Your skeletal muscles help control the position and movement of your skeleton. Healthy skeletal muscle allows for proper movement and supports breathing and posture. Each skeletal muscle contains a number of muscle fibers, each of which connects to a nerve cell. Upon nerve stimulation, these fibers contract, and the contraction of several muscle fibers allows for movement. Certain nutrients from your diet, such as vitamins, can nourish fast twitch muscle fibers that make up a component of skeletal muscle. Always talk to your doctor before consuming vitamins or other dietary supplements to benefit your fast twitch muscle fibers.
Types of Muscle Fibers
Your skeletal muscles contain two main classifications of muscle fibers: slow twitch and fast twitch muscles. Slow twitch muscle fibers contract slowly with a relatively small amount of force but can contract for long periods of time due to resistance to fatigue. Fast twitch muscle fibers contract quickly with greater amounts of force. The fibers vary in their fatigue rate, with some fibers fatiguing slowly, some quickly and some at an intermediate rate. Though our muscles contain both fast and slow twitch muscle fibers, different types of physical activity and muscle training can alter the relative amounts of these muscle fibers within your muscles.
Vitamin E
One nutrient that can benefit your fast twitch muscle fibers is vitamin E, a family of eight antioxidant vitamins. Your muscles serve as a hotbed of metabolic activity that include the numerous chemical reactions required for muscle contraction that also generate a number of harmful chemicals called free radicals. Left alone, free radicals damage your muscle fibers, causing tissue damage called oxidative stress that can lead to the destruction of muscle fibers. A 2007 study published in "Free Radical Biology and Medicine" found that taking vitamin E supplements helped suppress the breakdown of fast twitch muscle fibers in the muscles of laboratory mice in response to oxidative stress. While animal studies do not always translate to an identical response in humans, taking vitamin E might help to prevent fast twitch muscle fiber breakdown due to free radical exposure.
Vitamin D
Vitamin D also might have a beneficial effect on your fast twitch muscle fibers. Maintaining proper levels of vitamin D helps your body to properly use calcium, a mineral required for proper functioning of your muscles, including fast twitch muscle fibers. Consuming vitamin D can increase the number of fast twitch muscle fibers within your muscle tissue, as well as increase the size of these fibers, according to a 2009 study published in "Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise." Overall, this translates to an increase in athletic performance.
Considerations
While vitamins D and E might prove beneficial for maintaining healthy fast twitch muscle fibers, maintaining healthy muscles relies on a number of factors. Regular physical activity helps maintain or improve the size and numbers of fast twitch muscle fibers as well as maintains the health of your muscles as a whole. In addition, other nutritional factors, such as protein intake, help to determine the size of your muscles and muscle fibers. If you're interested in increasing your fast twitch muscle fiber number or size, talk to a registered dietitian or sports scientist to recommend a diet and exercise program to help reach your goals. Never take vitamins to improve your fast twitch muscle fibers without medical supervision and permission from your doctor.
References
- University of California, San Diego; Fiber Types; 2006
- "Free Radical Biology and Medicine"; Prevention of Unloading-Induced Atrophy By Vitamin E Supplementation: Links Between Oxidative Stress and Soleus Muscle Proteolysis?; S. Servais, et al.; March 2007
- "Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise"; Athletic Performance and Vitamin D; J.J. Cannell, et al.; 2009
