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Professor E. Paul Zehr Says YOU Could Be Batman! (If you trained for more than 20 years and had LOTS of extra money)
I found an interesting article at LiveScience.com about the plausability of becoming a real-life Batman. Here's what he says you would need to actually become as good as the "Dark Knight":
Holy workout, Batman
Matching Batman's strength might very well be the easiest of your endeavors, according to Zehr, but this will take some time. Power training with weights every day, and knowing what you're doing, you would need three to five years to reach your maximum physical strength capacity. Arnold Schwarzenegger, for example, trained for more than five years before winning his first Mr. Universe title.
Genetics help here, said Zehr. You could workout as hard as Schwarzenegger or Batman and not put on that kind of bulk. This is a result of many genetic factors, such as having high concentrations of the myostatin protein in your body, which hinders muscle tissue growth.
Batman likely didn't have a myostatin issue.
But, Batman is more than muscle-bound. He's a master of judo, tae kwon do, ninjutsu and perhaps a few more martial arts. To master these, Zehr said, Batman would need an additional six to twelve years of training. Then there's the poise needed to bring all these skills together on the street in real-life situations, what police officers call reality-based training. Zehr tacks on another six to eight years.
Being a billionaire, pre-2008 recession, makes things easier. Batman's day job as Bruce Wayne seems to be merely maintaining a playboy facade, allowing the freedom to train daily. Nevertheless, even with Batman's inherited riches, both financial and genetic, you'd still need about 15 to 20 years to prepare for the job.
But could you sustain it?
Staying alive
The hardest part about being Batman, Zehr said, is staying Batman. Injuries would surely take their toll. The constant demand on his body likely would lead to tendonitis, repetitive stress injuries and quite possibly arthritis, as seen in older and retired professional football players.
Also, Batman gets beat up badly on most outings. He has taken many blows to the head and certainly has suffered from multiple concussions. The long-term effects of this include memory loss and depression, making crime-fighting all the more difficult.
It is in fact unlikely Batman could return to the streets night after night, Zehr said. He would need remarkable healing powers. It is possible to condition one's bones, like muscles, to become stronger. Less is known, however, of a person's genetic predisposition to heal quickly from serious injury.
Take this job and...
Stress could very well do you in, too, if you were Batman. Consider the high rates of suicide and depression among police officers and soldiers, people who have to face crime and death every day. Batman needs staggering determination. And he can't draw strength from his family — he has none, nor does he have time of any serious relationship.
Batman's likely sleep deprived. It wouldn't be so bad to always work the nightshift, although nightshift workers do have higher rates of cancer and other diseases. But Batman is up during the day, as well.
The take-home message might sound like no one can be Batman, or at least not for long. But don't let that get you down, Zehr said. Batman does teach us one thing: that we can turn an adverse event (in Batman's case, seeing his parents murdered) into a defining moment to maximize our potential and do the world a little good.
By the way, if you're interested in this story, you can get Zehr's book "Becoming Batman: The Possibility of a Superhero" from Amazon by clicking the link here, or check out some more books about the psychology of becoming the big, bad, Bat (which'll also support us) here.
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