ABSTRACT
Eleven men sprint trained two to three times per week for 6 wk to investigate possible exercise-induced slow-to-fast fiber type conversions. Six individuals served as controls. Both groups were tested at the beginning and end of the study to determine anaerobic performance and maximal oxygen consumption. In addition, pre- and postbiopsies were extracted from the vastus lateralis muscle and were analyzed for fiber type composition, cross-sectional area, and myosin heavy chain (MHC) content. No significant changes were found in anaerobic or aerobic performance variables for either group. Although a trend was found for a decrease in the percentage of type IIb fibers, high-intensity sprint cycle training caused no significant changes in the fiber type distribution or cross-sectional area. However, the training protocol did result in a significant decrease in MHC IIb with a concomitant increase in MHC IIa for the training men. These data appear to support previous investigations that have suggested exercise-induced adaptations within the fast fiber population (IIb-->IIa) after various types of training (endurance and strength).
Subject(s)
Exercise/physiology , Muscle Fibers, Fast-Twitch/ultrastructure , Muscle, Skeletal/chemistry , Myosins/analysis , Physical Education and Training , Adult , Humans , Male , Microscopy, Electron , Muscle Contraction/physiology , Muscle Fibers, Fast-Twitch/chemistry , Muscle, Skeletal/ultrastructure , Myofibrils/ultrastructure , Oxygen ConsumptionABSTRACT
Histochemical methods are routinely used to delineate skeletal muscle fiber types. In the present investigation, this qualitative determination of fiber type composition was compared to the electrophoretically determined myosin heavy chain (MHC) content from a large number of human muscle biopsy samples. Biopsies were taken from the vastus lateralis muscle at the beginning and every 2 weeks during 8 weeks of high-intensity resistance training from men (n = 13) and woman (n = 8). Muscle was also extracted from nontraining men (n = 7) and women (n = 5) at the same periods. Six muscle fiber types (I, IC, IIAC, IIA, IIAB, and IIB) were determined using basic myofibrillar adenosine triphosphatase histochemistry. Cross-sectional areas were determined for the three major fiber types (I, IIA, and IIB) and used to calculate the percentage area of these types. Electrophoretic techniques were used to separate and quantify the percentage MHC content in these same biopsy samples, and these data were then used to compare with the percentage fiber type area. Correlation analyses suggest a relationship between the histochemically assessed percentage fiber type area and the electrophoretically assessed MHC content in human limb musculature. However, because of possible histochemical misclassification of some fibers (especially in trained muscle) both techniques may be essential in yielding important information about fiber type composition and possible fiber type transformations.