Training For The Apocalypse, Part #1- Better To Die Slow Or Go Zombie?

Jamie Chaos

March 12, 2014

One question often asked of strength coaches, and answered in some of the most bizarre ways, is that in which one seeks to know how best to train for a given sport. My answer is invariably that I have never done so, and barely even bother to train with much specificity for powerlifting. Instead, I train my body to ensure that I am essentially encased in the most brutally strong suit of muscular armor I can produce, leaving few to no weak points. This has always worked well for me, but for some reason people are hell bent on training specifically for sports.

I’ve never been, and never will be, in the business of hand feeding the Plague of Strength community, and I would assume sport specific conversation is boring an easy enough for anyone with more intellect than your average Bachelor contestant to figure out, so I’m definitely never going to write about it- I have far better ways to waste my time. Instead, I am going to drag you proverbial horses to the water, force your fucking heads into the river, and make you chug a bellyful of delicious, watery knowledge before you can come up for air. Put another way, I’ll bury my cock of wisdom down your throats and make you choke on it until I fire a couple of loads of genius directly into your stomach brain. However it helps you to understand what’s about to happen, I don’t care- just pick your poison.

When determining if and how your training is going to change for a given activity, be it participating in a 300 person gangbang, playing Australian Rules Football, or switching from powerlifting to strongman, it helps to make two lists- one for the the skills you will need in that activity, and another for your personal strength and fitness oriented weaknesses. For the latter, we’re looking at movements, planes of movement, strength endurance requirements, and cardio requirements that you can add into a program built around brutal strength. That’s right- brutal, single effort, catastrophic, soul-wrenching, face-smashing strength will always be the crux of a strength program, because it’s a fucking strength program. Anyone who tells you they don’t need to be brutally strong for the sport is 1) not an athlete, 2) certainly never going to be strong, and 3) a fucking simpleton.

Slow Apocalypse

This may not be considered one of the most exciting apocalyptic scenarios, but it’s certainly the most likely. Also described as post-peak oil, this sort of an apocalypse generally involves the destruction of the world’s remaining oil supply, the gradual decline of the West’s standard of living and concomitant fall of the federal government, and the struggles of the survivors to pick up the pieces. In this scenario, travel is extremely limited, electrical power is often unreliable and difficult to come by, and edible resources are either difficult to reach or in short supply. For more on this, see: Ready Player One, The Postmortal, Mad Max, Patriots, Slow Apocalypse, The Wind Up Girl.

Clearly, the variety of scenarios here can make training for the coming apocalypse a bit daunting- this apocalypse could come in any number of varieties, from battling punk-rock biker gangs clad head to toe in body armor constructed from car tires and athletic equipment to holing up in a farmhouse and battling the UN when they try to conscript you into some sort of global army for the purpose of putting the entire world under a single “benevolent” socialist regime. No matter how it happens, however, you’re going to need the following:

A reasonable degree of cardiovascular capacity. You’ll likely not need to run long distances, but you’ll definitely need to be able to hike long distances.
Crushing grip strength and endless grip endurance. In a slow apocalypse, there will be little to no electricity, which means you will be carrying and hauling things by hand. You’ll also engage in your fair share of hand to hand combat, in which grip strength is always a boon.
Incredible back strength and endurance. Again, you’ll be hauling and carrying a lot of shit. Back strength will be more necessary in the apocalypse than a handful of condoms in a Ugandan whorehouse.
Above average hand to hand combat skills. Between the roving gangs, starving thieves coming to loot your headquarters, UN storm troopers trying to manhandle you, and those pesky cannibals who always have a tendency to get a bit rapey, being able to defend yourself will be key.
Combined arm and shoulder strength and endurance. All of your daily activities will rely heavily on the strength and endurance of your arms and shoulders- you’ll be erecting fences, digging ditches, mending all sorts of broken shit, and battling ne’er-do-wells constantly.Weak arms will mean that you’ll likely end up in a gimp suit with a constant flow of semen leaking from your ass.

You don’t have to be jacked to thrive in the apocalypse, apparently.

