Well, it's been a while since I've blogged. I've been upping my fencing, my coaching, and my out of club working out. This has left me less interested in keeping a detailed training blog. As I settle into the new routine, I might return to some of the training blog, but it will probably be less intensive.
As of now, I'm more going to focus on training thoughts and coaching thoughts. Maybe that will be more interesting for folks to read.
This week is the beginning of a new quarter at the club. I've started running a sports fitness class once a week which promises to be a lot of fun. As it's only an hour, it's more of a sports fitness education class to help the participants think of themselves as athletes.
I have taken for inspiration a saying of a coach I respect. "We need to get fencing out of the 17th century." It is a great sport, but in order to achieve strong sporting results it needs to be treated as a sport, not some sort of higher calling.
I've organized a basic skeleton of the class into 4-5 segments that I can fit various types of exercises into based on the needs and fitness levels of the class. The main goal of the exercises is improve the underlying physical skills that are used in fencing, as well as provide some non-fencing cross-training to promote general health.
Here's a list of possible exercise types per segment
Segment 1:
Decision based light warm up
Developmental drills
Flexibility work
Yoga
Balance work
Agility training
Segments 2-4:
Core work
Plyometrics
Interval training
Balance work
Strength training
Agility training
Last Segment:
Flexibility work
Balance work
Developmental drills
The class is required of our competitive fencers but all club members are welcome to attend.
We've also started to do some fitness testing in order to help folks track their progress.
Has anyone had experience with starting organized physical training in a fencing club? How did it go? What would you do differently in retrospect?
09-02-2009 10:47 PM