Lifting on muscle relaxers

[Romeoguy62]

I pulled my lat and my doctor told me my traps might be getting tensed up because of this. I no longer feel any pain in my lat or traps while at rest. When I lift, my traps and the base of my skull tense up like a baseball and gives me a tension headache. He told me I could take some Flexeril (** only) muscle relaxers before I lifted. Is this ok from a bodybuilding perspective?

[Doc.Sust]

no fcul that!!do really want to continue lifting while hurt!!! id your lat is pulled, rest and ice, if the pain is that bad that you cannot lift, you body is telling you to cut it out and give it a break!! i would see a sports massage therpaist or a doctor that specializes in active release technique. what your dr. is saying is just unwise. sure you can do this, but all you will probably do is stay injured longer than if you would heal. lifting onpainkillers to get through every workout is no way to live and not a healthy habbit to become dependent on.

[Romeoguy62]

Thanks Doc.Sust, I went in to the gym today without anything in me but a little whey. My neck cramped up a bit on the right side, but I stretched it out and finished up without incident. Hopefully the rest of my week will go as good as today did. Thanks again.

[needmorestrength]

Helll no.. Imo this is some of the worst advice.. Muscle relaxors can make the body less attentive to pain or pulls.. So you can actually injure yourself further or a totally new body part since the pain might be "masked".. Follow what sust said.. If you had a fairly pain free workout, take it easy, and warm up and stretch when you do workout!

[mds]

Couple of beers, a flexeril and a few days out of the gym!

[Romeoguy62]

Thanks guys. I do my chest today, and thats when I felt the trap pain last week, so I'll let you all know how it goes.

[KDRLINUS]

Helll no.. Imo this is some of the worst advice.. Muscle relaxors can make the body less attentive to pain or pulls.. So you can actually injure yourself further or a totally new body part since the pain might be "masked".. Follow what sust said.. If you had a fairly pain free workout, take it easy, and warm up and stretch when you do workout!

while i agree for the most part that its prob not the best idea, i have to say that i have done this many times as i have back probs as a result of car accidents. muscle relaxors such a flexeril will/ can effect you in many different ways.

my advise to you would be take the recommended dosage as see how you feel. then make a decision as to whether you want to lift. for me, flexeril does nothing, i can do ALL activities on flexeril with no ill effects, however i have built a tolerance to them as well. i actually take 20-30mg of vicodin before i work out on arm days...... i DO NOT advise this either. after years of going to the pain specialits, and switching between dif. pain meds i know my body's tolerances and limits well.

as NEEDMORESRTENGTH said i agree they can cause you to be less attentive to the injury and in some people, less attentive to your sorrounding in general which also can be dangerous. however depending on your size and tolerances to this kind of medication it might just ease the pain enough for you to work other muscle groups like chest and delts with relative comfort.

one more thing, its generally unadvisable to split doses if your thinkin you might wanna just take a lil before u work out. when you break open a pill you break the time release and your body will have an influx of the med. in some people this causes probs and depending on the dosage these probs could potentially be serious.

all in all just be safe and listen to your body, take it easy and get better

[LoneLifter]

Not sure on this one...I will have to agree with the others here. Give your body ample rest and recovery.

On a side note. My dad used to smoke 2 joints and hit the gym, said he could focus and work to total failure everytime. He was a pretty big muther f*cker in his prime...probably because the weed gave him the munchies and he ate so much.

PS. Marijuana decreases protein synthesis, therefor I would NOT recommed my fathers method. He claims to have never juiced but given the era he grew up in and his size in his youth, I don't know how he wouldn't have.

http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread16830.shtml

[Doc.Sust]

Thanks guys. I do my chest today, and thats when I felt the trap pain last week, so I'll let you all know how it goes.
keep me posted on how you are doing. don't worry it will heal and you won't lose your gains either. rest and ice. and if you need the painkillers fine, just not while you are lifting. IMO i wouldn't use them unless it was excrutiating or unbearable. take the advice given by myseld and NMS and you will be ok.

[liftergirl]

i agree with Dr S and NMS-- if you take any sort of painkiller or muscle relaxer prior to lifting, it will make you less attentive to the pain that occurs due to an injury. Plus, those meds, especially for non-chronic users, can make you pretty sleepy simply due to thier mechanism of action, which is never a good thing in the gym...simply not safe.

The advice from Dr S on seeing a Dr who can do a muscle release is AWESOME advice! I've been taught the technique from a friend who's a D.O. rather than an M.D. and have seen it work wonders. However, it takes awhile for it to heal. You really need to stay away from the lifting for a bit and let it heal. USe the rest, Ice and NSAIDS (ibuprofen or aleve/naprosyn work the best) and use the flexaril on a regular basis in combo with the stretching and it will get better....and you will actually heal rather than just mask the pain and make the whole thing worse! As far as using pain killers...if you need them to sleep, or to get through the Stretching, that's fine. But, not to get through a lift! But, flexaril and painkillers like vicodin are pretty different meds.