Using myself as the trainee, I know my weaknesses associated with the foregoing are:

Cardio. I have the cardiovascular capacity, at the moment, of an emphysematic who barely survived a mustard gassing 50 years ago and only has one lung. I literally have gotten tunnel vision while masturbating in the last week. It’s possible someone on an iron lung could outpace me in a three mile race. As such, I will need to up my game.
Flexibility. Though I didn’t mention it above, I am so inflexible I have trouble putting on shoes and socks, and my lat cramps horribly when I wipe my ass. That might prove to be a problem if I have to actually use my massive strength for a real world purpose.
Grip Strength. My grip strength is more than adequate, but having worked white collar jobs my entire life, it’s hardly what it would need to be to support constant manual labor.

I would prefer to do partner assisted cardio with this broad.

The Mad Max Says Fuck Yo’ Couch Program

Because I always train 6 days a week, we will stick with that. I’ll assume that the coming collapse is imminent and that I have a rough idea of when the bottom will drop out. Thus, for the next 16 weeks I will do the following:

Day 1

15 Minutes sledgehammer slams on tire (for cardio and grip)

300 pullups, 600 dips

High Pulls- 6×3

Snatch Grip Behind the Neck Strict Press- 10×10

Various arm work

Day 2

Krav Maga or MMA

Front Squat- 6×3

Stone Loading

Calves and Abs

Day 3

Same as Day 1

Bench Press- 6×3, 5×1, 2 death sets with 60% 1RM

Push Press- 4×3, 4×1

Various arm work

Day 4

Same as Day 2

Shrugs- 8×8

Pendlay Rows- 6×3

Hamstrings- high rep

Calves- high rep

Forearms- high rep

Day 5

Steady state cardio- weighted vest walking or something similar

Speed Squats or Jump Squats- 6×3 (for explosive strength)

Close grip Bench Press- 5×3

Pull-Throughs- 6×3

Weighted Pullups- 5×5

Day 6

Strongman Implements- Mix and Match (to build raw, real-world strength handling ungainly objects)

The program above would be easily modifiable, would meet all of the goals set forth, and would build a serious foundation of strength on which you could call in any situation. The interesting thing, here, is that this program doesn’t really differ appreciably from what I already do, save for the cardio, mma, and strongman. As I stated at the outset, just about any non-retarded strength program should give you a great base of strength from which you could survive an apocalypse. the problem with the programs most people pick, however, is that they’re so light on accessory training for fear of “overtraining” that they build into your body gaping holes in smaller muscle groups that play supporting roles. For real world applications, it’s these muscles that actually need the most attention and conditioning. Despite what the internet gurus might tell you, neglecting your accessory work is retarded, and if you find yourself puking blood or turning into a bright green fairy or whatever the fuck is supposed to happen when the overtraining boogeyman visits your butthole in the middle of the night, you probably have AIDS and should head to the hospital. It’s not possible for a healthy person to be that weak.

Zombie Apocalypse

Ah, the zombie apocalypse. Who among us hasn’t thought long and hard about the zombie apocalypse, and what our course of action might be during one? Well, I have news for you- although you might think you have the perfect plan for the zombie apocalypse, mine beats the dogshit out of yours for a variety of reasons: 1) you’ve not taken into account the fact that proper attire in a zombie apocalypse is critical, and 2) your method of combat for such an event pales in comparison to my own.

Looking stupid is far less a concern to me than surviving, obviously.

We will start at the beginning- news reports around the country start popping up with accounts of vicious bouts of cannibalism. States of emergency are declared. What’s my first step? I head to my local mall for a couple of sets of motorcycle racing leathers, steel toed boots, motorcycle helmet, and a couple of sets of goggles. Then I hit up my local army navy surplus for a combat tomahawk, a Camelbak, and a couple of combat knives after filling my car with all of the non-perishable food (mostly chili, for the protein) and water I can fit in there. My logic- no human bite could make it through motorcycle leathers, and the extra padding in the racing leathers will give me extra protection. Motorcycle racing gloves are basically armor plated, so I won’t be that asshole in every zombie film that dies after getting nipped on the hand doing something stupid. I can always add 4 sets of soccer shin guards- one pair to act as greaves, one pair to shield my forearms, and the extra pairs can be cut up with tin snips and sewn into the leathers as extra protection from bites. In that full regalia, I would be all but impervious to short-lived attacks by up to five or six zombies.

