From cold to hot -- fencing warm-up speed?

[Sciurus Rex]

Topic up for general discussion: Warming up from a cold start to your best fencing.

How long does it take you? -- For example, do you fence at the top of your game immediately in the seeding pools, or does it take you until the second DE round (too late!) to finally get into the groove?

Let's say you've accumulated a pretty decent, C-level skill set from a few years of bouts, lessons, training, etc. Is the ability to quickly put those skills into play mostly hardwired in a body/brain's physiology, or is it a learned behavior pattern that can be changed with training?

Your thoughts, please. And any text references you could suggest for additional study would also be appreciated.

[edew]

I think the amount of time is variable, dependent on each fencer herself.

The problem with fencing, in terms of warming up, is that one can get too tired by warming up too vigorously. If one were to over exert during the warm-up phase, one might be too pooped for the third or fourth round of DEs.

And, as one gets older, it takes longer to warm-up, and getting pooped comes quicker.

My rule of thumb is to retire when the time it takes to warm-up exceeds the time it takes to get pooped.

[Zelda]

Ummm err seeing I havent competed in nearly a year (gotta love taught course Masters degrees) I used to start off with the best "mind" warm up in the first round to get me through to the second and then fence like buggery until I get knocked out. The proviso to this is the Australian Womens foil never seems to have more than an incomplete 32. Hope this helps.

[mrraam1990]

At my age, there is a fine line between warming up and wearing out!

[Inquartata]

Eric is right, there are a lot of variables for each person. Did you get a chance to warm up, if so how much, what was the caliber of the person(s) you did your warm-up bouting with, what's the venue like ( temperature, altitude ), what/when did you eat last, how well did you sleep the night before, etc, etc, etc...

Sometimes it takes me until the second DE. Sometimes until the last bout of the pool. Sometimes I come out of the gate gangbusters. As with everything else in life, it all depends...

[Kodiak Kid]

I just realized (after getting smoked in last weekend's tournament) that part of my problem as a slow starter in tournaments is that I do most of my fencing in the evening, after work. But all tournaments I've been to start early in the morning. At the end of a typical work day I'm ready to bust loose and work out the day's tensions on who ever I can cross blades with. In the mornings I'm pretty relaxed and mellow. So I have to figure out how to turn on the aggression early in the day so I'm in the groove when the first DE starts up. This might seem obvious to some but it was a minor epiphany for me cause I couldn't figure out why it was taking me so long to get going at tournaments. Anybody else have this problem? What'd you do about it?

[big poppa]

My favorite warm up is to run for about two miles until i build a light sweat. The danger here is that too far too fast too long and im tired. If done just right , Im ready for anything.

[three_hundred_fifty_five]

[quote]Originally posted by Sciurus Rex:
<strong>Topic up for general discussion: Warming up from a cold start to your best fencing.

How long does it take you? -- For example, do you fence at the top of your game immediately in the seeding pools, or does it take you until the second DE round (too late!) to finally get into the groove?

Let's say you've accumulated a pretty decent, C-level skill set from a few years of bouts, lessons, training, etc. Is the ability to quickly put those skills into play mostly hardwired in a body/brain's physiology, or is it a learned behavior pattern that can be changed with training?

Your thoughts, please. And any text references you could suggest for additional study would also be appreciated.</strong><hr></blockquote>

It all depends. If the temperature of the venue is cold, it takes more time to physically warm up. If it's hot, then it takes less time to warm up. I do like to mentally warm up by sparring. After this, I am usually partially sweating and I have to open up my jacket to cool off, drink some water, and check out the ladies.