I cant speak for your injury specificially, but I've seen muscle strains and pulls like you've desecribed improve with 1)rest 2)ice 3) nsaids 4)stretching/physical therapy / manipulation from a Dr. like Dr Sust was referring to and 5)muscle relaxants like flexaril. But, the reasoning behind using the muscle relaxants is NOT to be able to get through a lift. It's more to allow the muscle to relax a bit so that you can get it back to normal....if you combine them with the other recommended stuff. Make sense?

As far as the stuff mentioned about not splitting meds....that depends on the medicine. Some are fine to split and are not time released.

Good luck and keep us posted.... :)

[Romeoguy62]

Well I went in to the gym today sore as hell. My lats had all last week off and I killed them yesterday. Anyways, I stretched my neck out all day and had a good 15 min of stretching before lifting. I did a light warm up set on bench and went at it. I think the break was good for my body. For the first time ever I was able to do 205 for 3 sets of 8 on bench. No trap pain. Actually, I went up on all my weights and felt no trap pain. When I got to calves I put the squat bar on my neck and did a few calf raises-big no no. I guess it's healed enough to not be stressed by other lifts, but trying to rest 405lbs on it wasn't gonna happen. I'll see how I do with biceps tomorrow, they are what killed it last week. And with my experience with the squat bar today I am pretty sure I will be using the leg press on Friday...Anyways, today made me feel a lot better about how I'm healing. Thanks for all the tips, it's nice to see so many people care about each other progress.

[Doc.Sust]

see what a little time off may do. all your lifts went up. rest can do wonders

[liftergirl]

so glad all your lifts went up! esp since you had no pain! GREAT! keep up with the stretching! that's probably helping you out a lot :) take care!

[Doc.Sust]

on a side note, if you take time off and your lifts go up, you may be overtraining. just a thought. tweak your routine alittle and cut back on some of the volume and see if it helps your gains

[liftergirl]

on a side note, if you take time off and your lifts go up, you may be overtraining. just a thought. tweak your routine alittle and cut back on some of the volume and see if it helps your gains

good point! would lower weight and higher reps be better?

[Doc.Sust]

good point! would lower weight and higher reps be better?
no more reps, the guy is already doing 8-10 reps if i am not mistaken. any more than that may be more catabolic towards muscle growth. maybe a lighter weith same rep scheme or same weight and less total sets and or exercises. what i find, when most people over train the either
1 they max out every wk or do 3 sest of a weight for high reps that they fail with on the third set every wk and never train any lighter.
2 they do to many exercises per body part( to many exercises or to many sets per muscle group)or work the same muscle group to often throughout the wk.example : bench pressing 3 times a wk or doing derivatives of a chest execise. some people think i you did on monday flat bench, wednesday decline, and dumbell presses friday that it is alright because they are working different movements.WRONG, they are all chest movements therefore you are not allowing your cest ever time to heal.
3 treating auxillary execises as if they were a exercise for a major muscle group. yes gentelman and ladies alot of people will take an entire day to do soley biceps, i couldn't imagine doing this. the best approach in my oppinion is hitting a movement like lat pulldowns before doing biceps. therefore your biceps are alreay pre-fatigued and you would have to less working set of biceps to accomplish what you would need to do if you did only biceps. it is killing 2 birds with one stone. for smaller muscle groups, you also don't need as many exercises or sets. when working legs you pick approximately 3-4 exercises for 3-5 sets. if you are doing the same number of exercises and sets for triceps or shoulders, you are doing way to much.

[liftergirl]

makes sense to me! i thought he was doing fewer reps than that...my mistake :)

[Romeoguy62]

Ok well I did bis today with no problem. It seems the muscle may be healed. I still stretched a lot just to be on the safe side. BTW, here is my weekly regimine. Tell me what you think I should keep/drop from it. I love being in the gym so I lift with quite a few different exercises.

Monday-Back
3xfailure Behind the neck chinups
3x8 T-bar row
3x8 Standing rows
3x8 1 arm dbell rows
3x8 Bent over rows
3x8 Deadlift
3x8 Lat pulldowns

Tuesday-Chest
3x8 Bench
3x8 Dbell incline
3x15 Carble crossovers
3x8 Dbell flies
3x8 Incline flies

Wednesday-Bi's
3x8 Bbell curls
3x8 Hammers
3x8 Preacher
3x8 Incline dbells
3 sets of "21s"

Thursday-Tri's & Shoulders
3x8-Tri pulldowns
3x8 Tri kickbacks
3x8 Reverse curls (bar goes behind head, the raises up)
3x8 Close grip bench
3x8 Forward dbell and lateral dbell raises (superset)
3x8 Military press
3x15 Shrugs
3x8 Cable lateral raises

Friday- Legs
3x20 Leg extensions
3x20 Ham curls
3x10 Squat
3x10 Hack squat

On MWF I do 3 sets till failure of crunches, 3x10 weighted machine crunches, and 3xfailure hanging leg lifts. Forearms also get 3x20 of forward and reverse curls.

