by Roger Ma
Unlike the other two combatant types, the endocombatant can draw upon his or her larger adipose reserves should sources of food become scarce. In fact, studies have determined that well-trained endos have the highest survivability rate of all three body classifications during long-term zombie outbreaks because they can sustain themselves for the protracted duration. After extended sieges, many observed mesocombatants were in fact former endos whose body fat stores were depleted during the lengthy episode.
Because of their larger size, endocombatants are better suited to using weapons and techniques that take advantage of their heavier weight. Endos seem to fare particularly well with long-range tactics, where they can put the full force of their girth behind the weapon. Stronger endos also have the ability to burst through hordes of undead attackers, much the same way a football linebacker can breach the crush of several opponents.
Their larger size and slower speed, however, makes the endocombatant more vulnerable in close-combat situations, as more flesh is available to grab and attack. It is advised that endocombatants avoid close-quarters engagements if at all possible. Endos also need to develop their endurance to the levels of their ecto and meso counterparts, as they do not want to be responsible for slowing down an entire group with the dead in hot pursuit.
Although the specific types of combatant physiques outlined here are quite distinct from one another, rarely do individuals fall completely into one of these three categories. Most combatants straddle the line between two of the types described. You may be a mesocombatant with endo tendencies to gain weight, or an endocombatant with excellent endurance as a result of long-distance training runs.
Falling into one of these physical categories also does not imply that you inherit the strengths of that body type by default. This is particularly true of the ectocombatant class, as society often equates thinness with a superior level of health and fitness. Despite his leanness, an ectocombatant that smokes two packs of cigarettes a day will most likely not have the lung capacity and endurance level of a larger, nonsmoking endocombatant who jogs consistently. What is most vital is that you perform an honest and thorough self-assessment, noting your shortcomings as well as emphasizing your assets. With time and persistence, you can then work toward turning those liabilities into strengths to use against your cadaverous opponent.
FITNESS TRAITS AND CHARACTERISTICS
Make no mistake: Defending yourself against a walking corpse can be an exhausting endeavor. Facing two or three simultaneous undead opponents armed with a makeshift weapon can drain even a well-conditioned athlete. In order to protect yourself and others in your care, you need to maintain a certain level of physical fitness. Exceptional athleticism is not required, but a foundation of health needs to be maintained, particularly during large-scale outbreaks when attacks may be more frequent and resources slim.
What is considered a base level of fitness? As a general benchmark of the endurance level required for a zombie infestation, an individual should be able complete the following sequence in its entirety without feeling substantially spent:• Cover 5 miles in 60 minutes
• 30 standard push ups or 50 easy push-ups
• 5 unassisted pull-ups or 10 assisted pull-ups
• 50 jumping jacks
For active individuals who already have a moderate level of fitness, this may seem like a relatively easy circuit to complete. This is also the bare minimum recommended for all civilians, regardless of age or weight. There is a great difference, however, between “base” and “combat-ready” fitness. Without a sufficient level of health and stamina, having to fend off multiple undead attacks during a full-blown outbreak can reduce an unprepared individual to a worn out shell of a human being within hours. To become a truly effective warrior against the undead, you must maintain a consistent fitness routine. When the desire to forgo your regular training regimen arises, let this be your motivation: Every session you skip makes you that much more vulnerable to being devoured alive.
With a combat-ready build, you enhance several traits in your physique that will be essential to your survival during a zombie attack:
STRENGTH: Without adequate strength, you will not only be unable to reinforce your fortification and forage for supplies, you will lack the ability to defend yourself from an untold number of undead attackers, especially if you need to do so without a firearm. It takes a considerable amount of power to deliver a finishing blow to the skull of a zombie; imagine having to do it dozens of times a day. Strength will be a key factor in your level of survivability.
ENDURANCE: During an undead assault, your objective should always be to eliminate only those attackers that pose an imminent threat to your existence. Many incidents have been recorded in
which an overzealous combatant attempted to muscle his way through a large mob of ghouls, only to exhaust himself halfway through his attack, losing the ability to both eradicate the threat and escape with his life intact. You may also be required to travel long distances to a potential safety outpost, most likely on foot. Your endurance level will be critical in such situations.
ACCURACY: When fighting the living dead, the goal is to work smarter, not harder. It may require five blows to destroy a zombie, or it may take only one. The difference depends not only on your strength,
but on the precision of your strikes. Having excellent hand-eye coordination can end every confrontation that much more quickly. As you develop your fighting abilities, you will expend less energy during each successive combat engagement.
AGILITY: One of the key advantages humans possess over our reanimated selves is the ability to synchronize our muscles and execute complex actions to outmaneuver our uncoordinated opponents. Do
not let this agility go to waste or take it for granted. Not only will a good sense of balance and coordination improve your combat abilities, these traits are essential during an escape, when you may have to scale obstacles, traverse narrow passageways, and weave between lunging attackers.
