Muscle fiber typology substantially influences time to recover from high-intensity exercise

Human fast-twitch muscle fi- bers generate high power in a short amount of time but are easily fatigued, whereas slow-twitch fibers are more fatigue resistant. The transfer of this knowledge to coaching is hampered by the invasive nature of the current evaluation of muscle typology by biopsies. Therefore, a noninvasive method was developed to estimate muscle typology through proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy in the gastrocnemius. The aim of this study was to investigate whether male subjects with an a priori-determined fast typology (FT) are character- ized by a more pronounced Wingate exercise-induced fatigue and delayed recovery compared with subjects with a slow typology (ST). Ten subjects with an estimated higher percentage of fast-twitch fibers and 10 subjects with an estimated higher percentage of slow-twitch fibers underwent the test protocol, consisting of three 30-s all-out Wingate tests. Recovery of knee extension torque was evaluated by maximal voluntary contraction combined with electrical stimulation up to 5 h after the Wingate tests. Although both groups delivered the same mean power across all Wingates, the power drop was higher in the FT group (—61%) compared with the ST group (—41%). The torque at maximal voluntary contraction had fully recovered in the ST group after 20 min, whereas the FT group had not yet recovered 5 h into recovery. This noninvasive estimation of muscle typology can predict the extent of fatigue and time to recover following repeated all-out exercise and may have applications as a tool to individualize training and recovery cycles. NEW & NOTEWORTHY A one-fits-all training regime is present in most sports, though the same training implies different stimuli in athletes with a distinct muscle typology. Individualization of training based on this muscle typology might be important to optimize per- formance and to lower the risk for accumulated fatigue and potentially injury. When conducting research, one should keep in mind that the muscle typology of participants influences the severity of fatigue and might therefore impact the results

Muscle fiber typology is associated with the incidence of overreaching in response to overload training

The aim of this study was to identify markers of training stress and characteristics of middle-distance runners related to the incidence of overreaching following overload training. Twenty-four highly-trained runners (n=16 male; VO2peak=73.3(4.3) mL·kg·min-1; n=8 female, VO2peak=63.2(3.4) mL·kg·min-1) completed 3 weeks of normal training (NormTr), 3 weeks of high-volume training (HVTr; a 10, 20 and 30% increase in training volume each successive week from NormTr), and a 1-week taper (TapTr; 55% exponential reduction in training volume from HVTr week 3). Before, and immediately after each training period, an incremental treadmill-running test was performed, while resting metabolic rate (RMR), subjective fatigue responses and various resting blood biomarkers were assessed. Muscle fiber typology of the gastrocnemius was estimated by quantification of muscle carnosine using proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy and expressed as a z-score relative to a non-athlete control group. Twelve runners were classified as functionally overreached (FOR) following HVTr (decreased running TTE), whereas the other twelve were classified as acutely fatigued (AF; no decrease in running TTE). The FOR group did not demonstrate systematic alterations in RMR, resting blood biomarkers or submaximal exercise responses compared to the AF group. Gastrocnemius carnosine z-score was significantly higher in FOR (-0.44 ± 0.57) compared to AF (-1.25 ± 0.49, p = 0.004, d = 1.53) and was also associated with changes in running TTE from pre- to post-HVTr (r=-0.55, p=0.005) and pre-HVTr to post-TapTr (r=-0.64, p=0.008). Muscle fiber typology is related to the incidence of overreaching and performance super-compensation following increased training volume and a taper

