Fast-Twitch Muscles (Part 1)
It was just under two years ago, at the age of 63, that I tried to sprint for the first time since 3rd grade. It was hot outside, I was out of shape and I had walked 2-3 miles with my wife before getting the courage to try it. I saw a street with a slight incline and I told my wife “Here I go.” Well, I felt like I was running in slow motion and it must have been even worse than that because I heard my wife laughing out loud, and she’s not a mean person. But, I didn’t care how I looked or how fast I ran – I sprinted – that’s right I sprinted. I ran as fast as I could for maybe 10-12 seconds. And that was the start of my sprint journey which continues even today. There’s one difference between now and then – my wife no longer laughs. In fact, she’s kind of impressed. I now sprint barefoot on soccer fields, I sprint up hills when I’m out for a walk, I just sprint. In fact, when I sprint, I feel free and strong and like I’m 30 years younger. Now, I’m not too far from turning 65 years old. I can see people looking at me out of the corner of their eye thinking look at this old man sprinting. I’m sure they’re thinking “I’ve now seen everything.” And so the story begins. But before we go any further, there’s a hard truth buried in this story which you may not like – it’s called biology – so don’t blame me for simply writing about established facts.
There are three major categories of muscles in your body. The first is called cardiac – you know, it’s your heart muscle that pumps your blood. It’s highly resistant to fatigue and that’s a good thing. Think about it — this muscle never gets a break. The second category of muscles are called smooth muscles which are inside our organs — the stomach, the intestines, the blood vessels. These muscles are important for digesting food and blood pressure among other things. However, when most people think of muscle, they think of the third category – the skeletal muscles. These are the only ones that are voluntary so, for the most part, you can control them. They are attached to bones and there are approximately 640 of them in your body. I don’t know about you, but I think 640 different muscles in our bodies is simply amazing!
So, now you’ve got it – cardiac, smooth and skeletal. But there’s more. Hang with me here because this is important. The skeletal muscles — the ones we can control — are further categorized into two primary groups: Type I slow-twitch muscle fibers and Type II fast-twitch muscle fibers, and very few people know the difference — but it’s important, vitally important, especially for longevity. So, if you want to live a good, long, healthy life, read on.
The first skeletal muscle is called Type I — the slow-twitch muscle. These are your endurance fibers. They're the ones that keep you upright, keep you moving, and handle the steady work of daily life without giving out — things like standing in the kitchen, walking the dog, climbing the stairs, and making it through the back nine. They don't fire in a flash, but they don't quit easily either. You use them every waking hour without thinking about it, and they are absolutely essential. So, you’ve got to love these muscles. In fact, it’s awfully hard to live without them. There is some bad news, however. Biology says your Type I slow-twitch muscles peak around the age of 30 and begin a linear decline for the rest of your life. That’s right — anyone over the age of 30 is losing muscle every single year. Unless you work out regularly, your strength fades slowly as you age — just a little less every year, like a tire with a slow leak. It's as predictable as the sun rising in the morning. Now, you can lift weights your whole life and slow the decline considerably. But, sadly only about 10% of adults in the U.S. lift any weights either in a gym or at home on any regular basis. That means nine out of every 10 people are just letting that slow leak actually leak. The good news is that the 90% not doing anything today can start and actually combat that slow leak.
On to the second type of skeletal muscle — the Type II fast-twitch muscle — which is the muscle you really need to pay attention to if you’re over the age of 45. These muscles will actually decide whether you're independent at 75 or 80, or you’re using a walker or, worse yet, sitting in a chair waiting for someone to help you up.
It’s not necessarily how strong you are when you’re 75, it’s about how fast you can use your muscles — Type II muscles — that count the most. It’s the ability to produce force right now — in a tenth of a second, without thinking. That's the strength that catches you when you trip. When your foot hits the curb that you didn't see, you've got about half a heartbeat — fifty, maybe seventy-five milliseconds — to fire the right muscles hard enough to save yourself. If those muscles fire in time, you stumble and just keep on walking. If they don't, you go down. And after the age of 70, going down is how a lot of independent lives quietly end. Not from the fall itself. From everything that comes after it.
Here's the hard part, and I told you you weren't going to like it.
