Slow running bad for fast twitch runners?

JoggyHobber wrote:

I find the opposite it seems that slow twitch guys are able to hammer out every day faster than speedier 800 guys who have to go slower everyday and get beat up by going moderate to a faster pace everyday

This is exactly correct!

How come? wrote:

Sub-8 Mile wrote:

Unless you are running 100m in 11.x or faster with little or no training, you aren't specifically FT. (Many distance and MD guys can run 11.x after a couple years training, without focusing on sprint training).

And if you have been training for a year or two and you can't run 10.x, you aren't FT.

That is a bit like saying, if your marathon time is slower than 2:06, you can't be ST.

Or saying Usain Bolt is not FT, once he is about 50 and can't break 11 sec.

If it is defined by 100m time, it means that older runners, females etc cannot be accurately categorised.

Yes, you are correct. It is nuanced. The categorization into FT vs ST is not a dichotomy but rather more of a bell curve distribution. We all have some percentage of fast twitch type muscle fibers, some intermediate type, and some slow type. It is a matter of what your individual ratio of fiber type is, but everyone has some blend which is determined by genetics and childhood environment, etc. When referring to a distance runner as “FT” type, they may in fact only be 25% fast twitch fiber type. No one can know without having an invasive muscle biopsy, which is unnecessary and therefore uncommonly done.

If you have stronger PRs as the event distance decreases, AND you’ve been training for years in an organized way, then you can consider yourself more “FT” predominant athlete. And in my experience you would likely benefit in all distances by slowing down your easy pace and pushing it harder on your repeats and intervals.

There is also something to be said about periodization... so spending a base training phase focusing more on aerobic long slow distance and low heart rate training is also beneficial for FT runners, but invariably you will hit a plateau in time trials... That is when it’s time to focus your efforts on higher intensity efforts in the next phase of your current cycle (or more long term, in the next macro cycle).

That exactly mirrors my understanding.

Putting pace to one side, is there any evidence that FT runners have more difficulty running with low/stable heart rates?

I think you may have it all mixed up. Slow twitch dominant runners are the ones that are able to really push it on easy days and get away with it.

As a guy that has the muscle fiber makeup that makes me the most talented in the 800/400, my easy pace very rarely is faster than 7:15 per mile, despite being able to run 51, 1:56 and 4:25 in the mile. I also comparatively absolutely suck at anything 3k and up, despite the fact that I log 50-60 mpw consistently.

All the good slow twitch guys on my team log roughly the same miles as me, but easy pace is more like 6:30-6:50, they dominate me in XC, but 4:00 pace seems to be their absolute top end speed, as they usually dip just under 60 in relays.

I believe you may be more slow twitch than you realize.

CopperRunner wrote:

I think you may have it all mixed up. Slow twitch dominant runners are the ones that are able to really push it on easy days and get away with it.

As a guy that has the muscle fiber makeup that makes me the most talented in the 800/400, my easy pace very rarely is faster than 7:15 per mile, despite being able to run 51, 1:56 and 4:25 in the mile. I also comparatively absolutely suck at anything 3k and up, despite the fact that I log 50-60 mpw consistently.

All the good slow twitch guys on my team log roughly the same miles as me, but easy pace is more like 6:30-6:50, they dominate me in XC, but 4:00 pace seems to be their absolute top end speed, as they usually dip just under 60 in relays.

I believe you may be more slow twitch than you realize.

The last few posts agree with you.

CopperRunner wrote:

I think you may have it all mixed up. Slow twitch dominant runners are the ones that are able to really push it on easy days and get away with it.

As a guy that has the muscle fiber makeup that makes me the most talented in the 800/400, my easy pace very rarely is faster than 7:15 per mile, despite being able to run 51, 1:56 and 4:25 in the mile. I also comparatively absolutely suck at anything 3k and up, despite the fact that I log 50-60 mpw consistently.

All the good slow twitch guys on my team log roughly the same miles as me, but easy pace is more like 6:30-6:50, they dominate me in XC, but 4:00 pace seems to be their absolute top end speed, as they usually dip just under 60 in relays.

I believe you may be more slow twitch than you realize.

I agree with this totally.

I improved the most when my recovery and easy paces are slow. I suspect am also probably most natural at the 800 to 1 mile, although I never ran track when I was young.

I beat my running club teammates in half marathon distance and below and by a larger margin as the event becomes shorter, but we are about equal in performance over the full marathon.

CopperRunner wrote:

I think you may have it all mixed up. Slow twitch dominant runners are the ones that are able to really push it on easy days and get away with it.

As a guy that has the muscle fiber makeup that makes me the most talented in the 800/400, my easy pace very rarely is faster than 7:15 per mile, despite being able to run 51, 1:56 and 4:25 in the mile. I also comparatively absolutely suck at anything 3k and up, despite the fact that I log 50-60 mpw consistently.

All the good slow twitch guys on my team log roughly the same miles as me, but easy pace is more like 6:30-6:50, they dominate me in XC, but 4:00 pace seems to be their absolute top end speed, as they usually dip just under 60 in relays.

I believe you may be more slow twitch than you realize.

My teammates also average about 1 minute per mile faster than me on easy days: 7:00/mi vs my 8:00/mi pace (we all became runners later in life and have similar PRs).

CopperRunner wrote:

I think you may have it all mixed up. Slow twitch dominant runners are the ones that are able to really push it on easy days and get away with it.

As a guy that has the muscle fiber makeup that makes me the most talented in the 800/400, my easy pace very rarely is faster than 7:15 per mile, despite being able to run 51, 1:56 and 4:25 in the mile. I also comparatively absolutely suck at anything 3k and up, despite the fact that I log 50-60 mpw consistently.

All the good slow twitch guys on my team log roughly the same miles as me, but easy pace is more like 6:30-6:50, they dominate me in XC, but 4:00 pace seems to be their absolute top end speed, as they usually dip just under 60 in relays.

I believe you may be more slow twitch than you realize.

This. ST runners can handle both more mileage and faster mileage than their FT counterparts. FT/ST doesn't just mean sprinter and marathoner. There is a spectrum for each category (sprints, middle-distance, long-distance) between ST and FT athletes.

Look for example at Brazier. He is very FT, blazing speed for a middle-distance runner. He doesn't run much mileage, and doesn't run crazy fast on his easy days or long-runs, 6:00-6:30 which is nothing crazy for someone who runs 3:3x 1500m in a low-mileage week.

Opposite is a more slow-twitch middle-distance runner like El Guerrouj. MUCH slower over 800 than Brazier, MUCH slower over 400 than Brazier, but would destroy him on 3k+. El Guerrouj trained moderate to high mileage, with many distance runs being run at ~5:00/mi. That's blazing. Do that with someone like Brazier and he is burned out after 1-2 weeks. He wouldn't be able to handle neither the mileage, nor the average speed of El Guerrouj.

Solinsky, despite being a massive guy, was also a slow-twitch runner. Not super fast in 400/800, but he could train like a maniac. Each run was at sub 6 pace in HS, and at sub 5:30 pace as pro, even his friends, Tegenkamp, Jager etc. couldn't hang with him on his easy days. That was with above 100+ mpw too.

Another great example is the thread on Carlos Lopes vs Fernando Mamede, 2 Portuguese legends who were similarly strong over 10000m, but Mamede had a 400 PR of 48 and Lopes of 54 and they trained quite differently. Mamede hammered 400s, Lopes was very slow on the 400s in comparison, but did crazy tempo runs. On 1k's they trained around the same level, although many people guessed that Mamede killed himself a bit on the 1k's trying to always match Lopes's splits and that would explain his inconsistent performances over time.