An example of the influence agility can play in facing the living dead was described to the author in the following incident:. . . there were eight of us holed up in this apartment complex. We were able to rest and resupply for two days before enough of them finally pulled open the electric gates. We should have done more to secure the stairwells, but we were all so damn tired.
We tried to bring down as many as we could and we tossed the bodies down the stairwells to slow their ascent, but by the time we made it to the roof, they were pouring out of the fire exits like ants from a sand hill. We managed to find this narrow plank of wood, and thank Christ it was long enough to reach the building next door. It was too flimsy for the weight of more than a single person at a time, so we had to cross one by one. Six of us made it across. Tom—we knew he was nervous, so Julie coached him from behind while the rest of us encouraged him from the other side. He couldn’t walk across fast enough, so he had to start crawling along the board. Crawling. Dammit.
He finally made it. Julie did a good job beating them back before getting on the board, but by the time she was halfway across, one of them had reached the plank and placed its weight on it. The board snapped in two. She didn’t even have a chance to make a jump for it.&Samantha, Chicago, IL
—Samantha, Chicago, IL
EXERCISE REGIMEN
Disregard specialized workouts that overdevelop particular muscle groups for the sake of vanity, as well as exercises that require any unwieldy equipment. Your fitness routine should be practical and portable, and should replicate the functional movements you may be required to accomplish during evasion or defensive action against the living dead.
Think about what may be required of you in any given day during an outbreak. In a matter of hours, you may have to run from attackers, scramble over abandoned vehicles, crawl under fencing, and dispatch a group of zombies with several skull-crushing blows. It’s no surprise that those employed in “blue-collar” jobs involving a high degree of manual labor exhibit some of
the best survival rates during an undead siege. These individuals work their muscles almost daily in practical application.
Most of the primary muscle groups on the human body are stressed during a zombie attack:• Deltoids, pectorals—pushing attackers, thrusting swords or spears
• Latissimus dorsi—pulling/extracting weapons, swinging bludgeons
• Quadriceps, hamstrings—running, climbing, kicking, and stomping
• Abdominals, obliques, core—every action previously listed
Although these are the major muscle groups on which you should focus in your fitness routine, you should also employ movements that require coordinating several of these muscle groups in unison. Straightforward, compound movements should be emphasized. Minimize exercises such as calf raises, concentration curls, and triceps extensions that work minor muscle groups. Develop the larger muscles aggressively, and the smaller ones will adapt accordingly.
You need to be able to accomplish your routine with minimal to no equipment (weights, mats, DVD player), silently (given your particular security situation), and in a confined area. This will replicate a possible scenario during a zombie outbreak in which you must remain quiet in a restricted space. Jogging becomes a luxury exercise during the course of an undead infestation. Given this unique situation, focusing on calisthenics and body-weight exercises is ideal. If you perform these movements regularly at an appropriate intensity level, you will become fit enough to defend yourself quite effectively for any duration.
Here are some foundational exercises to start your routine.
PUSH-UPS: The standard of upper-body-strength exercises. Even after decades of exercise fads, machines, and electronic “pulse” muscle developers, this exercise has stood the test of time and will build your shoulders, chest, and arms in addition to the complementary joints and ligaments that work in coordination with these muscles. Start with your palms and feet on the floor and your back straight. With your arms shoulder-width apart, bend at the elbows and lower your body until it nearly touches the floor. Press your body back up until your elbows are almost locked. For those who find this movement difficult, start with the easy version of this exercise, with your knees on the floor and legs crossed at the ankles. You can add variety to this movement and target complementary muscles more intensely by varying your hand positions so that your palms are closer or farther apart.
PULL-UPS: Coupled with push-ups, these two exercises form an excellent foundation for building a ghoul-destroying upper body. Pull-ups are infamously challenging for many people, so do not let the difficulty of this exercise dissuade you from including it in your routine. This exercise also requires use of a bar or overhang, but you can use any extended pipe, bar, or tree branch for this purpose. You can also purchase a removeable, door-mounted pull-up device, which has the advantage of being portable so that it can be taken with you should you need to abandon your shelter.
BURPEES: A simple yet intense exercise that has been used extensively in military physical training. Starting in a standing position, crouch down in a ball with your knees to your chest and hands on the ground. Extend both feet backward explosively while keeping your hands on the floor, ending in a push-up position. Do one complete push-up. Bring both feet back to your previous position, knees to chest. Explode upright and jump upward.
SQUATS: What push-ups are to your upper body, squats are for the lower half. Many are familiar with this exercise using heavy barbells. Body-weight squats, however, can be just as effective in building strength and stamina. Standing with legs shoulder width apart, bend at the knees and lower your hips until your thighs are parallel to the floor, and push yourself back up to standing position. Holding on to any accessible weight (logs, bricks, a small child) will increase the difficulty of this movement.
