Becoming Batman Read online

  In the end, Batman is the sum of his parts. He does not have his spectacular overall abilities because of ultimate performance in any one thing. Rather, he has elevated ability in all things which, taken together, give him his near-superhuman capacity for costumed crime fighting.

  To evaluate the possibility of becoming Batman, we start with a description of the physical characteristics of our eventual superhero. By seeing what happens to Batman, you will explore the extreme limits of human performance. We will evaluate if there are real scientific underpinnings of these achievements. If Batman is considered the most realistic of superheroes, does that mean that becoming Batman could be a reality?

  I have written this book in a way that I think Batman the detective would have appreciated. Batman is, above all, an information hound. As such, I provide much of the background of our explorations as we move along. Some of the history of key early discoveries and what those discoveries meant to science are things Batman would certainly be keen to learn.

  The book is divided into five parts that relate to different aspects of Batman’s physical development, skill training, and refinement. In Part I, we start with a fully fledged and “finished” Batman and cast backward in time to think about what his physical state was before he became Batman. That is, we take a long look at Bruce Wayne. What would he have been like physically had he not become Batman? How much could he really improve his physical prowess with training? It is important to think about his “trainability” in order to understand Bruce’s turning into Batman. To help with this process I created an identical twin for Bruce Wayne—named Bob Wayne. I explain what Bruce Wayne achieved while becoming Batman by comparing what Bob achieves (or actually doesn’t achieve).

  Part II is all about understanding physical performance and acquiring prowess. How much can you improve factors like strength with physical training? What are reasonable expectations and what are the extreme outer limits for performance for Batman? Part III looks at acquiring the physical movement skills needed to become Batman. The main concentration is on the learning of motor skills in the nervous system through training in martial arts. What actually happens in the brain when we learn and perfect movement skills? What type of skill training would Batman need to become the Dark Knight?

  Part IV examines the application of all the training and hard work. We learn what Batman could really achieve in action. How hard and fast can he kick and punch? How many bad guys could he fight at once? I’ll explain how much energy is expended during this training and consider how much Batman would need to eat and drink every day to keep from wasting away.

  Part V details pitfalls along the path to becoming Batman. What injuries would likely be sustained from his extreme training and from his crime-fighting encounters? What is it like to work night shifts all the time as does Batman? Would Batman take steroids? When should Batman retire? The answers to these questions will probably surprise you.

  Together we will evaluate what it would take physically to actually become Batman. As you will see, it won’t be easy to do. But it will be fun and easy to read about. Along the way you will learn about the extremes of human adaptability and the scientific basis for physical training and learning.

  My interests in writing and in science were kindled and fed by numerous teachers. However, in particular I would credit my inspiration for reading (which led to the desire to write) to Doug Pratt who taught at Elderslie Central School in Ontario. My interest in science can be traced back to my biology teacher Larry Richardson and for writing to my English teacher Ross King at Chesley District High School.

  I have been greatly inspired in all of my scientific activities by my two main mentors, Digby Sale at McMaster University and Richard Stein at the University of Alberta. I also thank my sister Pat Zehr for showing me that, no matter the hard work required, you must always pursue your goals.

  I humbly thank my martial arts mentors Shane Higashi Sensei, Kisho Inoue Sensei, and Tsuyoshi Chitose Sensei. Also, I thank my first martial arts teacher, Police Constable Peter Zehr, for getting me started in karate and then serving as my martial arts role model.

  I thank my mom, Marlene Mary Zehr, for supporting my interests in reading—including many, many comic books—throughout my childhood . . . and beyond.

  I am grateful to Marc Klimstra for reading and providing helpful comments on an earlier draft of the manuscript. Roderick Haesevoets provided helpful assistance with the final preparation of the figures. I thank my colleagues in the Rehabilitation Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Victoria for their support and understanding throughout the process of writing this book. At UVic, Ryan Rhodes deserves special commendation for helping kick start me into finally writing this book instead of just talking about it all the time! Related to the motivation for writing the book, I need to mention also Sean and Tracey Turriff. Without their help, particularly early on, my road forward would have been very difficult indeed.

  I continue to remain impressed by the level of professionalism and competence at the Johns Hopkins University Press. In particular I thank Vince Burke for his help throughout the entire process and Michele T. Callaghan for her outstanding copyediting.

  Last, I thank the three ladies in my life, Lori, Andi, and Jordan, for just being who they are.

  PART I

  BAT-BUILDING BLOCKS

  Exploring what Batman became

  by beginning where he started

  CHAPTER 1

  The “Before” Batman

  HOW BUFF WAS BRUCE?

  He will become the greatest crimefighter the world has ever known . . . It won’t be easy.

