Motivate yourself to run faster with this new proposed enhancement for the “zombies chasing you” fitness genre.

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Background:

One great idea for encouraging people to get exercise is the 2012 phone app “Zombies, Run!” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombies,_Run).

This program gauges the user’s jogging progress by monitoring their phone’s GPS location, and it periodically warns the user that a horde of virtual zombies is chasing them. This should motivate the jogger to temporarily speed up (Figure 1) in order to avoid being devoured. (This also helps accomplish interval training.)

Fig. 1: Apparently it’s beneficial to a person’s health to combine short high-energy sprints with lower-intensity “normal” jogging. This is even more true if a sprint prevents the runner from being torn apart by a pack of zombies.

Proposal:

Strangely, there has never been any attempt to integrate ACTUAL zombies with this type of game. Let’s fix that.

We can imagine a system where the jogger wears a backpack with a motorized zombie arm in it. If the jogger doesn’t go fast enough (or perhaps just needs motivation), the arm will pop out of the backpack and start to claw at the jogger, motivating them to pick up the pace.

Fig. 2: The “Zombies, Run!” app already provides the audio part of the “being chased by zombies” experience, but this robot arm adds a crucial tactile component as well.

Additional Genre Ideas

For whatever reason, running is the only exercise genre that currently benefits from any sort of zombie-themed motivation. Maybe there should also be a “Zombies! Row faster on your rowing machine!” or “Zombies! Uh, walk faster on this elliptical machine?”

The integration of zombie-chasing-you motivation with expensive exercise bikes also seems like such an obvious feature. Maybe if the Peloton exercise bike adds this, that company can get its stock price back up (Figure 3).

Fig. 3: The drop in share price in 2022 was probably due to investors realizing that no “zombies-chasing-the-rider” integration would be coming to the Peloton any time soon. Tragic!

PROS: Should substantially increase the immersion of the “zombies chasing you” experience.

CONS: Running with a backpack is usually pretty annoying due to the tendency of the runner’s back to get all sweaty under the backpack. Maybe some padding or fans could help this. (Although if you’re running from zombies, “my back is too sweaty!!” is probably pretty low on the list of concerns.)

Originally published 2026-07-27.