GYM 201: Training at 90% max and use of muscle relaxants

After a long long time, another small article.

1. Training at 90% of max:
This is one thing that you hear very often. What this means is you train at 90% intensity, not 90% of the weight. If say a guy can squat 135kg for 1 rep, then doing 122kg for 3 reps isn't training at 90% intensity, doing 122kg for 1 rep is. If his max squat is 135kg for 3 reps, then squatting 122 kg for 3 reps is training at 90% max.

Why training at 90% is so famous is, it has been empirically found that that weight requires just about 1-2 days of time for a decent recovery. Time required for recuperation and recover kind of grows exponentially with the training intensity (the entire article talks only about intensity and it relates to exercises being done in the 3-6 rep range. For 10-15 reps, its an entirely different issue altogether). If you train at just some 50-60% of intensity, then you can even workout some 4-5 times a day for some days without any problem at all. But the time gap between two attempts of your max should be a lot more. Our coach (the Olympic Weightlifting coach of our insti) says atleast a 15 day gap is needed between consecutive attempts of our max, but I guess something around 7-10 days should be fine, though it varies from person to person. But training at 90% does not need a 10 day break, 1-2 days is just enough. And then there's the funda of super compensation (google it up) that can be obtained in a planned cycle of over-reach and under-reach and training at 90% max for an extended period of time is a good way to over-reach.
If all the above is too much for you to read, 90% max is heavy enough to make you fight through the reps and it is light enough to allow for good recovery. 


2. Use of muscle relaxants
I've seen a lot of people use sprays (volini, volitra, etc) and other muscle relaxants when they feel some pain. I'm going to argue against using them.
1. Pain is a mechanism by which the brain knows that something's wrong somewhere in the body.
2. When the brain knows there's something wrong, it responds and initiates some repairing process.
3. The whole funda of strength and muscle gains is nothing but adaptation- when you load more than what you usually lift, the muscles get sore (or in case of low rep heavy training and Olympic Weightlifting, its the nervous system that has to adapt) and they tell the brain something needs to be done.
4. If the brain doesn't know something's wrong, it won't respond.
Take blood clotting for example. First something goes wrong (a cut in the skin), then there's a signal that something's wrong (some process happens at the place where the skin's cut) and then there's the response (blood platelets rush to create a clot).
All muscle relaxants/ pain killers/ etc.. They can do one of two things-
1. Suppress the pain
2. Initiate some healing action.
If it suppresses the pain, i.e., if it acts on the nervous system and doesn't let the brain know that there's a pain, the brain won't initiate any healing process (and obviously every muscle relaxant does this). If this is the only thing that it does, then it is totally useless coz it doesn't help in healing.
If it suppresses the pain and initiates some healing action too, then, since the pain signal doesn't really reach the brain, the action it takes won't be what it is supposed to take. I'd rather trust my brain and its natural way of healing (which has worked quite well for 20 years) than the chemical formula that some manufacturer has developed.
Bottomline, use muscle relaxants and any other way of treatment only if it is totally necessary. It must only supplement the natural healing process, not replace it. The only time use of such stuff is totally justified is just before a competition, when you want your brain to allot as much resources as it can to just the lift and not to any pain in the back or the shoulder. During training, if you train 3 days a week and on 2 days you have to apply some spray or gel on your back before you train, you have some serious problem with your back and need to attend to that immediately. Take some time out, strengthen it through stretching and light training and then hit the gym again.

3 unrelated stories

I'm writing 3 stories, totally unrelated, without drawing any conclusions. Whoever reads them is free to interpret them as he likes.

1. The first one is from a book called "The Right Stuff", by Tom Wolfe. The book was about "The Right Stuff" that the US pilots in general, and the astronauts of the Mercury program in particular had. Here I give a brief summary of what was written in the book.

The heroes of the single combat:
In ancient-medieval times, there was this tradition of single combat. When two armies go to war, they choose their best warriors to fight in a duel. Except rarely in movies, this tradition is barely remembered. In the medieval times however, single combat was a very good alternative to a full scale war. In ancient China, first the mightiest soldiers fought to death and then the armies fought, emboldened or demoralized by the outcome of the single combat. Before Mohammed's first battle as the warrior-prophet, the battle of Badr, three of his son's challenged to fight any three warrior's from the Meccan's. Mohammed's sons destroyed them and later Mohammed's entire force routed the entire Meccan force. In 5th century AD, when the Vandal and Aleman armies confronted each other in Spain, victory or defeat in the battle was decided based on the result of the single combat, since they believed that the gods determined the outcome of the single combat. The old testament of David and Goliath is on similar lines. David, an unknown volunteer commoner, kills the gigantic Goliath in a single combat. The Philistines regarded that s such a terrible sign that they fled and were pursued and slaughtered.
Naturally, the warriors chosen to represent the armies in single combats were treated as heroes, revered, praised, songs sung in their name. Even before they even fought for their army, they had all the glory and fame and honor. This was all in part an incentive to the all the warriors so that they may step forward and rise to the position where they were ready to lay their life on the line for their kingdom.

