I think you're mistaken on that. Unless you had loose screws on your brakes there's no "bolts" that you can tighten on any of the systems that will make the brakes suddenly stop better. If you tightened something and got better performance then it is only because something had come loose and it needed to be corrected. Also with all the various brakes found on bicycles it doesn't do any good to just say to tighten something. You need to specify what brakes you have.