This is Part 2 of the series How To Become A Superhero, enjoy!
Physical Training:
Superheroes/Vigilantes have to be in good shape, or they wind up severely injured or dead, and that’s not fun. Unfortunately being in supreme physical shape takes lots of time and dedication to achieve and maintain, especially at the levels that may require you to kick ass on a group of armed thugs who have no compunctions against killing you.
As to how good of shape you should be in, I’d say Olympic Decathlete level, possibly combined with winter and summer Pentathlete, and Triathlete levels. By this I mean being able to qualify for each of them on the Olympic team. This should give you more than enough of a base to handle any physical situation you might find yourself in ever, let alone on the street fighting thugs.
Now I’ve been thinking of a way to do this without having to dedicate yourself to 12-16 hour days of intense physical training, possibly without having to do any training at all. There were two university papers I read that seemed totally unrelated, unless your mind is twisted and lazy like mine.
One was exposing animals to simulated levels of higher gravity (in a giant gravity simulator, think the Gravitron at the fair) in order to see how much they could withstand. They found that the animals (chickens mostly) all could adapt permanently to 2.3-2.5gs of gravity. This put them in supreme physical condition, but when increased to 3gs of gravity, they were so biologically inefficient (earth life being about 7% efficient overall) that they used up far more energy than they could take in; they burned fat faster than they could eat it.
Now you’d think this’d give you a lot more free time, but who wants to spend 12-16 hours a day in a giant centrifuge? Therein comes the second aspect of the article reading.
Our homies at Manchester U in England (yes I know no British person has ever used the word “homies” :P) discovered something amazing about the mind body connection. They found that people who imagined exercising while under hypnosis had a 16% increase in muscle strength and size, when compared to the people who actually did the exercise and had a 30% increase, that’s 53.33% effectiveness. For doing nothing. Other than some hypnotherapy sessions.
My crazy imagination combined the two, using hypnotherapy to create in people a subconscious sense of increased gravity. If this worked, it’d take probably a few months of rigorous programming, and some in depth and powerful reinforcing triggers (i.e. “Every time you hear a phone ring, the feelings of your body adapting to an increased gravity field grow stronger” etc.) but it could work. It would require an initial time investment, but probably not as much as actually hitting the gym religiously, and once successful, you wouldn’t need the sessions anymore. A maintenance free Olympian body.
This can all then be pushed to a greater level. For example, a decathlete is a jack of all trades, skilled in many events, master of none. He’s not going to lift weights like a power lifter, or sprint like a sprinter because his training is too general. Not only that, but under normal circumstances, having the muscle mass of a power-lifter is going to make you slow as hell when it comes to sprinting. What if there was a way to have your cake and eat it too? Maybe there is.
The next thing I’m going to cover is the phenomenon of hysterical strength. Hysterical strength is basically an overload of motor neurons called tetanic contraction. Ever hear those stories of 120 lb. mothers who lift cars off their trapped babies? THAT is hysterical strength. Tetanic contractions can be 20 times normal muscle contractions, so it’s feasible for a sprinter, with the ability to access a little bit of his hysterical strength at will, to lift like a power lifter. Granted because his body’s not built for feats of this magnitude, said sprinter isn’t going to be able to do them for that long, or that often, without risking serious injury to himself.
Our Olympic decathlete superhero with the ability to access his hysterical strength at will, should be able to trounce those athletes who focus solely on one event… at least for a little while or when it really counts. In real emergencies he’d be able to go right hella superhuman as well.
Think of a guy who can normally bench twice his weight, now think of full tetanic contraction allowing him to lift FORTY TIMES that weight. 230 lbs times 40 = Wow (9200 lbs or 4.6 tons actually).
Now achieving controlled tetanic contraction without the poison called adrenaline would be exceedingly difficult, but I can see it being accomplished with hypnosis or meditation. There are many stories of monks coming out of deep meditation and doing some amazing feats of strength. I read recently about a guy named Andrew Lai who can do this very thing at will, although I haven’t been able to dig up much more info about him. If anyone can find anything, by all means post a comment. Stay tuned next time for Part 3, skills of a Superhero.
Back to Part 1
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