JUMPING JACKS: You may remember these from your high school physical education class. As simplistic as this movement may seem, jacks can build endurance when performed rapidly and in substantial quantity. Starting in a standing position with your arms at your sides, jump straight up and open your arms and legs apart in midair. Land with your hands clapped over your head and your feet wide apart, then jump back into the air and reverse your movement for one complete jack. In addition to improving your conditioning level, this exercise can stabilize and strengthen the joints in your lower legs. By building up the tendons and ligaments, jacks can help prevent one of the worst injuries you can suffer during an unanticipated evacuation—a twisted ankle.
BOX JUMPS: This exercise will build explosive strength in your legs, but does require a box or platform eighteen to twenty-four inches high. Simply jump up on the box and jump down for a set number of repetitions. Land with your knees bent when jumping both on and off the platform to absorb the shock of the landings.
Linking these exercises in sequence can form the structure of your zombie fitness routine. Following a circuit such as this will enable you to build and maintain strength and endurance in a short amount of time without the need for a large space or unique equipment. The following Zombie Basic Fitness Circuit (ZBFC) can be accomplished in a single room smaller than the size of the average U.S. prison cell (eight by twelve feet).
Zombie Basic Fitness Circuit • 20 push-ups
• 10 pull-ups
• 20 burpees
• 10 box jumps (or 20 jumping jacks, should a box be unavailable)
• 20 squats
Remember to move quickly between exercises with no rest in between. Keep track of the time required for you to complete the sequence in its entirety. Once you can accomplish this circuit easily, increase the repetitions for each exercise as appropriate. Log your time and repetitions and always try to best your previous numbers. Not only will this meticulous record keeping help increase your fitness levels, it can help preoccupy your mind while the living dead pound against the exteriors of your fortification.
Combat Exercises
You can also incorporate several exercises into your routine that both build overall fitness and simulate actions that you may have to execute during a combat scenario.
BLASTERS: A modification of the standard push-up; instead of raising your body to an elbows-locked position, thrust your body upward, attempting to lift your upper torso completely off the ground. The forceful movement will help build explosive power in your upper body. Training your body to initiate bursts of strength is also critical in close combat with the undead. This exercise can help build the strength to shove an attacking corpse away from you as far and as fast as possible. Imagine at the bottom of each repetition that rather than pushing off the floor, you are pushing a ravenous ghoul away from your body.
KICKOUTS: This technique has the same power-building premise as blasters, except for your lower body. Similar to a karate-style front-thrust kick, this exercise develops strength in your thighs and calves so that you can launch an attacker away from you with your feet. When using this type of movement on the living dead, the goal is to push the zombie’s torso forcefully away from your body, while at the same time avoiding its grasp. In a standing position, raise your knee to your chest and push outward with the ball of your foot, imagining that you are pushing a zombie away from you. After your leg is fully extended, retract your foot quickly to avoid being caught by an undead hand.
WOODCHOPPERS: Ideally this exercise would involve the actual splitting of lumber (as the adage goes, the person who chops the wood warms himself twice). Place a mark on a tree or any solid, freestanding object and try to strike that mark repeatedly with one-handed and two-handed swings. If an actual ax is not available, any long, heavy object such as a tree branch or sledgehammer will do. This exercise not only will help build strength in your upper body and core muscles, but it also develops the coordination required to strike a small target, such as the temporal area on the skull, accurately and repeatedly. Mentally picture the mark you are striking as the cranium of an attacking corpse.
SKULLPOPPERS: Another exercise that simulates an action that may be
required of you in undead combat. Place a car tire on a stable surface. Mark a spot on the tire. Raise your knee to your chest, then stomp on the mark as forcefully as you can. Execute a number of repetitions, making sure you complete an equal number of stomps with each leg to ensure balanced development. Building strength in this exercise will help when you must finish fallen or decapitated zombies with the heel of your boot.
Just as with the previous ZBFC routine, you can link the combat-oriented exercises listed earlier into one Zombie Combat Fitness Circuit (ZCFC):Zombie Combat Fitness Circuit • 25 blasters
• 25 kickouts (each leg)
• 25 woodchoppers (two-handed)
• 25 skullpoppers (each leg)
Ideally, you should create a unique circuit incorporating a variety of all the exercises previously listed to avoid the boredom that comes with repeating monotonous fitness routines. The more varied and persistently challenging you make your workouts, the more likely you are to look forward to completing them, and the fitter you will be against the undead.
DIET
People used to always ask me, “With all the science, technology, and research available, why is everyone still so fat?” What no one understood or accepted back then was that being fat did not necessarily mean not being fit. When the dead began to walk, that’s when everybody figured it out. As much as fitness professionals like to say they emphasize health, many just gave the public what it wanted—and it wanted six-pack abs, even if it meant getting them in the unhealthiest ways possible. They didn’t realize that having your body fat level so low may be nice eye candy, but if you need to walk fifty miles with a mob of inexhaustible creatures on your ass and the only food you’ve eaten in days is a wedge of moldy bread, a single-digit body fat percentage could be a death sentence.
