2/23/2017 Kai Friele

Jack Cormack

The Optimal Stimulus to Increase Type i and type ii muscle fibre efficiency and
anabolism.

As scientists are now realising more and more that your environment can affect
your genes and gene expression, we decided to look into the environmental effect on
muscles, and more specifically, into the optimal stimulus to increase type i and ii muscle
efficiency and anabolism.
To commence, muscle fibres are generally divided into two main sectors, type 1;
slow twitch and type 2; fast twitch, with 3 subgroups, type iia, type iix and type iib.
these groups are based off of many different properties, but, mainly by their contraction
speed, power, storage fuel and their respiration type, aerobic and anaerobic. But, we
wont go into those details. Although, it is important to know that slow twitch muscles
undergo aerobic respiration because they have more mitochondria present in the cell
which are responsible for oxidative phosphorylation (process to produce energy) making
fast twitch muscles better for long duration activities and fast twitch undergo mainly
anaerobic respiration as they have less mitochondria in the cell and get more energy for
fast contractions from raw ATP and creatine phosphate making them better at
short-duration activities (Narayan, R. (2014).
However, our research project is not about fibre types, and more so about the
optimal stimulus that optimizes type i and type ii muscle fiber efficiency. We found that
signaling pathways allow the muscle fibres respond to the metabolic demands of the
body and their response varies depending on their level of use (Fernandes, T.,Oliveira,
E. M. (2012). So, we found that PGC-1alpha is the main signal pathway to increase
type i muscle fibres (slow twitch) and type ii muscle fibres (fast twitch) efficiency. It
is triggered by neuronal firing as a result of exercise stimulus, either high volume
contractions, which increases calcium ions and Camk in the blood and with high
energy contractions which increases ATP and AMP usage (Transports chemical
energy within the cell for metabolism), (Ryan, S. (2012). PGC-1alpha is a regulator
for energy metabolism and benefits each fibre type by increasing type i muscle
fibres and mitochondrial levels in the cells for type i and by increasing energy
availability for type i and type ii with an increase of glut4 protein levels in the cell
membrane and the ability to use fat as energy. It also triggers other proteins like
ERR1 which somehow helps with glucose utilisation.
In Conclusion, PGC-1alpha is the main signal pathway to increase type i and
type ii muscle fibre efficiency and is the master switch for type i fibres but doesnt
create more type ii, only increases their metabolism and efficiency, as seen in the
graph below in more detail (Fig-1).
.

jFigure 1.
 References

Baggett, K. (n.d.). Becoming a fast twitch machine. Retrieved from

http://www.higher-faster-sports.com/fasttwitchmachine.html

Fernandes, T., Soci, &. P. S. P.R., Melo, S. F.S., Alves, C. R., & Oliveira, E. M. (2012).

Signaling pathways that mediate skeletal muscle hypertrophy: Effects of exercise

training. Intech. http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/51087

Laurensen, P. B. (2011). Training for intense exercise performance: High-intensity or

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mance-high-intensity-or.html

Narayan, R. (2014). Type 1 and type 2 muscle fibers [Video file]. Retrieved from

https://www.khanacademy.org/science/health-and-medicine/human-anatomy-and-physiol

ogy/introduction-to-muscles/v/type-1-and-2-muscle-fibers

Ryan, S. (2012). Antioxidant response pathway. Retrieved from

http://www.neurobiology.ca/stem-cell-modeling/