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Isometrics Training and Fast Twitch Muscle Fibers

The little known 'secret formula' for speeding past your competition.

In order to help you fully appreciate the value of isometrics training to increase your speed, agility and power, let's take a quick look at some basic principles of muscular contraction.

To start with, all skeletal muscles consist of three main fiber types. These fiber types are:

1) Slow twitch fibers- Responsible for the strength and endurance of a muscle.

2) Intermediate twitch fibers- Possess qualities of both slow and fast twitch fibers.

3) Fast twitch fibers- Responsible for the speed of muscular contraction.

The fast twitch muscle fibers are responsible for giving the athlete his speed, agility, quickness, and power. Fast twitch fibers are 10 times faster than slow fibers.

Isometric training, the way we teach it, will isolate and condition your fast twitch muscle fibers and therefore increase your speed and quickness.



Isometrics using resistance bands is the ideal strategy for speed training. This is partly due to fact that the energy stored in a stretched band is much greater than gravitational energy used by weights. Therefore the faster acceleration of a stretched band is 'transferred' to the muscles when used with an isometric exercise.

The biggest advantage to isometric training is two fold.

First, by forcing your muscle(s) to hold a position for a certain length of time, your body will begin to recruit and activate more and more motor units to help maintain this contraction. Motor units that are rarely exercised within a particular muscle are now brought into use, perhaps for the first time.

Second, the motor units that are recruited are forced to contract continuously, time after time, with no appreciable decrease in force output. This allows your muscles to achieve a state of maximum contraction very safely and effectively.

The end result is that the entire muscle matures very quickly.

So how does this condition the fast twitch muscle fibers?

The fast twitch muscle fibers are often overlooked because they are mostly ignored for purposes of contraction speed in exercise routines where the muscle length is constantly changing, when doing multiple repetitions with weights, for example. As far as your muscles are concerned this is endurance training, the job of slow twitch muscle fibers.

The Athletic Quickness Speed Training Programs use the resistance band to help isolate, condition and quicken various muscle groups in the body. The resistance band is ideal because its resistance will change depending on how far the band is stretched.

By utilizing the unique properties of the resistance band, and maintaining the muscle at a specific length by using an isometric exercise, the muscles will develop a fast twitch response.

This means, first, that the nerves and muscles develop the memory to accelerate instantly to the contraction point of the isometric exercise, and secondly, the fast twitch muscle fibers are conditioned to maximize the speed of the muscle contraction.

By strengthening the fast twitch muscle fibers, you have increased the speed at which the muscles contract or move.

When this application is applied to your thigh flexor and extensor muscles, for example, the result is an explosive increase in your running speed and power!

The same principle holds true for increasing the speed and power of any muscles that are critical to quickness and power in any sport specific activity.

In baseball for example that would be the muscles used in hitting and pitching. In basketball quickness and power are required by the leg muscles used in jumping and making quick reactions.

If this sounded a bit confusing, just remember these two things:

1. Fast twitch muscle fibers are the key to explosive speed and quickness.

2. Isometrics using the resistance band is the secret weapon for isolating and conditioning the fast twitch muscle fibers.



Isometric training has been around for a long time and so it is nothing new. Many extraordinary results in muscle size and strength have been achieved in a very short period of time with this type of training.

Below is a direct quote from Wikipedia Encyclopedia under the heading Isometrics:

"What is known, however, is that Isometric Exercise provides the fastest stimulation for muscle tissue and increases nervous conductivity and enervation (the ability to contract more muscle fibre). As such it increases the strength of the participant faster than any other natural method."

However, because of the number of new training products and techniques out on the market today, its use by athletes is often overlooked.

Many "experts" disagree with isometric training for several reasons: 1) They relate isometrics with weight training; and, if that is the case, they are right. Isometric training with weights will do very little for speed. 2) If they acknowledge using resistance bands, they more than likely use them with a weightlifting strategy involving repetitions, which also is of no benefit for speed.

Training techniques that use repetitions or that last more than several seconds will not isolate the fast twitch muscle fibers and will therefore train for strength and endurance - and not for speed.

Isometrics, the way we teach it, is the proven formula that will specifically result in speed and quickness in your athletic activities.