Physical training

[Unmarked]

Hi guys.

I have to conduct a physical training session for about 10 to 15 fencers from my club.Thing is,I don't really know what to do besides the usual running and skipping.Please suggest some activities that we can do and that are specifically made for fencing.Thanks in advance.

[I live to FENCE]

Hey.. Harshan here.. Cool Thread.. If that's what it's called..

[Genjuro]

Here are a couple of interesting links:
Fitness Routines for fencing
and a while a go there was also a thread about a epée training manual:
Epée Trainingmanual

Good luck with your training!

[D+F+P=Hadouken!]

Footwork, atleast 30 minutes of it. Fencing lunges, concentrating on length, explosiveness, and recovery time. Jumping rope, its good for building fast feet. Hindu squats are awesome for building leg strength. I knew this dancer that did hindu squats alot, and it looked like she was being shot out of a cannon, she had so much explosive power in her legs. Wind sprints are great for anaerobic fitness. Dont forget the importance of endurance bouts, like, fencing to 45 points. Lift weights and stuff. Look at the fitness programs of other sports like ours, say tennis, or racquetball, or boxing. Specifically boxing, which is hyper intense about conditioning. Our sport, being so poorly funded, has little to work with when it comes to fitness research. We must leech off the knowledge that sports before us have gained.

[Cipher]

I'm assuming you're doing this for a group of serious athletes. You should start with lots of stretching. Then go into a quick 15 minute aerobic warmup of jogging/running or rope skipping. Then leg strengthening and quickness exercises. Plyometrics, speed drills, agility drills, and finish off with footwork. For the footwork make everyone maintain a deeper than usual seat (about 6"-8" lower) at the on guard and focus on changes of direction. By the end their legs should be burning.

[esskreemr]

Originally Posted by Cipher

I'm assuming you're doing this for a group of serious athletes. You should start with lots of stretching.

No, no, no, no, no!!! Warm up first, then light active stretching, then:

Then go into a quick 15 minute aerobic warmup of jogging/running or rope skipping. Then leg strengthening and quickness exercises. Plyometrics, speed drills, agility drills, and finish off with footwork. For the footwork make everyone maintain a deeper than usual seat (about 6"-8" lower) at the on guard and focus on changes of direction. By the end their legs should be burning.

Then stretching then cool down. Stretching before muscles are warmed up is a good recipe for injury...

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"Stretching before exercise does not reduce the risk of local muscle injury: a critical review of the clinical and basic science literature." Clin J Sport Med. 1999 Oct;9(4):221-7
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"Effects of stretching before and after exercising on muscle soreness and risk of injury: systematic review" Rob D Herbert, senior lecturer, Michael Gabriel, physiotherapist; School of Physiotherapy, University of Sydney, PO Box 170, Lidcombe, New South Wales 1825, Australia

Conclusions: Stretching before or after exercising does not confer protection from muscle soreness. Stretching before exercising does not seem to confer a practically useful reduction in the risk of injury, but the generality of this finding needs testing. Insufficient research has been done with which to determine the effects of stretching on sporting performance.

[Moses]

When you say "physical training session" do you mean a one day thing? Is this a "camp" that spans several days? If so, are these days consecutive? Are these serious athletes that are already very well-conditioned, newbies, or both?

Answer these questions and we can help identify your needs!

(I love setting up training programs, by the way)

-Da Mose

[Cipher]

Originally Posted by esskreemr

-------------------------------
"Stretching before exercise does not reduce the risk of local muscle injury: a critical review of the clinical and basic science literature." Clin J Sport Med. 1999 Oct;9(4):221-7
--------------------------------

"Effects of stretching before and after exercising on muscle soreness and risk of injury: systematic review" Rob D Herbert, senior lecturer, Michael Gabriel, physiotherapist; School of Physiotherapy, University of Sydney, PO Box 170, Lidcombe, New South Wales 1825, Australia

Very interesting articles. I'll keep that in mind the next time I am leading group exercise. I have always just stuck to the typical military dogma as far as that has been concerned, and haven't really given it much thought. In my other form of exercise, yoga, stretching before exercising is moot since the exercise is stretching. Thanks for providing useful references.

[Victor]

No serious training session can begin without consuming large quantities of coleslaw and baked beans. Eat a pint or two of each, and then jump rope for about 15 minutes as your warm-up. After that, three sets of 50 sit-ups.

[Unmarked]

Originally Posted by Moses

When you say "physical training session" do you mean a one day thing? Is this a "camp" that spans several days? If so, are these days consecutive? Are these serious athletes that are already very well-conditioned, newbies, or both?

Answer these questions and we can help identify your needs!

(I love setting up training programs, by the way)

-Da Mose

It's a one day thing and the people involved have been fencing for a couple of years but are not very well-conditioned.I would also like to hear suggestions for a camp spanning a few days for the same group of people.Then,maybe I can do a camp soon.Thanks for your help.

[foilz]

I agree with esskreemer. Most exercise warm-up routines are bass akwards, and frankly, dangerous.