  —Batman: Year One (1986) by Frank Miller

  At some point in your life—maybe even just this year—you probably tried an activity that combined physical ability and movement skill. It might have been baseball, gymnastics, hockey, or karate. You likely achieved some measure of success and saw various physical changes in your body. After a time, it’s also likely that you no longer approached the activity with the same fervent, unrelenting passion and may have even stopped participating altogether. Slowly, those beneficial physical changes simply faded away.

  This is pretty normal, really. It takes considerable devotion to performance to achieve and maintain a high level of fitness. What would happen, though, if you did make that commitment? What would your life be like? What could you achieve and how much could your body change?

  You may be thinking that your level of success in improving physical performance depends on the condition of your body when you start. In other words, on the “raw material” that you start out with. We have all seen images of Batman in action in comic books and movies. Batman is depicted as a skilled and powerful athlete with marvelous capabilities operating at the peak of human performance. But what are the limits of human performance, and how much did Batman’s body improve through training? To explore these questions we will investigate Batman’s training as he evolved from plain-old Bruce Wayne to someone who “strikes terror into the hearts of Gotham City’s worst”—The Batman.

  Everyone has a conception of what Batman is like: a powerful and well-built man. However, to understand the process of actually transforming an average guy (well, in this case an extremely wealthy average guy with unlimited financial resources and social contacts) into a man functioning at the peak of human performance, you need first to get a handle on what Batman was like before all his training. Basically, what we want to know is, “What sort of physical characteristics did Bruce Wayne have to start with?” Or, in other words, “How buff was Bruce Wayne?”

  Well, in short, not that buff. Bruce Wayne was a pretty solid man with an athletic build, for sure. But we want to understand the transformation from a scientific perspective. Together we’ll explore scientifically accepted measures to quantify physical changes in Bruce Wayne as he trained to become Batman. Along the way, we will ask, What’s in our bodies? How can that potential for performance gains and responses to training be estim
ated or measured? After we have discussed how to determine changes in your body, we’ll take another look at Wayne’s original physical characteristics.

  You Can’t Judge a Bat by His Cover

  One way to think about the “buffness” of Bruce or Batman is to talk about body composition. This means asking, What are the relative amounts of different tissues in our bodies? There are complex multiple-part models that can be used to examine the actual cell mass of the body (and that are useful for diagnostic medical evaluations). But for defining changes in body composition related to exercise activity, a basic two-part model works fine.

  The two parts of the model are (1) adipose tissue—fat or fat mass, and (2) pretty much everything else. The “everything else” category includes mostly bone and muscle and is together called lean body mass. You might think you can easily tell the difference between fat mass and lean body mass just by looking at someone. You see a person and can tell whether they look fat, thin, or average. But the relative amounts of adipose and lean body mass change are determined by our exercise status and training as well as by our nutritional intake. You cannot really see this with the naked eye, so how can you measure it? One way might be to step on a scale and simply weigh yourself. But that will only tell you your actual mass, which includes everything in your body. To isolate the different components means taking some other measures.

  For the longest time the “gold standard” measure for body composition was to do hydrodensitometry. This means finding out how much you weigh when you are immersed in water by using the Archimedes principle (say Eureka!). According to this principle, a body (in this case a real human body) submerged in water has a counter-force of buoyancy that is equal to the weight of the displaced water. Bone and muscle—the main components of the lean body mass—are denser than water and tend to sink. Lean body mass is about 70% water, while fat mass is about 10% water. As a result, fat mass tends to float and makes the body lighter in the water. Given that lean tissue sinks and fat floats in water, your underwater weight can be used as an estimate of the amount of fat mass you carry.

  Conducting this measurement is rather difficult to do in your own bathtub with a standard bathroom scale. To understand why, let’s talk for a minute about balloons. A balloon filled with air will float. Well, your lungs act just like balloons when they have air in them, and this makes it difficult to measure your actual weight in water. You’d need a way to measure the volume of air expelled when you breathe out as much air as possible. First, you’d have to take a deep breath, completely submerge yourself in water, and then be able to measure your weight. You’d take a second measurement after completely expelling air from your lungs. Perform a few calculations and you’d have a good idea about your body composition. But all this would require special equipment and special knowledge.

  As it turns out, you cannot really do this at home. And the other ways to measure Batman’s body composition aren’t do-it-yourself projects either. One method would be to take a DEXA (dual x-ray absorptiometry) scan of Batman. This method relies on the differing absorption of low-level x-rays into body fat, bone, and muscle to calculate lean body mass. Similarly, CT (computerized tomography) or MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans of the body could give accurate data on body composition. All three types of scans are expensive and are not readily available to the average person.

