vertex are always higher. And I land higher than I do in dunks and height checks and stuff like that. It's because I'm re it it could be literally mid session bad training cycle, and I won't get lower than point nine three, point nine four. On a one hander there's
John:a study for that. They looked at distances that people jumped and touched, you know, and they noticed when there's a marker out there for distance or height, specifically height, they will pretty much always jump higher. They also will adopt different jump techniques as they get tired to get higher.
Isaiah:I think that's also why when we look at guys that dunk a lot versus do plyos, when you're barely able to dunk, that is a max jump.
John:Yeah.
Isaiah:Or if you're trying to touch rim for the first time
John:Like, Rick b has to jump a 110% to dunk on 10.
Isaiah:He's he's having to go a 100%. I think that levels off as you get better because, like like, for me, I could East Bay at 90% effort.
John:Which is so crazy. So That's why I like to go on 10 feet.
Isaiah:Yeah.
John:Like, there's a lot of people, cough cough Austin sometimes, who avoids 10 feet because he thinks I'm not gonna dunk well, therefore, it's not worth it. And I'm like, you're not doing this. That's why I love one handers all the time. I just lob the ball high as fuck and just try to go get it because that forces me to have max intent. That's why I don't really care about all these trick dunks and shit because I just like jumping high and I like trying to improve my body's physical readiness.
John:And the assumption always was, well, if you jump higher, these dunks get easier. Not necessarily true because every dunk is a specific skill and you have to develop that specific skill at max intensity, which is maybe another level to this. Right? That's why low rooming is so important.
Isaiah:I just realized too why in rehab, I can always get back to dunking relatively early.
John:Because it's not that
Isaiah:intense in your And I always go to spin dunks Yep. Early. Why? Spin dunks way less. Yep.
Isaiah:Off the dribble spin is gonna be way less load and intent. Why do you
John:think I never have you go vertex? Or if I do, I tell you cap at eleven two or eleven three. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's controlled.
John:And now I can do the same thing with your dunks because I can control the level of intensity. It goes off vert, and then I'll go one step off dribble, one hand, two hander, and then I'll progress like windmill with your IT bend, if you remember this. Windmill and East Bay were the next level of intensity. Yeah. I use those as a gradient for intensity.
John:You weren't at a 100%. You didn't need to be at a 100%. You just had to be able to do those to make it through the competitive season. Same thing's kinda true with your knee right now. And that's why I'm not worried about it.
John:I'm like, it doesn't take You need to
Isaiah:it's like it's like you need to get me to 70%.
John:Need to get you I need to get you percent. So the downside with, you know, an intent is that it's high risk once your output goes up. It's that's why and it takes even more training at intent to get better. That's why it's so hard to get better when you're when you're really good. Diminishing returns is partially because it's so hard to It's stay so hard to stay healthy when you're trying to push intent every single day.
John:Like you've you've seen that. I'm seeing it right now. My hips a little sore and banged up from pushing intent.
Isaiah:But you're a beginner?
John:You're a beginner, dude. You're 15 to 20 years old. You haven't done shit and you're totally healthy. Yeah. When I was 14, I could push up hard on every single squat.
John:I could do plyos three days a week. I could jump every day if I wanted to. I didn't because I didn't know any better. But like at the time, yeah, I probably could have got away with that. Do I think that doing that with a periodized plan would have been more effective?
John:Yeah, because it did cost me in the long term a lot of health repercussions because I did push intent on that shit without a periodized plan. And if I had known better, would have done ISOs. Would have had it planned out. I would have jumped twice a week. A lot of these younger guys that have shitty jump technique, I have them jumping twice a week.
John:And then I do that for like a year or two. And then eventually I'm like, alright. Now it's time basically. Not even then. Sometimes they just stop progressing because the intensity and the weight the volume
Isaiah:of That's what we do with, or what you do with Donovan Hawkins.
John:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Donovan is a really good example of this. I basically loaded the hell out of him for
Isaiah:jumping. Donovan Hawkins, the way, pause his video and go to Instagram and just look up Donovan Hawkins.
John:Yeah. We had him jump two to three times a week for six to eight months until he plateaued even after a deload. And I was like, alright, it's time to start training. We trained for about six to eight months and then unloaded completely and now he's flying. Like he's jumping so freaking high.
John:That was planned. He responds well to heavy unloads. He's relatively untrained and he has a lot more potential. And now you're seeing his vertical, the cluster's going up. Now he's jumping higher or as high as he ever has.
Isaiah:Maybe by Like being twenty nineteen with better genes.
John:Yeah. It's kinda crazy. The the thing with him is he doesn't respond traditionally to training like you do. Like, you're very predictable. I know exactly how you're gonna jump depending on what the cycle is.