Start with joint rotations, every joint, ten or twelve rotations. The older your students are, the more rotations. It exercises the joints, and encourages flexibility and balance (i.e., standing on one leg while you rotate the other ankle, knee, hip). Work the neck and head, too. Loosen everything.

Then elevate the pulse rate, and most importantly, elevate your body temperature -- through running, treadmill, skipping.

Once your people are nice and warm and elevated, do light stretching. Absolutely DO NOT DO the bouncing, ballistic kind. Everybody in the club does it. But it's very high risk, particularly for out-of-shape fencers.

Pick the stretching exercises you like best from the great stretching article on fencing.net, or design your own (like I did) based on what you will actually ask your body to do in lessons or in bouting.

When stretching, don't tear your ligaments out of the bone. Just stretch them. Make sure your body temperature is warm, and simply extend them. Stretch a tiny bit more each week. You only need 25-second extensions or so. I do more than that (I'm older), a sequence of four counts to 20. But all extensions are soft and gentle.

Once all that's done, about 20-25 minutes in all, you will feel supple, ready to fence or take your lesson.

Sometimes, after the workup, I lie flat on the floor, and just let everything relax for 2 minutes or so. It centers me, helps me relax and breathe. Since I have a tendency to tighten up on the strip, and fence stiff, flattening out helps me start loose.

Good luck!

[Moses]

This is a general guideline for a session focusing primarily on developing endurance in fencers who are not "elite"-level in their conditioning.

Hmm, if you've got a fairly good-sized group of people, I like starting conditioning days with group jog-sprints. It works well for groups of boxers who have similar endurance needs as fencers.

This running exercise works best with a group of 5-8 people. Make sure you have a nice big, safe area in which to run, like a field, park, or a very large gym. Have your fencers line up single file. Then, tell them to jog at a steady pace (not too fast). The last person in line must then sprint up to the front of the line. As soon as that person reaches the front, the person who is now last (previously second-to-last) must sprint forward, and so on. Do this for 6-10 minutes. When you're done with that, make them walk and shake the lactic acid out of their legs. If you like, give them signals to, say, bend forward at the waist and touch the floor to stretch their hamstrings, or lunge forward (not with a fencing lunge -- my coach calls them gymnastic lunges -- both feet facing forward with a straight back leg, to stretch), then keep walking.

If you have them doing these dynamic stretches while they walk, do so for 2-3 minutes. Then have them take a quick water break and immediately go into stretches (dynamic stretches -- stretches during which the muscle is moving slowly). 5-10 minutes of this.

Next, jumping. Find a line (like on a gym floor) or make lines out of those short cones you can buy at sporting goods stores (although if you need a lot they can be somewhat costly). Have each fencer jump side-to-side over one line with one leg for a designated distance or time, then with both legs together have each jump over a line. Then have them take big jumps side-to-side, between two lines (either on a fencing strip or between two lines of cones). Long jumps, one-legged long jumps, and all other kind of jumps can follow. Make sure your fencers are constantly moving (have the stragglers keep up with the faster ones and make sure the fastest ones are using proper technique (make sure they're not falling forward as opposed to jumping). This can go on for 3 minutes.

Water break. Make sure they don't sit down (unless they're sick or can't continue) and keep their legs moving to keep the blood flowing. Make sure the break is only a minute long or less.

Now, have them do footwork. Have them line up in front of you (not single file, shoulder-to-shoulder but, um, not that close) in the on guard position and take a distance a few yards/meters in front of them, so they can all see you. When you step forward they must retreat and keep the distance. When you step back they have to advance. Make sure they keep good form. Give them a visual or audible signal to lunge and a different one for advance-lunge. Make sure to tell them to recover after every signal, then make them advance and retreat again. Don't be easy on them during this exercise -- give them a few seconds of intense lunges and direction changes when they don't expect it. Every once in a while get the attention of those people who have not maintained the proper distance. Do this for three minutes. (double the time with a short break in between if you like)

Have your fencers shake their legs and get them ready for the next exercise.

Now have your fencers get on the on guard position and advance down the strip (or along a distance equivalent to a fencing strip). Get the attention of those fencers who begin to lose form or are not moving fluidly. When they reach the end of the strip/designated area they must retreat. Using an audible signal, have them lunge occasionally, if you like. In this exercise the fencers go at their own pace, so if you give a signal some will have to perform a lunge while retreating while others during an advance. 2-3 minutes for this one.

Shake the legs. At this point I would have them do two-person fencing-related drills (like the "glove game" found in the training portion of this site, if you like that) for a short time, then have them go jogging, nice and easy, 5-10 minutes.

Have them take a long water break, then make sure they get time to do something fun. If you're in your salle, have them fence a few assaults/bouts. Play soccer or basketball, if that's their thing. Just make sure they keep moving during this time. At the end of your session, have them stretch again (static stretches) to relax their muscles.

This'll have the lactic acid flowing like blood. The idea is to put your fencers in situations slightly more intense than they would experience on the strip for similar lengths of time (3 minutes, one minute break, 3 minutes again) or place them in situations with very similar demands to fencing, but in a longer period of time. Also, they are placed in situations where they must be constantly moving and then create sudden, explosive bursts of movement.

