To survive in Project Zomboid, you must explore the world, gather resources, and defend yourself against the undead. However, it’s essential also to prioritize staying healthy by doing exercise.
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Not all players know how to exercise and get rid of exercise fatigue. So this post will give some details.
In Project Zomboid, you can do the exercise by pressing “H” to open the health tab, selecting the “Exercise” tab, choosing the exercise you want, and clicking “OK”. Exercise causes fatigue, which can be treated using painkillers. However, the painkillers are temporary, so you need to exercise frequently to increase your Regularity.
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How to Exercise in Project Zomboid
There are several ways to level up your passive skill levels (Strength and Fitness), including sprinting, attacking zombies, or using melee weapons.
However, exercising is considered the most sustainable and safest method, as you can do it whenever you’re free and completely undamaged by the undead.
Prepare to Exercise
First, you need a safe place to exercise. It’s too dangerous to squat or do push-ups in a forest full of zombies. A house or base that has chairs or beds nearby so that you can rest on them is the best idea.
Exercise will cause thirst and hunger, so pack enough food and water in your inventory.
Remember to take off your excess clothes to avoid overheating. To remove them, right-click on the clothes in your inventory and select “Unequip”.
To exercise, press “H” to open the “Health” tab, or you can click the heart icon on the left side of the screen. Click on the “Exercise” tab, which lists exercises, the time to exercise, and the benefits of each exercise.
The default time for exercising is 10 minutes. There are two buttons for increasing or decreasing the time. Keep in mind that exercising too much will cause extreme fatigue and overheating. Thus the ideal workout is between 10-30 minutes.
You can only do one exercise each time. So, select the exercise you want and left-click on the circle to tick it, then select “OK”. Currently, there are 7 exercises:
- Squats: Squat is a leg exercise. You’ll gain 4 Fitness XP per squat.
- Push-ups: Push-up targets your chest. Each push-up provides 6 Strength XP.
- Sit-ups: An popular exercise for abdominals, each sit-up offers 2 Fitness XP.
- Burpees: This exercise hits most of your body parts. You’ll receive 3.2 Fitness and 4.8 Strength XP for each burpee.
- Barbell Curl: A chest and arm exercise that requires a barbell. The exercise is unavailable unless you equip the barbell. Search the locker rooms in fire stations, house garages, or the March Ridge community center to get a barbell. Each barbell curl provides 7.2 Strength XP.
- Dumbbell Press: Similar to the barbell curl, you can do this exercise if only you equip the dumbbell, an item found in the mini storage facilities. You’ll gain 7.2 Strength XP for each press.
- Bicep Curl: Bicep curl also requires the dumbbell. You’ll get 7.2 Strength XP for a curl.
Generally, burpees are the most beneficial exercise, as they offer both XP for Strength and Fitness skills. In particular, squats are optimal for Fitness, while push-ups are perfect for Strength skills.
Things that Affect Exercise in Project Zomboid
The occupation and traits strongly affect your workout. For example, the Fitness Instructor adds 3 Fitness levels and 2 Sprinting levels, along with a greater ability to manage fatigue.
Very Underweight, Underweight, Overweight, and Very Overweight are traits that negatively affect the Fitness XP you can gain. You can get rid of these traits by eating foods with high (or low) calories. Keep your weight between 76–84 to avoid being Underweight or Overweight.
Wakeful, Sleepyhead, and Restless Sleeper are traits that affect your sleep. The more you sleep, the less gain you get.
Macros play a vital role in boosting your gained XP. For example, consuming Protein Boost will give you 7.2 Strength XP (instead of 4.8) in burpees. A high protein diet (The amount of protein is between 50 and 300) provides a 1.5 multiplier Strength XP gain. Thus, it’s advisable to track your calories and macros regularly and add more protein sources if possible.
Sitting on the ground to rest significantly improves your endurance and regeneration.
After exercising, you may suffer from pain, preventing you from fighting for a day or longer. However, the duration of this fatigue can be reduced by exercising regularly.
How to Get Rid of Exercise Fatigue in Project Zomboid
Although exercising provides benefits, it also has drawbacks.
Exercise will cause fatigue in your body, leading to pain, depending on which body parts you worked out previously. The severity of pain depends on the time spent doing exercises and the regularity of exercise.
Those pains can reduce your melee damage and attack speed, as well as your pace. Fortunately, the pain can be treated with painkillers. The painkillers can be found in medicine cabinets in residential houses or pharmacy stores.
Nevertheless, painkillers are temporary treatments. As time goes by, you have to increase your “Regularity”, which shows on the exercise menu.
Regularity refers to the frequency of a particular exercise. In other words, the more time you spend on one specific exercise, the higher the regularity. And the higher the regularity, the lower the severity of the pain.
Overall, it takes a significant amount of time, possibly weeks or months, to exercise efficiently, so you should be prepared for the long haul.
That’s how to exercise in Project Zomboid!
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