Plot Problem - Rapid Muscle Gain

[reiver33]

In another thread I needed to have the main character beef up his left arm in a very short space of time. Based on a half-remembered advert for Slendertone? or similar I went for electrical stimulation of muscle tissue to cause contractions (with weights attached) while the MC was unconscious.

Unfortunately its been pointed out to me this is a load of cack.

Its a near future story but I don't want to use anything obvious like muscle grafts or steroids. Anyone have any ideas?

 

[PTeppic]

Certain jobs can do it. A former lecturer of mine spent most of his life (before academia) as a company manager, circling higher and higher up the tree. One of the earlier jobs was in a firm which made huge metal tanks, for water I guess, which were made by welding large bands of metal together. The welders were doing so much, one-handed, that they become asymetrically muscled.

A bit like the original Karate Kid's "wax on, wax off", any oft-repeated movement will lead to both muscle memory (for speed) and tone (for strength). Does typically require some level of weight to increase density though.

 

[Boneman]

If you totally immobilise a muscle (put the arm in a cast, for instance) you will lose 25% of the muscle bulk within 48 hours. In a muscle-bound athlete, it's probably more. Bearing in mind that this is set in the future, I reckon 4 days (given the right proteins, vitamins A&C to form new collagen for muscle and tendon) would be no problem. Blimey, if they can rewire his head, this sort of thing shouldn't be a problem. Never let reality get in the way of a great story!

 

[The Judge]

I agree with Boneman. The story is set in the future with all kinds of weird things happening and clones/androids and who knows what. If we can suspend disbelief that far, we can accept a strange muscle-improving gadget which works miracles in a couple of days. I think the trick is not to give too much explanation, since that simply causes people to start looking for holes in the science. Keep it vague. It works for me!

 

[mosaix]

Injectable nano-bots.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Spinach?

 

[Somni]

Does it have to actually be 'beefier' i.e. look more muscular? Certain drugs might give the appearance of a strength gain as they 'remove' the body's inhibitions i.e. use muscles to the full as not worried about damage/don't feel pain, similar to rage giving 'beserk' strength. Perhaps your future society would have versions for localised muscle groups?

 

[mygoditsraining]

How about targetted growth hormone injections? You can get things called dc beads (Biocompatibles Oncology - DC Bead) which are basically just swellable polymer beads that chemotherapy binds to (they are used in targetted chemotherapy where normal chemo would be cleared out of the system, eg somewhere with lots of blood vessels or pores).

If you bound, say, a specific growth hormone or some other chemical cocktail that incites muscle cell generation and concomitant fibre thickening locally to those beads, injected them, then combined it with a course of electrotherapy to make sure the muscle fibres retain their alignment while growing under accelerated chemical conditions, then you might have something?

Okay, so it's still bobbins once you think about it hard enough, but a little suspension of disbelief and I wouldn't say it's a particularly bitter pill to swallow.

 

[mygoditsraining]

Also! It adds a bit of dramatic spice to the procedure because the obvious issue with an overloading of growth hormones (or derivatives thereof) is, naturally, massive undifferentiated cell growth - or the formation of cancers. So you could easily divert all the wait just a cotton pickin' minute thinkers by having the procedure performed along with a sizable risk: the possibility of cancers forming in the arm itself, or of beads breaking loose, entering the blood stream and causing cancer elsewhere.

 

[reiver33]

Thanks all! I'm fairly sure the Boxing Commission would have restrictions on augmented physical development, even in the future, so I was trying to come up with something that wouldn't leave any obvious chemical or genetic traces.

His left arm doesn't have to look beefed-up, although I considered that an obvious effect of 'naturally' increasing the muscle mass.

I could always fall back on a vague 'don't ask and I won't tell' scenario (as suggested), so that there is less grief to go around in the event of an investigation. The important point, as far as the narrative is concerned, is that his left arm now functions closer to his expectations.

Once again, cheers!

Martin

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

The thing is, why just one arm? You could use adrenaline. (It was mentioned before by MGIR-that's the hormone that will cause raging "berserk" strength.)

