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Biology

davidola9800

Whats an advantage of having both fast and slow twitch muscle fibres?

Reply 1

TSR Jessica

Sorry you've not had any responses about this. :frown:

Are you sure you’ve posted in the right place? Posting in the specific Study Help forum should help get responses. :redface:

I'm going to quote in Puddles the Monkey now so she can move your thread to the right place if it's needed. :h:

Spoiler

Reply 2

siarc

This boils down to what you want the muscles for in the first place. Fast twitch muscles are used for reacting quickly to stimuli though they tire out quickly. On the other hand, slow twitch muscles take longer to respond but don't tire out as quickly.

Each has their uses, for example a gazelle would want to make evasive moves in a tiny fraction of a second when it sees something that has been stalking it about to make a swipe. This would use fast twitch muscles to respond almost instantly so the gazelle could get out of the way.
In comparison, a whale who migrates across vast distances doesn't need to go very fast but needs the endurance provided by slow twitch muscles. Can you find any examples of when you've had to move quickly (in response to an emergency or dangerous stimuli maybe) and compare it to times you've had to not get tired out (if your heart got tired it could be dangerous to your health). Having only one type of muscle (fast OR slow) would allow for you to only get through one of these scenarios successfully whereas having both provides an evolutionary edge, you can outcompete those who only have one type of muscle by successfully navigating a plethora of situations where only one muscle type would fail.

I hope this helps get some ideas flowing!