As a fellow newbie I get to be the voice of dissent. <img src="/forum/images/icons/tongue.gif" alt="" />
There are some terms to clarify first. My memory is not great and this comes from some things I did many years ago, so evaluate it before jumping in.
First, seperate the terms "strength" from "muscular endurance". Stength will let you lift a heavy object, muscular endurance will let you lift it often. Strength training, like weight lifting with heavy weights, tears the muscle structure slightly if done properly. It takes a day or so to heal, but will heal stronger than before. Kinda like super glue where the new is stronger than the original.
If you "do weights" with less than "heavy", you build your body's ability to keep muscles going (endurance). The body needs to get nutrients and oxygen to the muscles and flush out the waste produced by muscular activity. This is what your basketball coach was doing with the weights.
Both types are beneficial. Strength training builds raw muscle mass which gives you more pure strength for whopping those guys who thing a girl can't hit hard. (Not me!) It also increases your calories required to maintain, so if you don't increase your food intake you'll lose weight. Strength is also a component of damage resistance. Strong muscles are less likely to be injured in normal activity. Flexible is the other component.
Muscle endurance will let you continue long workouts without losing form as quickly. It will also increase your recovery time, I believe.
Part of the strength training issue is that most techniques we do use both large muslces like your biceps and smaller ones like your wrist muscles. With equal endurance in both, the smaller will tire out before the larger are really warmed up. Similar to a child and adult doing the same yardwork. The solution for this is to target your weight training to hit the large muscles first. With the example of the weighted bar I spread my hands further apart than would be on the grip. This tires my wrists less than my arms. I do a couple Segnos *very slowly* to ensure all the muscles feel it.
This is important because large muscles will often compensate for smaller ones in the same area. Thus just doing the segno with a regular weight will not necessarily build the smaller muscles. It has the added benefit of pointing out where your stance is less than firm. <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />
So the answer to the question is a serious workout. It consists of general weight training for overall muscle strength (2x week max), skill specific weight to ensure full attention is given (2x-3x week max), aerobic exercise for cardiovascular (3x week at ~30 minutes each), stretching for flexibility, basic practice of skills for technical accuracy, and intent practice of skills for flow and transition. And that's without a partner!
Regular training with the segno and such will give you some of the above, but it won't provide the full benefit. Since you're just starting though it should start your body heading in the right direction. For the record, my training schedule is:
M/W/F Skill training, weighted weapon, cardio wrapup.
T/R (pending our upcoming home move) General weights and stretching
S/S Recover from MTWRF!