I don’t know if she looks trustworthy, but I would claim she was even as she was stealing my kidneys on the off chance I could lick that retarded panda tattoo.

After weathering the initial culling, people are going to start venturing out looking for other survivors. Once I’ve got a crew of about ten or so trustworthy people, we make quick forays into places where we knew the police tried to “hold the line”. Those places ought to be littered with discarded riot shields, which we will collect and store. Having done so, we will find a solid brick building with few windows (or barred windows) and a very good line of sight in all directions, obtain heavy chain link fencing, and set up a perimeter with that chain link. Having done so, we will then send out teams to obtain brick and mortar for the purposes of building a ten foot wall inside the initial perimeter with firing ports set into the brick at regular intervals at varying heights.

Once the wall is erected, we begin training with the riot shields and homemade spears in group combat tactics using a phalanx. That’s right- we would use the ancient phalanx against zombies, which would work perfectly and should result in zero cases of infection when used in concert with my motorcycle leather-based armor, and would draw no attention from other humans or distant zombies because this style of combat would be relatively quiet. As we picked up more survivors, we could incorporate skirmishers to draw in zombies for slaughter and to attack zombie hordes from the rear, and employ small groups with firearms to deal with brigands and raiders.

Lest you worry that I’m simply buying in to the myths of the ancient Greeks and Spartans, consider this- even in a situation wherein you’re facing both 28 Days Later style sprinter zombies and the slower, less active Romero-esque shambler zombies, a phalanx would work well. A ten man team could form two lines of five in picked ground to fight in choke points into which zombies could be forces, as the Spartans did at Thermopylae, and larger groups of twenty could easily hold their ground in open ground with the first line going for head shots and the second line backing them up with more spears and the use of their “pig-sticker” butt spikes to ensure the job is finished as the line surged forward. These Phalanxes would have no need of the insanely long Macedonian spear, which would make close quarters combat impractical, but would rather use seven foot double-tipped spears and cudgels. Just as the Greeks gave rise to Western civilization in the past, their military tactics would again allow Western civilization to rise from the ashes of a zombie apocalypse, all because I’m a fucking genius. For more information on zombie apocalypses, I recommend: The Rising, Doghouse, The Horde, The Stink of Flesh.

Strengths This Would Require:

Incredibly strong shoulders with preternatural strength endurance. Fending off the zombie hordes with one arm will be brutal, but continually thrusting your spear overhand will be even moreso. Lacking shoulder strength or endurance here means you not only turn yourself into a zombie char siu bao, but you turn your whole crew into a veritable George Romero-approved pu pu platter.
Legendary arm strength and endurance. Same deal- unless you feel like getting nibbled on, time to do some curls for the girls.
Static pec strength more long lasting than Nick Manning in a porn shoot filled with ugly broads and a cock shot full of Novocaine. What do you think all of that forward push strength is going to flow through in a phalanx? How about your left pec. Bench bros of the world, unite!
Tree trunk legs that are unstoppable over a short range of motion. No need to squat ATG here, USAPL apologists- you’ve just got to be able to flex and extend, with a hell of a lot of force and support strength, over a few inches of ROM. Phalanxes might surge, but you’re still not taking huge steps or leaping out of a third world squat- the key here is to be able to hold your position against a great weight.
Grip strength that would put Diesel Crew to shame. Just holding a fucking spear, nevermind stabbing rotting corpses in the face with it, for long periods of time would require massive grip strength and endurance.

Using myself as the trainee, I know my weaknesses associated with the foregoing are:

Grip Strength. As I stated above, my grip strength is more than adequate, but having worked white collar jobs my entire life, it’s hardly what it would need to be to support constant manual labor or battling zombie with a spear. Since I don’t think strapping up on the spear is feasible, I might want to work that grip.

Since cardio isn’t an overriding factor in this situation, I would happily use this broad to help me repopulate the world, provided one of our work-camp slaves would raise the kids and I never had to see them.