ACTN3 - Fast Versus Slow Twitch Muscle Fibers

Fast Versus Slow Twitch Muscle Fibers

Skeletal muscle is composed of long cylindrical cells called muscle fibers. There are two types of muscle fibers, slow twitch or muscle contraction (type I) and fast twitch (type II). Slow twitch fibers are more efficient in using oxygen to generate energy whilst fast twitch fibers are less efficient. However, fast twitch fibers fire more rapidly and generate more force.These are also called the white muscle fibers and red muscles fibers respectively.

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Famous quotes containing the words fast, slow and/or twitch:

    Across the lonely beach we flit,
    One little sandpiper and I;
    And fast I gather, bit by bit,
    The scattered driftwood, bleached and dry.
    The wild waves reach their hands for it,
    The wild wind raves, the tide runs high,
    As up and down the beach we flit—
    One little sandpiper and I.
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    The line it is drawn
    The curse it is cast
    The slow one now
    Will later be fast
    As the present now
    Will later be past
    The order is
    Rapidly fadin’.
    And the first one now
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    our nerve filaments twitch with its presence
    day and night,
    nothing we say has not the husky phlegm of it in the saying,
    nothing we do has the quickness, the sureness,
    the deep intelligence living at peace would have.
    Denise Levertov (b. 1923)