"...whilst its in my head what programming considerations would you give to someone who is very slow twitch and to what extent does it matter (i.e. principles of strength are the same regardless of person and individual differences is arguably last priority)."First things first: how do you know that said person is slow twitch? Have you done a muscle biopsy on said person and observed an overwhelming majority of type 1 muscle fibres? Because as far as I am aware this is the only way you can actually know this. In colloquial training speak, when someone describes an athlete as fast twitch or slow twitch, what they are actually describing is a bias towards longer duration endurance activities versus a bias towards shorter duration, more explosive, higher output activities. The former claims measurement of a physiological property of one's muscles. The other is an observation of a training response and the activities a person tends towards.
I know that this sounds really pedantic, but it's really important to understand. This is because understanding what you say and what you actually know can have a substantial impact on how you both treat and train an athlete in the long run. Muscle fibre type is a component of the types of activity/sport an athlete will lean towards and be better at (and it's a big component for sure) but it is not the whole picture.
Let's see if I can clarify what I mean with an example. Suppose you have a long distance runner that comes to you because he wants to add some resistance training to his program. You put said runner through a whole bunch of baseline testing and, lo and behold, they perform much better at higher rep, consistent output type activities than they are at the heavy, maximum force production stuff. Is it reasonable to conclude that this result is because they are a "slow twitch" athlete? Or are they just untrained in this physical capacity?
I saw a write up of a study in the Barbell Medicine research review outlining how one's "knowledge" of their genetics can drastically affect their physiology and response to training. Here is the relevant excerpt for our discussion:
"Notably, the individuals informed they had the “high risk” genotype reached a significantly lower capacity for oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange compared to their own baseline test, as well as a decrease in maximum ventilatory flow rate and endurance. In contrast, the group told they had the “protective” genotype ran longer before reporting the test felt “hard”. In the second experiment, individuals told they had the “protective” genotype had a 2.5-times greater GLP-1 (satiety hormone) response compared to their own baseline tests, as well as a 1.4-times greater subjective satiety (sense of “fullness”) compared to their baseline, regardless of their actual genotype.
This paper shows how simply learning of one’s genetic predisposition -- in some cases regardless of actual underlying genetics -- can have substantial consequences on outcomes."My argument is going to stem from the assumption that because there exists popular perceptions of a) genetics as fixed and inherent properties of a person, and b) muscle fibre type as consequence of one's genetics, we can therefore map the conclusions of this study into the context of labelling someone as slow twitch or fast twitch. If you tell someone that they are slow twitch and will have a muted response to traditional strength training, that's probably what you will observe now! You've kneecapped them with a biospsychosocial crowbar. You've killed their buy-in and removed an aspect of self-efficacy from the lifter, by presenting it as something they have less control over, all in one go. This is why it is so important to really understand what it is you know and how you can act upon it, because the effects propagate in profound ways that aren't immediately obvious.
It's even becoming apparent that there is a huge degree of plasticity in the properties and typing of muscle fibre. There's plenty of stuff out there that I've read, probably from Dr Andy Galpin, that I can't be arsed to look up or reference properly, that seems to suggest that not can muscle fibres change types as a response to training, but even that different segments along the same muscle fibre can display properties of the different types. The reality is blurry, in contrast to the nice, tidy model with which you may have been initially presented.
Perhaps the most relevant resource to this question is the results of the 2017 Project Momentum. This was run by Mike Tuchscherer (I have to look up how to spell that surname every time) and RTS. The aim was essentially to parse out whether there was any meaningful results in identifying this distinction and adjusting training accordingly. The hypothesis they were testing was:
"Lifters who can do low reps with 80% of 1RM are fast-twitch dominant and therefore should train with low reps per set. That will allow them to progress the fastest."This sounds almost perfectly aligned with your question right? Of the three main conclusions, the one that is most relevant and informative is this:
"Lifters seem to make better progress from doing what they are bad at. This was the opposite of what I had originally heard. But the effect was far from dramatic. In fact, I’d say it only gives you a nudge as to which direction you should take your experimentation."I strongly recommend you read the full write up of the results of this Project Momentum.
If there is a physical capacity that an athlete needs to improve, then they have to work on it. They may have a more robust or muted to a certain type of training stress, but that will largely determine how much work they need to do and how long it will take to achieve the desired improvements, not the type of work they should be doing to get there. Training response goes so far beyond just muscle fibre type, and any good coach should beware of jumping to conclusions that result in inappropriate labels that can substantially hamper an athlete through many different channels.
In conclusion: can you see why WhatsApp is such a shit place to have an in depth conversation now Todd? :P
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