The science of becoming batman - how to become a superhero without any superpowers.

I would venture a guess (without wanting to offend any of my friends and readers) that most of us fall into the same 'mediocre' level of natural human development. Other than Angus, Wessel, and Gus I don't know any superheroes.... And then, Gus is only special because he has a supernatural love, Pete is a superhero because he's kind, caring and courageous, and Wessel... Well, he was first in line when they gave out brains.

As for me... well, no superpower that I can detect (although my daughter does thing I am great! In spite of the fact that I 'walk funny' - perhaps it is my 'bionic leg' that makes me special!? For more about that simply search this site for 'motorbike' and 'accident')...

But, here's the kicker! Did you know that you could (possibly) become a superhero just by doing a few special exercises!? Well, that's what the author of this new books suggests.

If I were to be a superhero I would ask that I get a costume that was not too tight (otherwise I would have to stay in shape just to wear it), Oh, and I would ask that I can wear my underpants under my pants (i.e., UNDER pants... ) not like Superman, Batman and a host of other so called 'super' heros... Not so super when you can't figure out how to wear your underpants, now are you!?

E. Paul Zehr has a book coming out in October called Becoming Batman: The Possibility of A Superhero, about the physical and mental training one would need to become a superhero without any supernatural powers. Zehr, a professor of kinesiology and neuroscience at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, is also a karate expert. Over at Scientific American, JR Minkel interviews Zehr about how one might train as the Dark Knight. From SciAm:

What's most plausible about portrayals of Batman's skills?You could train somebody to be a tremendous athlete and to have a significant martial arts background, and also to use some of the gear that he has, which requires a lot of physical prowess. Most of what you see there is feasible to the extent that somebody could be trained to that extreme. We're seeing that kind of thing in less than a month in the Olympics.

What's less realistic?A great example is in the movies where Batman is fighting multiple opponents and all of a sudden he's taking on 10 people. If you just estimate how fast somebody could punch and kick, and how many times you could hit one person in a second, you wind up with numbers like five or six. This doesn't mean you could fight four or five people. But it's also hard for four or five people to simultaneously attack somebody, because they get in each other's way. More realistic is a couple of attackers.

Batman and science (Scientific American), Pre-order Becoming Batman (Amazon)