How To Train fast twitch muscle fibers

You want to focus your workouts on strengthening your fast twitch muscle fibers since these have the most power and will give you the explosive force you need to get off the ground. If you follow these simple guidelines you can make sure that you are training the right types of muscles in the correct fashion to help improve your vertical jump.

When you’re doing resistance training in the gym try to do all of your lifts with more than 60% of your one rep max. Essentially the heavier weight you lift the more muscle fibers you will have to recruit to accomplish the lift. The more muscle fibers you are recruiting the more they will grow and the more explosive force you will develop. develop more explosive force and that is how you jump higher.

Do all of your lifts and movements with maximum speed. No matter what exercise you are doing make sure it is done all out. Jumping, lifting weights, skipping, or throwing all need to be done as fast as you possibly can. If you strive for speed it means that you are applying all the strength you have as fast as you can. Which is exactly what you will want to do when you are jumping

Train Eccentrically. Basically this means you have to emphasize the reactive part of the lift. Or basically the opposite of the explosion. If you are doing a squat and you explode up. Then slowly let the weight back down. Say for a count of 5 or more. This will build your fast twitch fibers faster since it keeps them under stress for longer time.

Plyometrics train your muscles reaction time in essence. Landing and jumping again without letting the muscles relax such as in a depth jump or a altitude landing forces the muscle to go from extended to contracted or likewise very quickly. This training will stimulate those fast twitch muscles to get that quick response. quick response is important because you only have an instant to apply all the force you can so you can jump higher

Contrast Load Training is one of the best training techniques to improve your vertical leap. It is done by doing a set of exercises with a very heavy weight. Usually within 25% of your one rep max. After you have done this you get to rest for a short period usually just a minute or two. You then transition to a lighter exercise like lunges or un-weighted squats. This first heavy lift gets the fast twitch fibers all fired up and they will be ready on the second lift.

Over speed training is basically trying to run faster than your body is used to. This can be done very simply by running down hill and allowing your body to carry. This is great training since the fast twitch fibers are the quick contractors they will be recruited to move your legs since slow twitch would fall behind.

Preparing for your exertion mentally is very important as well. You have to fire up your brain and get it ready to send the message to your muscles. If the brain is sleeping when you try to fire off all your muscles you won’t get nearly the same results. Try preparing for your jump for 10 seconds before you jump and I think you will notice a bit of an improvement in your vertical. You will see better and better results the more you practice.

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When trying to decide how we should do our bodyweight training we have to compare and contrast it will resistance training. Weighted lifts are often far harder than their un-weighted brothers. So for this reason you will often have to increase your reps for the bodyweight exercises. However more reps does not mean to do them forever. You still need to focus on the fact that you are training for explosion and not for power. Doing endless reps will train your endurance and not make you jump higher.

Slightly increasing the reps from say 3-5 to 7-9 will make a good improvement in the workout. Now since there is no weight you must focus on speed. Since we are not greatly improving the amount of strength we have we must focus on applying that strength as quickly as possible to get the result. So when doing squats or lunges you must concentrate on explosion up. Doing these amounts of reps with a explosion on each rep will make for a pretty rigorous workout.

With bodyweight exercises you need to police yourself when it comes to calling it quits. When you are resistance training it is usually failure to complete the rep that signals the end of the set. When you cant do any more your done. But with bodyweight lifts you can go for a much longer time and will need to focus on your form and explosion. When either of these start to falter it is usually a good sign you should move on to something else.

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