Haha, I got back to playing some IVAN recently, and the game continued to surprise me.
I've discovered an awesome (and I wouldn't call it "abuse", really) situation for training: Fighting a zombie torso with a carrot!
For some reason, an equipped carrot is well capable of cutting off every bodypart of a zombie, but doesn't hurt the torso. And since torso can't hurt you and you can attack them ad infinitum, it's a great way to rise dexterity and arm strength!
There are side-effects, obviously. First of all, carrots rot. Second of all, l.e.p.r.o.s.y.