  There are a couple of additional measures that are cheaper and easier to do but that aren’t nearly as accurate. One is using calipers to pinch the skin and fat layers at different parts of your body and measuring how thick the layers are. The other is bioelectrical impedance, which works by passing an electrical current through the body. Current travels at different speeds through fat mass and lean body mass because of differences in water content. If you used bioelectrical impedence on Batman when he was dehydrated from a night of crime fighting or had just eaten a meal after a midnight prowl, you’d get different answers. All these measures would be useful for finding the changes in body composition that would take place as Bruce becomes Batman; they aren’t necessarily good at telling us what his body composition is at any given time.

  Are All Bruces Created Equal?

  Wouldn’t it be easier if you could just measure Batman’s height and weight and get some kind of indication of his body composition? Before we can answer this question, we have to look at another measure called the body mass index (or BMI for short), which gives a ballpark estimate of whether Batman has a “healthy” or not so healthy weight. Your family physician probably calculated your BMI at your last physical, and BMI is regularly used in many health surveys. The calculation involves looking at your body mass as a function of your height.

  But where can we get an estimate of Batman’s or Bruce Wayne’s height and weight in the first place? What does “healthy” or “unhealthy” weight even mean? Is there an amount that an individual with certain characteristics should weigh? In one corner, an endless stream of diet experts tells everyone how much they should (or more often should not) weigh. In another corner, insurance companies use BMI and other indicators to determine whether to provide life insurance to someone. For these purposes, insurers use guides such as the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company tables.

  According to the most recent of these tables (from 1983!), the “ideal weight” for a man ages 25–59, who is 1.9 meters (6′2″) tall with a large frame is between 77 and 89 kilograms (172 and 197 pounds).

  TABLE 1.1. Comparison of Bruce Wayne / Batman and other athletes

  I put Bruce right in the middle of this range and give him a weight of 83 kilograms (185 pounds). I also estimate that he would have been an average North American male with about 20% body fat. Batman, in contrast, would be in much better shape and have around 10% body fat.

  For comparison purposes, let’s look a little closer at the concept of body composition by considering a person in both extremes from Batman with respect to body fat, endurance cyclist like Lance Armstrong and former power builder like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Lance Armstrong would have averaged around 8–10% body fat over his cycling career. Competition bodybuilders such as Arnold would average about 3–5% body fat (only during competition because too little body fat is unhealthy).

  You can find more about this in Table 1.1, which summarizes some basic physical characteristics for Batman and Bruce Wayne. This will help you understand what physical state Bruce was in when he began his training and how far he went as he became Batman.

  We now have a baseline from which to judge the average Bruce Wayne. This will allow us to determine what type and degree of training would have been required to change Bruce Wayne into Batman. Now let’s discuss different body types and how they respond to training.

  Does Body Type Affect How Buff Can Bruce Get?

  One of my favorite scenes from Batman comics on the topic of Batman’s physical condition is in the story “Night of the Reaper” (Batman #237, 1971). It contains probably one of the biggest understatements ever made in comics (in my biased view). Batman infiltrates a costume party and one of the other partygoers remarks on his excellent build. Batman responds with “Uh, thanks! I exercise a lot!” Does he ever!

  We will talk a great deal in this book about the types of exercise Bruce did to become Batman and the effect of that exercise on his muscles and bones. But here I want to look at the concept of body type. To learn more about this concept, let’s travel back to the 1940s when psychologist William Sheldon first characterized people according to body types using something called “somatotopy” (literally, body categories). According to this scheme, human bodies fall into three categories: ectomorphic, endomorphic, and mesomorphic. Although these categories can be useful in a general way, Sheldon also tried to relate them to criminality, personality, and other matters having to do with mental function. These concepts are now recognized as totally lacking scientific validity. Bear in mind that he came up with these ideas when things such as phrenology (measuring mental capacity by examining bumps on the sku
ll!) were in vogue. Regardless of the poor conclusions of the original model, body typing can still be useful for physical characterization.

  Let’s take a closer look at the three body types. Ectomorphs have slim bodies and difficulty gaining weight, while endomorphs have thicker bodies and gain weight (particularly fat) easily. Mesomorphs are between ecto- and endomorphs, with a strong facility for gaining muscle mass. Although people cannot be categorized strictly according to these terms, they may be predisposed to one type. Mesomorphs constitute the largest grouping for athletes. Emaciated fashion models are an extreme example of an ectomorph.

  Scientists now use a modified form of this typing to calculate somatotopy scores, recognizing that many people don’t fit neatly into one category. Based upon his obvious response to training, Batman would be considered a blend of mesomorph and ectomorph. He began as a mesomorph but reached his full potential as he underwent training. In Chapter 2, I will return to a discussion of how much Batman could really achieve as a function of his training and how much as a function of his genetic makeup.