Originally Posted by
Franklin27
In my experience, it’s hard to know if someone is born as a sprinter without a muscular biopsy properly analized by a sports myologist to check the concentration of fast-twitch muscular fibres (this is my significant other wisdom, I am a lawyer).
High school athletics is a good predictor. In HS, the children are all relatively the same size with similar levels of training (or lack thereof) and what differentiates one athlete from the next is simply natural predisposition (aka: "talent"). Your muscle fiber type could be inferred this way.
Slow Twitch signs:
- You were unbeatable in the 1-mile run in Physical Education class (part of the Presidential Physical Fitness test)
- You ran cross country or long distance races on the track team.
- You could run until the cows came home.
- You were a distance swimmer.
- You couldn't sprint yourself out of a wet paper bag.
Fast Twitch signs:
- You were unbeatable in the 100M dash in Physical Education class.
- You were one of the faster running athletes on the football, baseball, softball, track teams.
- You couldn't stand distance running.
50/50 Mix signs (aka: Omnium Types):
- You were pretty good at distance and sprint running events.
- You ran the 800M event in track.
- You didn't really complain about distance or sprint training.
I don't think one's muscle fiber type percentage changes over time (outside of the small percentage that is trainable).