Fitness in the Fight

[Brent Lambell]

I tried out the hindu push-ups last night after reading the post here and I concur, they are a totally different exercise from a traditional push-up. Its got a much larger range of motion and seems to incorporate a wider array of muscles in the movement. I cant wait to include them in my normal conditioning routine.

Thanks for the tips everyone.

[JeffGentry]

If oyu want another good full body exercise do some burpee's, these are squat thrust with a jump after standing back up and the jump is as high as you can, 15 -20 of these are pretty killer also.

If you want to incorporate some more total fitness stuff in your routine checkout this site, they do alot of powerlift's, kettlebell, Medicine ball(can we say large rock), ring/gymnastic type xercise's, I have been playing with the locl group here in Columbus off and on for a few month's(more off than on though) it is all about the intensity and doing it without glove'sor weight belt's and such to build natural functional strength alot of MMA guy's are now moving in this direction.


http://www.crossfit.com/cf-info/excercise.html

I have been trying to incorporate element's of this into our warm up here in Columbus.


Jeff

[Derek Gulas]

If oyu want another good full body exercise do some burpee's, these are squat thrust with a jump after standing back up and the jump is as high as you can, 15 -20 of these are pretty killer also.

Jeff

Oh yes, the burpees.... gotta love the burpees!

[Kevin Ponzuoli]

I suggest the book "underground guide to warrior fitness" by ross enamit.
There are lot of explained exercices and also phylosofical motivation.

In my experience i found bettere to train alone, cause my concentration is better and i arrive in the gym already "skilled".

Kevin

[JeffGentry]

I suggest the book "underground guide to warrior fitness" by ross enamit.
There are lot of explained exercices and also phylosofical motivation.

In my experience i found bettere to train alone, cause my concentration is better and i arrive in the gym already "skilled".

Kevin

Kevin

Most of the folk's n ARMA are pretty fit, We do see people who come in and are not, so we do what we can to assit them and most take to it pretty well from what I see there are those though who do not and end up leaving because they are not in good enouhg physical condition and cannot compete with most of us and they do not want to put that much effort into it.

Jeff

[Jaron Bernstein]

The thing with fitness (the dreaded "F" word!) is that for our purposes you either want to do it or not. There is no (and there should not be any) compulsion to participate in ARMA or other historical fencing activity. Your training partners and SFS instructors are there help you along the path only as much and as far as you want to go. You can and certainly should get good advice on exercises and better ways to practice. Keep reading the manuals and learn to apply them. People develop skills at different rates. Ultimately, though, if you aren't fit enough, you can't fight as well, and it is up to you to develop (or not) that fitness in whatever way works best for you. It really is an individual journey you choose to take in the final analysis, even if you do have help along the way.

[John_Clements]

As with any activity or martial art, it varies with person to person. However, we stress the inherent physicality of this craft and its integral athleticism. See our article here on Fitness ("Using the 'F' Word..."). In fact, emphasis on conditioning is one of the reasons we are resented by so many of the role-players and stunt performers out there. But on the other hand, as we are also a scholarly academic organization too, not all our members are athletically focused, or involved in trying to follow our established training standards or certification testing.

John C.
ARMA Director

[Margaret Lo]

If time allows, there's no reason not to be as fit as possible. A boxer's routine is an excellent course for a fighter:

Hour 1, 3 min each/30 sec. rest

Foot speed: Jump rope, jumping jacks, side to side hops.

Knee/hips: squats, lunges, kick drills

Stomach/back: crunches, lifts, planks, medicine ball drills

Upper body: medicine ball tosses, press ups, push ups.

Rest

Hour 2, technique interspersed w/ target/ punching bag drills.

[Stacy Clifford]

While I generally think any exercise is good exercise, I tend to believe that the best way to exercise the muscles you're going to use in a swordfight is to pick up a sword and swing it. In Houston I open every class each week with 9 different cutting and thrusting exercises that total up to about 320-380 cuts in a large variety, depending on which exercises we do that week. I try to put strength and speed into every cut from first to last, both to give myself a good workout and to set a good example for the class. After all the cutting, we alternate each week between the touch drill, press drill and footwork drills, and recently we've added a running pell attack drill every week. I'm not one to do much running, weight lifting, etc. on the side, but I find that this exercise keeps me in a fighting shape I'm quite happy with, and I can say that none of my fellow Houston members are pushovers either.

I've also noticed that this exercise routine has an effect on the new members that come through our class. Newbies show up because they want to know how to use a sword, not just get exercise. When they see us sweating hard with swords in our hands for 30 minutes every week, they realize 1.) we take this subject seriously, 2.) we know what the heck we're doing, 3.) we have physical standards that all experience levels are expected to maintain, and 4.) that our drills and exercises are not abstract (mostly), but directly relate to actual fighting. This tends to weed out a lot of people. If I had to guess, maybe 1 in 5 new people who show up at our class stay more than a couple of months. Of the ones that do though, I wouldn't say any of them are marginal people we "put up with" to keep our numbers up. They try earnestly and fight hard and we're happy to have them. That was never our intent in doing class that way, it is just a beneficial side effect we have all noticed here.

Whatever exercise routines your study groups are doing that you find beneficial and enjoyable, I say keep it up and keep experimenting. In my opinion though (for what it's worth), good hard cutting and lots of it is both the best exercise you can get for swordfighting and the best recruiting tool you can have, so don't neglect it.

[Jake_Norwood]

I agree with Stacy as far as in-class exercises go. Burpees, hindu push-ups, etc. are all fantastic...but should be done outside of class. Keep class as directly sword-focused as possible.

Jake

[Jeffrey Hull]

Righto. A swordsman should not do like a 90 minute workout of non-martial moves before swordplay, only to be burnt out come time to actually do the martial moves.


And of course, on his off-days, he should not run marathons distances and lift weights like a tournament, and then expect to be recovered the next day for swordplay.

[Will Adamson]

I've been adapting my weight workout to be more in line with my upcoming baseball season. It seems to be pretty similar to what might be expected of sword weilding with lots of rotary motions in both the shoulders and torso.

I would also point out to not overlook (nor to overwork) your back.