Personally I wouldn't actually try to go for an attempt at rapid asymmetrical muscle/strength gain.....

 

[Langadune]

The thing is, why just one arm?...

Personally I wouldn't actually try to go for an attempt at rapid asymmetrical muscle/strength gain.....

If you read the story this pertains to, you might understand why one arm is targeted more than the other, I won't go into detail... you can read it in the Critique forum.

Reiver33,
I think as Boneman said vague is the way to go. You gave a hint at what was done... and leave it there. If you move on (don't let the characters think of it as a big deal) the reader will as well. It didn't bother me... I just wanna know how the fight goes!

 

[daisybee]

I'll throw my lot in with the "suspension of disbelief" crowd here-I read the piece and if he can wake up as a southpaw after 4 days, (which was great by the way), then having a more muscular arm is no big deal. I didn't suddenly think, now hold on here fella what are you trying to sell? I thought, wow, how weird to think right yet have left respond.

I like mosaix idea of injectable nano bots. Mostly as I can imagine a Rocky style montage in my head of the nano's doing all the work to an eighties soft rock anthem wearing sweat bands.

 

[Doctor Crankenstein]

The nano bots could be taken as a pill. Each one could have a little payload of stem cells that it could strategically inject throughout the muscle. The nano bots would then deactivate and be passed through the body. With the assistance of the stem cells and a 10kg drum of protein (lol) the 4 day training-spree that boneman suggested...

 

[mygoditsraining]

(It was mentioned before by MGIR-that's the hormone that will cause raging "berserk" strength.)

I was actually thinking more along the lines of a somatotropin analogue that would cause muscle fibre to thicken semi-permanently as opposed to short term stimulated gylcolysis.

I like the idea of some sort of stem cell treatment, too - that has an additional taint of shady wrongness just to the sound of it.

 

[gadgetmind]

Are you keen to invent something new? If not, why not use something that exists now?

Site enhancement oil - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It doesn't make muscles stronger, it just bulks them up. Dunno if this is good enough for your plot.

Ian

 

[gadgetmind]

Never let reality get in the way of a great story!

I read a lot of stories that would have been great if they hadn't played quite so fast and loose with reality. If you don't take it seriously, why should the reader?

Ian

 

[jastius]

there's this stuff that athletes are being tested for and apparently its hard to trace. In about three weeks it can have a fit person looking like charles atlas. Its a drug that is used for people with muscular dystrophy and is given along with that oxygen uptake accelerator used by high altitude climbers. I can't remember the specific names though but I remember reading about them in an article and thinking they sounded like a science fiction gimmick when they were science fact.

 

[Grinnel]

Perhaps you can have the whole thing done with some sort of hypno-therapy. Some theories into why some people can lift cars in life-or-death situations and why monkeys are five to seven times stronger than their equal sized human counterparts is that we simply think too much.

A mother can lift a car off of her child because she doesn't stop to think about it, she just does it. Most people would think the feat is impossible, therefore they can't do it.

A chimpanzee can perform amazing feats of strength simply because they don't take the time to think they can't. Some people can be hypnotized into doing things that are physically impossible (getting into an ice bath without gasping or shivering if they believe it's a nice warm bath)

Whether or not the theories hold water is irrelevant; you can use the idea as a basis to program or hypnotize your character into feats of strength with (or ignoring pain/stress in) his left arm, at least for a period, though he may have to pay a price later.

 

[Boneman]

I read a lot of stories that would have been great if they hadn't played quite so fast and loose with reality. If you don't take it seriously, why should the reader?

Ian

because we're writing fantasy and science fiction that's speculative - as long as the reality you invent is believeable (not provable, not grounded in today's science, not the reality we know...) then it works. Look at what was reality a hundred years ago, and then imagine reality in a hundred years. The work being done today with regenerating limbs can easily be extrapolated into a future where muscle could regenerate in 4 days and be incredibly strong. But if the reader thinks: 'huh, that's not real because it's not done today,' should they be reading SciFi and Fantasy at all?