On T/TR I do calves. Calves get leg press calf raises, Dbell calf raises, and seated calf raises. All 3x25

I am in the gym for quite a while each day. I was eating like a horse and putting on pretty good size/weight with this routine. When I look at it all typed out I should prolly cut it back some, esp. since now I am trying to cut up a bit. Which exercises should I keep? Thanks Doc, liftergirl and others!

[Doc.Sust]

holy shit are you over training!!!! do you ever do less reps or is this all the time??to many exercises, pick 3 per body part. are you doing this for body building or strength training, a specific sport or just because?? are you "on" anything? and sets of 20 reps on leg curls and extensions??no way!!! yuck that suck even reading about it. this routine can be cut to just three days a wk if you combine exercise correctly. if you are serious about changing this work out, pm me you specific goals and if you would like we can compromise and make you a new routine. let m know if your intrested. first change i would make would be get legs out of the way on monday,also do shoulders along with legs. wed chest and tri's, friday back and bi's. reps and total wks will vary depending on your goals and how long do you want the program to run. also with chest throw out the cross over and flyes, they don't do very nuch of anything. also cross over and flyes are so similar, now according to what i read you are doing two presses and 3 fly motion exercises. that is overkill. like i said pm me and give me a list of exercises that are a must and we will work on this together. something new that i guarantee and bet my LIFE on that you will get much better results!

[Doc.Sust]

holy shit are you over training!!!! do you ever do less reps or is this all the time??to many exercises, pick 3 per body part. are you doing this for body building or strength training, a specific sport or just because?? are you "on" anything? and sets of 20 reps on leg curls and extensions??no way!!! yuck that suck even reading about it. this routine can be cut to just three days a wk if you combine exercise correctly. if you are serious about changing this work out, pm me you specific goals and if you would like we can compromise and make you a new routine. let m know if your intrested. first change i would make would be get legs out of the way on monday,also do shoulders along with legs. wed chest and tri's, friday back and bi's. reps and total wks will vary depending on your goals and how long do you want the program to run. also with chest throw out the cross over and flyes, they don't do very much of anything. also cross over and flyes are so similar, now according to what i read you are doing two presses and 3 fly motion exercises. that is overkill. like i said pm me and give me a list of exercises that are a must and we will work on this together. something new that i guarantee and bet my LIFE on that you will get much better results!

[needmorestrength]

holy shit are you over training!!!! do you ever do less reps or is this all the time??to many exercises, pick 3 per body part. are you doing this for body building or strength training, a specific sport or just because?? are you "on" anything? and sets of 20 reps on leg curls and extensions??no way!!! yuck that suck even reading about it. this routine can be cut to just three days a wk if you combine exercise correctly. if you are serious about changing this work out, pm me you specific goals and if you would like we can compromise and make you a new routine. let m know if your intrested. first change i would make would be get legs out of the way on monday,also do shoulders along with legs. wed chest and tri's, friday back and bi's. reps and total wks will vary depending on your goals and how long do you want the program to run. also with chest throw out the cross over and flyes, they don't do very nuch of anything. also cross over and flyes are so similar, now according to what i read you are doing two presses and 3 fly motion exercises. that is overkill. like i said pm me and give me a list of exercises that are a must and we will work on this together. something new that i guarantee and bet my LIFE on that you will get much better results! Hmm Remember, over training is not a pin point problem, as everyone is different! But it does look like quite a bit to me as well! Although high reps for legs is the way to go, refer to swolecats leg routine!!!!!!!! I personally combine bi's with back, and tris with chest, eliminating such small muscles from getting over worked!

[Doc.Sust]

Hmm Remember, over training is not a pin point problem, as everyone is different! But it does look like quite a bit to me as well! Although high reps for legs is the way to go, refer to swolecats leg routine!!!!!!!! I personally combine bi's with back, and tris with chest, eliminating such small muscles from getting over worked!
that is smart lifting!!

can't agree with high reps.try 3 sets of 20 reps with squats or deads and tell me how you feel the next day or the day after. i guarantee you couldn't walk up stairs for a few days

[needmorestrength]

that is smart lifting!!

can't agree with high reps for legs, what works for swole cat will not work for the average drug free lifter. try 3 sets of 20 reps with squats or deads and tell me how you feel the next day or the day after. i guarantee you couldn't walk up stairs for a few days
Your exactly right ;)... I think the easiest way for me to explain/understand it is... your legs are subjected to walking all day long, they carry your body weight, they go up/down stairs... 8-10 reps in NOT a bad thing, but 15-20 reps arnt a bad thing either.. My legs were stuck, so I tried the high rep ranges, and I put an inch on my legs in about 2 months! Its just the shock I need. So now for about 4 months a year I dedicate to doing the higher reps! Also its a lot less stress on joints, and backs!

[liftergirl]

interesting....so why do you think it takes a bit of a "muscle shock" to get the results again?

[needmorestrength]

interesting....so why do you think it takes a bit of a "muscle shock" to get the results again?
I believe and the likes of Swole will agree, that because the legs are always used, you really need to shock them every now and then.. and the routine he provided does just that.. It burns, fills em up with blood like never before.. and when you go back to lower reps your strength/endurance is vastly inscreased