The relevance of muscle fibre typology in sports

The human skeletal muscle consists of two major cell types, slow-twitch fibers (also called type I fibers) and fast-twitch fibers (or type II fibers). These fibers have distinct characteristics, as fast-twitch fibers are able to generate a large amount of power at high shortening velocities, while slow-twitch fibers have a better energy efficiency, a higher resistance to fatigue and a more robust structural integrity. On average, most humans will dispose of a 50% slow-twitch and a 50% fast-twitch distribution. However a big heterogeneity exists, what results in people with predominantly slow or fast muscle fibers. The typology of a person is mostly genetically determined and is present across most muscles of the body. Taken together, the fact that muscle fibers have distinct characteristics and that muscle typologies range over the whole continuum from predominantly slow to fast in human, will have important implications for sports performance. Nevertheless, these typologies are currently not used in the daily coaching practice. This is probably due to the invasiveness of the current ‘gold’ standard to measure the muscle typology: a muscle biopsy, which is a labor intensive method and harbors a low generalizability. In 2011, our group introduced a non-invasive way to estimate the muscle fiber type composition through the measurement of carnosine – a metabolite which is abundantly available in fast-twitch fibers – using proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS). The non-invasiveness of this technique enables the use in both the sports practice and science, and renews the interest of the muscle typology in sports. In the first study, the 1H-MRS method to determine the muscle typology was further optimized with the ultimate goal to make it applicable on various scanner systems of multiple vendors. 1H-MRS was found to be a reliable method to quantify carnosine in the muscle. Furthermore, best practices were proposed to prevent often encountered methodological problems and step by step guidelines were developed to allow broader utilization of this technique. Secondly, we investigated if pre-puberty carnosine measurements could give insights in the post-puberty carnosine concentrations, which would allow application of this technique in early specialization sports (study 2). Carnosine was shown to be a trackable metabolite through the disruptive puberty period (R2=0.249-0.670), which confirms the potential of the current technique to scan both future talents and elite athletes. Next to the methodological optimization, the relevance of the muscle typology for talent identification was examined. Before the start of the thesis, the construct validity of our method was already confirmed in athletics, in which clear differences were determined in the muscle typology of either sprint or endurance disciplines. Despite the fact that a comparable distribution of the muscle typologies could be expected in other cyclic sports such as cycling and swimming, this was not yet investigated in elite athletes. Therefore, study 3 established the muscle typologies of 80 world-class cyclists. Clear differences were found in the muscle typology between cycling events. Keirin, bicycle motocross racing (BMX), sprint and 500 m to 1 km time trial cyclists can be considered as fast typology athletes. Time trial, points race, scratch, and omnium consist of intermediate typology athletes, while most individual pursuit, single-stage, cyclo-cross, mountain bike, and multistage cyclists have a slow typology. Nevertheless, this distribution was not present in 73 elite swimmers (study 4), as no clear differences in the muscle typology were detected between short and long distance swimming events in the different strokes. However, there was some evidence to suggest that truly world-class sprint swimmers had a faster muscle fiber type composition when compared to elite swimmers competing at the international level. Moreover, breaststroke swimmers were identified to have a faster muscle typology in comparison to the either freestyle, backstroke or butterfly swimmers. Elite soccer players (n=118) were found to have an on average intermediate typology, which matches with the intermittent nature of this sport (study 6). In contrary to our hypothesis, no differences in the muscle typology were detected between different positions (keeper, defender, midfielder and striker). A big heterogeneity was established over all positions, indicating that the muscle typology is not of major importance for talent identification in soccer. To determine the influence of the muscle typology on individualized training and recovery cycles, we investigated if fatigue and recovery were different when both slow and fast typology subjects were exposed to the same high-intensity training (study 5). Fatigue during three Wingate tests, determined by the power drop, was 20% higher in fast typology athletes. Even though the same work was done during these Wingate tests, also the recovery from these Wingate tests was found to be 15 times slower in fast typology athletes (20 min in slow typology vs. longer than 5 h in fast typology). If a training plan would be composed with a minimum of recovery in between the training sessions, recovery might be insufficient for fast typology athletes, possibly rendering them with a higher risk for muscle strains. In study 6, we studied if the muscle typology is a risk factor for muscle strains in elite soccer players. We discovered that fast typology soccer players had a 5.3 times higher chance to get a hamstring injury, when compared to slow typology soccer players during a prospective longitudinal follow-up study over three seasons. Next to a higher accumulation of fatigue, a higher vulnerability in fast typology players could be expected due to the lower structural integrity in fast fibers. Bringing together, the muscle typology is an important characteristic, which could be non-invasively monitored using 1H-MRS. This technique could help athletes to make a scientific based decision on their ideal discipline during talent orientation. Moreover, it could help coaches tailoring training to enlarge the athletes’ muscle potential and to prevent fatigue accumulation. This endeavor might partly prevent fast typology athletes to be at a higher risk for strain injuries. Consequently, we believe that measuring the muscle fiber typology of athletes should be considered as a valuable procedure to help athletes to fully develop their potential based on the smart use of muscle profiling