Originally Posted by
taras0000
There are many "turbo-diesels" like you racing track. People who tend to have an even mix of fast and slow twitch muscle fibers, just many more, or larger fibers compared to everyone else.
Many people tend to get caught up in the ratio of muscle fibers, but there is also the need to account for ones amount of muscle as well. Just cuz someone may look like a sprinter doesn't mean they are. Slow twitch muscles don't like to grow, but they will if stressed properly.
I used to have a teammate that came from competitive slalom skiing. Those guys tend to be big, and he was as well (6'4" and 275#). They need to be able to resist and generate huge loads as well as supporting their position under those loads as well. Something like that would definitely place a growth stimulus on your slow twitch muscles.
He was good for keirins and Madisons (always rolling and up at speed with rests), but his make-up put him in a sort of no-man's land for everything else. He could get to and hold a high speed for a short period of time, but had a crappy start and jump, as well as not enough aerobic capacity to hang during endurance events. That turbo lag killed him in sprint events. Great guy to draft in a Madison.
Makes sense, I grew up doing swimming and continued at that through university. During university we did testing twice a year as part of our gym training: body composition, vertical jump, 60m running sprint and max pull ups. I was consistently in the bottom 10% of the men's team for vertical jump and sprint in testing but top 10% for actual results in the pool. My best events were in the 2-4min range.
I tend to do well in points races, elimination and madison because of the repeated efforts. I'm also usually not racing long since they're track nights or provincial events with shorter distances (Often 10km points race and 20km madison). I think I could be good at keirin, particularly with the new format if I can nail down a good race strategy, but I rarely have the opportunity to race keirin.