Note, though, that a single day of hard work will probably do little in the long run for your fencers. Unless they take the initiative to train like this independent of your instruction, or more intense conditioning routines become part of group classes, they're physical progress will be slow. A multi-day "camp" may be a good idea during the off season, though, and before a major competition (done well ahead of time and only if you make sure your fencers don't get too beat by their routine).

I'm a bit groggy, so I could probably do a lot better than the above at another time, and I'm too dead-skulled to write a multi-day plan, but I will be sure to get back to you.

I hope all goes well!

-Da Mose

[Unmarked]

Thank you Foilz and eskreemer for your suggestions about strecthing.I've just learned something important

Moses,thanks for your very detailed training program.Really appreciate it.I think it's really going to help my guys out but I have one more question.Is it advisable to follow this program a week before a competition?

Thanks again to everyone for all your contributions.

[Moses]

There would be no problem doing this program a week before a comp, so long as you continue to condition your athletes leading up to the tourney, and none of their training sessions are as physically intense as the one I've provided here. However, I don't feel that this training session would be best served only a week before a comp. It's a great plan to "wake up" your fencers and make them realize what they need to do, but alone is minimally effective. I'd prefer to use it as the first phase of a "shock" plan. Ex:

Week 1: "Shock phase" -- Give your fencers several days of very intense physical training.
Week 2: "Recovery phase" -- Your fencers should still be exposed to exercises which test their endurance and abilities, but not as intense as the previous week.
Week 3: "Supercompensation" -- This the week of the competition, where your physical exercises are very light and your fencers focus mostly on skill work and mentally gearing up for competition. This only works if your fencers are eating properly and getting enough sleep (because this plan hinges on your athletes actually being able to recover from the stresses their exposed to).

What you could do is put your fencers through the one-day plan I've outlined above and then just have take the rest of the week easy. When I say take it easy, I don't mean no physical training at all, just enough so that they keep their endurance up without tiring themselves out before the tourney. Physically it may not do too much for them, but it may make them realize that, if they can survive one of your training sessions, they'll do just fine during a competition.

Make sure they're eating properly! Proper conditioning is 10% exertion and 90% recovery. Of course you can't expect them to adopt religious eating pratices in one day, but you can have them replace their mid-afternoon candy bar with a tuna sandwich, or drop their soda for water (for just one week).

Good luck!

-Da Mose

[One and Only...]

Here is my bodyweight lower body, core stability, & grip/forearm strength routine... I've made serious gains as far as fencing ability and general size/strength with this. I follow some of the resistance exercises with plyometric work so as to make some use of complex training principles.

Bolded exercises are plyometric. Some exercises use this as a reference. The sets listed for single-limb exercises should be peformed for each.

Rest between sets: 1 minute
Rest between exercises: 2-3 minutes

Warm up
2 x 10 one-legged squats - additional exercises
4 x 10 freehand jump squats w/leg tucks
2 x 10 static lunges
2 x 10 scissors
50 x one-legged calf raises - CA 1
(*note: about this time, you should have a fair amount of difficulty walking up stairs.)
50 x bridges
2 x 10 wrist curls - FO 1
2 x 10 overhand wrist curls - FO 3
200 x crunches
100 x air bikes
50 x side twists
3 x 30 standing foot lifts
Static stretching
Cool down

Note that with lunges, you don't want to lunge as you would in fencing, but rather lunge like a guy in a gym would. A scissor is a lunge in which after planting your feet, you hop into the air and switch the position of your feet.

Keep in mind that this is my current workout, and that the general intensity of it may very well need to be lessened - not to mention that individual fencers may need to change the routine themselves.

If you have room for additional work, doing some more upper body stuff to keep muscular development balanced isn't a bad idea; check out some of the exercises in the link I posted for ideas.

[pammie003]

Originally Posted by D+F+P=Hadouken!

Hindu squats are awesome for building leg strength. I knew this dancer that did hindu squats alot, and it looked like she was being shot out of a cannon, she had so much explosive power in her legs.

What are Hindu squats? Can I get a description?

[D+F+P=Hadouken!]

its a squat done fast, using only your body weight. You basically try to do as many as your body will allow. I can do 223 before I collapse. In a month of doing them, I've seen a decent improvement in speed.

[Victor]

And as always...
Remind your inexperienced athletes -- particularly older folk or those with health problems -- that they shouldn't push themselves into activities that might lead to damage. Those with poor knees, for example, shouldn't be deep-squatting with the youngsters.

This shouldn't need to be said, but sometimes people get stupid when they're caught up in the emotions of jen-u-wine "training."

[Mr Epee]

Originally Posted by D+F+P=Hadouken!

its a squat done fast, using only your body weight. You basically try to do as many as your body will allow. I can do 223 before I collapse. In a month of doing them, I've seen a decent improvement in speed.

DFP,

Yikes... don't do that... that's a seriously bad training method.

A couple sets of 10-20 will do ya fine.

That's not an exercise that you want to do to collapse, at least not for fencing.