That fast, explosive muscle — the fast-twitch muscle? It doesn't fade slowly like the other kind, the slow twitch kind. It doesn't lose air like a tire. It falls off a cliff. There’s some debate about whether you start losing the Type II fast-twitch muscles more quickly in your 60’s or they fall off a cliff in your early 70’s but we can leave that to the academicians. Regardless of how it happens, it happens — and it feels like a cliff. In practical terms, if you don’t train those fast-twitch muscles earlier in life, you become much more unsteady in your 70s and beyond. And, for some, it can feel as though the floor has dropped out on them. That’s why you see people in their 70’s and 80’s walking very slowly and methodically. It’s not that they can’t walk, it’s that many of their fast-twitch muscles — as much a 40-50% of them — have either been shrunk dramatically or lost entirely.
Research shows that the Type I slow-twitch muscle declines in a fairly linear, straight-line fashion (remember the slow tire air leak). But the Type II fast-twitch muscles don’t follow that same trajectory. When they decline, they decline quickly and by a lot. In other words, you either don’t have them at all any longer or they have shrunk to the point they are useless. The nerves in your body that run those fast fibers start dying off fast, and when the nerve dies, the muscle it controls dies as well. Gone. Not weaker — gone. Here’s the really sad part. You can have plenty of muscle left on your body and still not be able to fire it quick enough to matter because your fast-twitch muscles no longer work well enough. That's why you see strong-looking older people who still can't catch themselves. The bulk is there. The speed left years ago.
And now the part nobody wants to hear, so don't blame me — I'm just the one saying it out loud.
Walking does not save this muscle. Yoga does not save it. The pink two-pound dumbbells do not save it. I'm not knocking any of it — walking is awesome. I do it everyday. Yoga is great as it helps you stay flexible. Moving is a thousand times better than not moving. If that's what you're doing, you're already ahead of most of the country and I mean that. But none of it speaks the language the fast muscle understands. That muscle only answers to one thing: speed. The intent to move fast. And if you never ask it to move fast, your body quietly lets it die. Use it or lose it isn't a slogan. It's the most literal thing I know.
So that's the truth and the consequences. Here's where this story gets much better.
You can do something about this. You really can. And it is not complicated.
The fix is to move fast on purpose. That's it. That's the whole secret the supplement people don't want you to know, because you can't sell it in a bottle. You don't need to be an athlete. You don't need a gym full of machines. You need to ask your body – on purpose, once or twice every 10 days or so – to do something quick and explosive. Stand up from a chair as fast as you safely can. Push off hard. Hop in place and jump safely, but fast. And yes — sprint. This isn’t a competition. You don’t have to be faster than your friend or even look pretty doing it. You just have to run as fast as you can — seven to 12 seconds — 3-5 reps once every week or so. No long two-hour jog. No half-marathon. Seven to twelve seconds. As fast as your body wants to go that day, which on day one might be really slow, and that is perfectly fine. Like anything in life you have to work at this. And, don’t forget to warm up and stretch first. That’s critical. There’s actually a warm-up protocol I’ve developed which I’ll be sharing in an upcoming sprinting blog post.
I’ve been where you probably are now. I'm telling you all this because you need to understand I'm not standing on a mountain looking down at you. I started at the bottom of the same hill you're looking at right now. I needed to train my fast-twitch muscles and knew the best way was to sprint but I was 63 years old! However, I learned to do it and if I can do it, you can too. I can assure you I’m nothing special. I even had a bad knee which didn’t stop me. This too will be discussed in my upcoming sprint series. Most older people – let’s say 50 and older – who don’t think they can sprint for a number of reasons probably can. Not everyone, but most. And if you absolutely can’t sprint, no worries. There are other good alternative. Also to be discussed later.
This is uncomfortable to hear. I don't love delivering it. But you are not too late, you are not too far gone, and you are not alone in it. The body that lets this fast-twitch longevity muscle fade will rebuild a stunning amount of it the moment you start moving it the way biology says it should move — at the age of 50, at 65, and even into your 80s. The science on that is not gentle and it is not in doubt. Your body is waiting for you to get going.
So that's why you see this old man sprinting on the soccer field with people watching out of the corner of their eye. It isn't vanity. It's me defending the one thing that keeps me free. When I sprint I feel thirty years younger, yes – but underneath that good feeling there are other reasons, and now you know them too.
Move fast, or lose the ability to. That's the deal. I just said out loud what biology already knows.
Don't blame me.
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