Everybody who's reading this would have heard of the name Neil Armstrong. Other names like Buzz Aldrin, John Glenn, Alan Shepard and James Lovell (portrayed by Tom hanks in the movie Apollo 13) must be well known to space enthusiasts. And a lot of Indians know the name Kalpana Chawla. Bet a lot have never heard the name Chuck Yeager (not Chuck Norris, Chuck Yeager), and even fewer would have known his other mates at the Edwards Airforce Base (btw, if someone thinks I'm putting a lot of American related stuff here and wants to shit about patriotism and all, they are requested to bug off) who were testing rocket-powered aircrafts. Chuck Yeager is credited to be the first man to break the so-called sonic barrier (flying at the speed of sound), in a rocket powered X-1 aircraft. He was a test-pilot, a pilot who flies aircrafts whey they are being tested. There were a lot of other test-pilots at Edwards Airforce Base and Naval station Patuxent river who were routinely (maybe everyday, even during peacetime) in mortal danger. A lot of them died testing aircrafts. Yet no one knows their names. They guys who become famous are those like Neil Armstrong. Not to take any credit away from the great man, but he was riding on a rocket whose performance was quite proven by then. He wasn't testing it. The seven astronauts of Project Mercury, Alan Shepard, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Scott Carpenter, Wally Schira, Gordon Cooper and Deke Slayton, they were all turned into national heroes of America, just like the warriors of single combat were in medieval times.
And today, cricketers are celebrated in India. They are Gods, heroes. Not Football or Hockey or Kabaddi (needs special mention I guess) or Boxing or Weightlifting, but cricket. Why? Because they're so talented at hitting a ball with a piece of willow in a sport that requires no kind of physical contact (read fighting) with your opponent. They play the gentleman's game. They get all the money and all the goodies.
As I said, the reader is free to interpret the stories from their own perspective. I'm only making comments, not conclusions.



2. A lot of people were cribbing about how the Indian Kabaddi team was treated after they won the world cup, not even being provided with a proper bus to go home and all, contrasting it with the way cricketers are treated. This comparison happens a lot of times with other sports too. 
When the cricket world cup was happening, the students at IITM put lots of fight to get the semis and finals screened at OAT. When then team won, there were lots of facebook updates, gtalk statuses and all. Hell, there were pics of "I was alive when India won the 2011 world cup" (whatever that is supposed to mean, as if being born sometime in 1990s and not dieing for 20 years takes an infinite talent and hardwork). A 20 year old, totally unknown guy playing in the IPL makes some 30-40 lakhs per year. People watch test matches, ODIs, T20s, IPL, and then highlights too. Lots of people know the names of everyone in the team, and Sachin is a God. You are a true patriot if you are a fan of the Indian cricket team and if you share something related on facebook. "Every Indian must watch this" says some youtube video of some guy bowling out some other guy. Yuvraj Singh has lung cancer and it makes the headlines (not to mention some gult tv channel playing a 10 min video on how Dhoni's wife couldn't wear a sari properly and making totally arbit comments on that). Every small detail of what they do is published in the newspapers and lots of people read them. BCCI takes care of cricket. They have lots of sponsors, infinite cash.
Kabaddi is not a famous sport. Very few people play it (I don't think I have ever seen people play Kabaddi in our insti). They don't have sponsors, the players don't get paid much. When the worldcup was happening, nobody gave a s**t, let alone having it screened in OAT. I didn't even know the name of the captain (I didn't know that Kabaddi was an international sport). There was no facebook status saying "I was alive when the Indian team won the Kabaddi world cup in 2011). The best players in the team are not Gods. No one reads about any article related to Kabaddi. Makes me wonder why the Kabaddi world cup winning team was not treated on par with the cricket team when they won the world cup.



3. Guys placed in a company that develops apps get 67 lpa. It makes front page news. Nobody cares about who is placed in, say, ISRO, what they are paid, what they do. I wonder if an IITM graduate "getting placed" in, say, the Indian Airforce or the DRDO or some other organization, for a 5 lakh per annum salary, but about to work on a very critical subsystem of Agni 5 or Vikrant class aircraft carriers (or something like that) would ever get his name in the front page.