John:Like, you respond exactly textbook. Donovan does not. Donovan needs very high
Isaiah:unloading cycle basically went Yeah. According to textbook.
John:Yeah. What textbook would say. Donovan does not respond textbook. He needs longer periods of unloading. He responds well to more jumping.
John:He can maintain strength qualities much better with minimal lifting. And I think part of that is he's just not as well trained as you. Right? Like, that tracks. He doesn't have as much training age, and he doesn't lift as much weight as you.
John:So he's better genetically speaking. He can get away with doing less and maintaining more because he doesn't see as much diminishing return. The more elite you are, the more the more you detrain faster. So it takes more to maintain that performance and the higher and stronger the more you detrain.
Isaiah:In terms of genes, would you say the lower
John:He genetics texted me and he said, how how if I had four years, do you think I could make the Olympics in the decathlon? I'd say it depends how good you are day one. I don't know if he has better genetics. But if he ran if he came out and ran a 100 meter dash in eleven two, I'd be like, yeah. You're gonna probably go to the Olympics in four years.
John:And, like, throws the shot fucking 14 meters. Yeah. I'd be like, yeah. You got high potential.
Isaiah:Well, I think it's a
John:good spot. Wait. What are gonna say in
Isaiah:Oh, oh. Genetically. Oh. If you alright. You have two athletes.
Isaiah:Athlete A has really good genetics, hasn't trained much. But let let the two athletes can jump the same height. Okay. So then you have athlete b who has lower genetics. Basically, I'm asking is the higher above your your bottom you are, like, the the the closer you are to your peak.
Isaiah:Right. Is it the easier that you detrain from that? Like will a genetics
John:Yes. Free you like freaks maintain with less work? So they don't need as much and they can maintain incredibly well. Yeah. Guys who are trained to a certain point need more to maintain what they have.
John:Yeah. And it they detrain a lot faster as well. Like
Isaiah:The person I I think of when I think of that is versus, like, Donovan where
John:Sutherland doesn't need anything.
Isaiah:He jumps he just jumps everything. He's always Jumps 45 minimum. Oh, okay. Single time. He steps on a court.
Isaiah:He can jump every single day and at least 45. Like, I think the ones I've seen him jump is, 44, 45.
John:Yep. That's very, very true. He doesn't need as much to maintain his vertical.
Isaiah:But I also don't see the
John:It takes a lot for him to detrain. Yeah. He has to pretty much not train for like six to eight months, just play basketball and
Isaiah:probably He still might. Shit.
John:He'll jump high, but he won't jump like super super high. Yeah. For him to get to like 51, 52, like he's already at such a high baseline. He needs to train increasingly hard and learn a lot about his body to see how he responds. Like I would have to be there in person to see pretty much all the time how he's gonna respond to training because it's so hard to tell with those guys.
John:Like coaching someone like Anthony Height was really difficult because he was hurt trying to rehab and he's such an anomaly that it was hard to figure out what drives his performance. Right? Is it just jumping? Like he pulled his quad because his outputs were higher than what his body was capable of handling. So I had to rehab him back through squats and stuff and then he was like, well I'm just not like jumping super well because I can't jump right now because the forces prerequisite forces for him to to be healthy are like squatting 350 fucking pounds.
John:Right? Like And for someone and he's five six
Isaiah:Yeah.
John:For him to just dunk It's massive output.
Isaiah:And for someone like that, that's probably naturally he can walk in and jump 90%. That'll hurt. But now you have to, like, hey. Do net touches. Yeah.
Isaiah:It's not
John:gonna happen. And and he gets hurt every time he jumps because his outputs are so freaking high that most of the lifting is just to keep him healthy. But then he ended up liking lifting. It was like, I don't really care about jumping. I've never trained for it.
John:I just like lifting weights. And it's like, okay. Definitely definitely a different case. But, yeah, that's a good place to stop.
Isaiah:If you're a Toyota Camry and you wanna turn your your little engine into a souped up turbo big fuel injectors. It's a Supra. New new intercooler. Put a downpipe in there. New exhaust.
Isaiah:If you wanna do all that to your body It's just to t h p strength dot
John:wheel horsepower, but a completely different way.
Isaiah:Yeah. Yeah. And use the code THP. You'll get
John:10% off your first month. I bet you guys didn't know we're big car guys. Yeah. We are. Thanks for watching.
Isaiah:I've turned into a car guy over the years.
John:You guys we'll see you guys tom oh, no. We won't. No podcast tomorrow. Happy fourth of July if you live in America. If not, I'm sorry for our ignorance.
John:Thanks for watching, guys.
