As I understand it the slow twitch fibers contain more mitochondria and
myoglobin and stuff like that which allows them to work more efficently in a
lower energy output / long duration aerobic state e.g. troting, and the fast
twitch fibers contain very little myoglobin ect. but lots of glucagon. The
glucagon is used for energy during short duration anerobic high output
conditions (sprinting).
As I understand it the way to improve the performance of slow twitch fibers
is to work the horse at the aerobic / anerobic threshold for what ever
distance they can handle (fast trot). This will increase the number of and or
efficency of the mitochondria of the cell and also increase the amount of
myoglobin in the cell thus improving the utilization of oxygen. To improve
the performance of the fast twitch cells the horse is worked at near maximum
levels (very anerobic) for short peroids of time, the result being the
increase amount of glucagon deposition in the cell during recovery times,
thus having more glucagon on hand when the demand arises.
I've been wrong before. Anyone please correect me if this is not true.
I would hate to be walking around with the wrong info in my head. (My brain
is so tiny I can't afford to use up disk space with bad info.)
greg
_______________________________________________________________________________
From: Wendy Milner on Wed, May 31, 1995 5:31 PM
Subject: RE: conditioning
To: endurance@moscow.com
> >Building the slow twitch muscles would be doing sprints. Building the
> >fast twitch muscles would be doing lots of trotting over all kinds of
> >terain.
>
>
> Is this not reversed?
> I was led to believe the slow twitch fibers were conditioned with long slow
> work (trotting) and the fast twitch fibers were built with fast work.
>
> Greg
>
>I think I've got it right.
>Slow twitch muscles are those that are used for long endurance type
>of work. They don't move very fast, but they keep on going.
>Fast twitch muscles are those that move very fast, but burn out
>very quickly.