... clear to see that the majority of athletes are coloured. Their somatotypes suit sprinting and muscle biopsies have shown that they posses a large percentage of fast twitch fibres, a higher percentage than most white athletes. This means they have a genetic advantage which immediately puts them ahead of most of the white athletes. So if our muscle fibre types are genetically determined does this mean a person with a high percentage of slow twitch fibres cannot be a sprinter or a person with a high percentage of fast twitch cannot become a marathon runner? This can be answered by looking at the main reason for athletic prowess, training. It is known that slow twitch fibres (type I) cannot be changed to fast twitch (type II), however we posses two types of type II muscle fibres, type IIa and type IIb. Type IIb are the fibres associated mainly with explosive power, ...

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