Wolf Training: Abby’s Workout Regimen The Last Of Us II
Today we’ll be getting golfing lessons from Abigail Anderson, better known as Abby.
Abby is one of the best soldiers in the Wolf faction. Motivated by her desire to avenge her father, she spent 4 years sharpening herself into a weapon. She’s highly proficient in killing anything from humans to infected alike with a variety of weapons, from guns and machetes to even her bare hands. So let’s see what you would need to do to be able to smash infected like Abby.
Don’t care who the routine is based on? You just want it? Well, here you go!
Instructions on how to save the routine are included inside! This should last you 8-12 weeks.
How Realistic is Abby?
Abby fits in with the Last of Us style of being relatively grounded. With what we can see of the Wolf base, protein would be widely available. Being a valuable soldier, Abby would likely be allowed to eat at a caloric surplus so she could recover from her training and missions. The wolves have the resources to make their soldiers as strong and deadly as possible. Abby, being fueled by her desire for revenge, has the motivation to commit to the training.
Honestly, there are plenty of real-life examples of women who are comparable to Abby when it comes to their strength and their physique. Claire Max is one excellent example. Her arm definition puts poor Abby to shame.
So if you wanted to look and perform like Abby, you could.
What would that look like?
How does She Stack Up?
Abby comes in at 5’8/172cm and 170lbs/77kg. We see Abby run, climb, and jump while geared up with multiple weapons and a fully loaded backpack. This becomes more impressive when we see how much her gear weighs. I came up with about approximately 100 lbs of extra weight when we took into account all the weapons, ammo, healing items, and bombs that she could hold. It would be a bit lighter if you were playing on grounded and constantly running out of ammo, but we’re going with a fully kitted-out Abby. She’s running a life or death obstacle course while weighing nearly 270lbs.
We see another example of Abby’s physical strength early on. We’re able to find a leaderboard that lists some of the wolves' 1 rep maxes. It shows that Abby holds the women's record for bench pressing, with a total of 205lbs/93kg. This is a very strong bench press for a woman. What are the other records?
The Other Records:
Deadlift: 330lbs/149kg
Squat: 290lbs/131kg
Shoulder press: 130lbs/58kg
Bent Over Row: 145lbs/65kg
Leg Press: 395lbs/179kg
None of the above records are held by Abby, however, it is safe to assume that Abby is a close second for these lifts.
This gives us a full picture of Abby’s strength:
Bench Press: 205lbs/93kg
Deadlift: 315lbs/142.88kg
Squat: 275lb/124.74kg
Shoulder press: 125lbs/56.70kg
Bent over row: 135lbs/61.23kg
Leg press: 390lb/176.90kg
Naughty Dog deserves a ton of credit for listing out realistic numbers for the strength board. This is excellent attention to detail. A lot of other game companies wouldn’t have even given us numbers to analyze at all.
Overall, I’d say that Abby’s strength is entirely realistic for a woman of her size dedicated to getting as strong as possible. If you walk into a powerlifting gym, you’d see many women who could put up numbers comparable to Abby.
What should we eat to support this level of strength?
Diet
What are you going to eat in a zombie apocalypse to get big and strong? Well, if you happen to be a part of a militarized survival group with thousands of members that have locked down their city with an iron fist. You can probably eat whatever you want! The game makes a point to show us that The Wolves have tons of resources. They have an entire agricultural system set up with sheep, cows, and no shortage of crops. During parts of the game, we can even see that they have herds of deer close to their base, so if they wanted to they could hunt for supplemental protein.
Abby also benefits from being one of Isaac’s (the leader of The Wolves) favorite soldiers. She, and others in her crew, can skip the line with only minimal complaints from other wolves. So while we can’t get into the specifics of her diet, we can be sure that she eats whole foods, and likely has no problem getting enough protein in to build muscle.
While it would be highly dependent on a person’s current body composition and weight, in most cases, bulking would be the best way to increase muscle mass and strength.
What’s the Routine?
Abby typically does a mix of upper/lower/full body, and she either runs once a week, or not at all. The game does not specify what exercises she does on her training days.
So let’s fill in some gaps with a better routine.
Our goal here is to improve our strength and build muscle at the same time. This isn’t a body building routine, so some physique focused lifts, like lateral raises, were excluded. Abby cared about strength first, and her looks second. So let’s get into it!
We’re going to simplify the routine down to just an upper/lower split.
Full Training schedule
On the Upper days, you’re going to focus on building up your Bench Press, and as a side effect, your pecs, triceps, and deltoids will grow. We’re going to balance out the pushing movements by including some back work, which will improve your lats, biceps, and upper back musculature.
Lower body days can be thought of as Quad focused and Glute focused.
On Quad days, we’re going to work on improving our Squat and along with that, growing our quads. On the Glute-focused days, we’ll be prioritizing the Deadlift, and improving our glutes and hamstrings.
We can’t forget the combat. Abby isn’t a paragon of peace. I’d suggest that you look into taking some martial arts. Whatever you like is perfectly fine, but Boxing, Kickboxing/Muay Thai, would give you the majority of the skills that Abby has. This would help you maintain a lower body fat. Practicing a martial art helps sneak in cardio. It would also give you a very practical skill.
Cardio should be done in whatever way you find enjoyable. We know that Abby jogged, but we can also assume she trained cardio through sparring and rucking. If you can join a kickboxing class, twice a week, that’ll cover your cardio and get you ready to knock out some clickers. If not, try to find time to run 2-3 times a week for sessions of 20-30mins. I’d recommend running on your upper body days and rest days. For cardio, you must enjoy it. So get creative!
In case you missed the routine at the top, here it is one more time:
Now, if you are interested in something more specific to your goals, feel free to order a personalized workout program here!
