Sand training

[D+F+P=Hadouken!]

Goofy idea.....

For those of you who are familiar with sand training, imagine this: footwork in the sand. Any opinions?

[RebelFencer]

Probably a bad idea. When used for stuff like football, it is mostly used for endurance, building stabilizer muscles, and explosiveness. Doing precision and technical actions (i.e. footwork) would probably not be a good idea. Now if you were talking about doing sand training for sprints, that'll get you in awesome shape. That's my personal opinion and I don't have any real life examples to back it up, but it seems logical to me.

[MikeDeadly]

We have a sand volleyball court at my apts.. Even though we've only been playing a couple days a week, I can already tell that the sprinting and jumping off the sand is having an impact on my speed on-strip.
-Mike

[Coldfire]

I don't think fencing footwork and drills on the sand would be a good idea but for enurance/speed training and strength go for the sand.

[Poulet]

Goofy idea.....

For those of you who are familiar with sand training, imagine this: footwork in the sand. Any opinions?

Good idea.....

For those of you who are familiar with swimming pools, imagine this: footwork in the bathtub. Any opinions?

[Poulet]

Good idea.....

For those of you who are familiar with swimming pools, imagine this: footwork in the bathtub. Any opinions?

Goofy idea....

For those of you who are familiar with dancing in the rain, imagine this: footwork in the shower. Any opinions?

[Craig]

Goofy idea.....

For those of you who are familiar with sand training, imagine this: footwork in the sand. Any opinions?

Been done by a country once termed the "evil empire".

[Epee Scherma]

Here is a relevant link to doing footwork in different conditions.
http://fencingforum.com/forum/showth...&threadid=6564

I think that with sand, you are at a much greater risk for injury, unless you are wearing some kind of shoes. The force of your weight with each step is not evenly distributed from your foot to the ground because of the uneveness and shifting of the floor. It can result in sprains. Soooo, maybe try it underwater? The article posted in that link wasn't very clear either.

[dramamine]

Laurie shong is a huge proponent of this. He recommends doing it because I guess the amount of force you have to apply to the ground to move on the sand and do stuff like fleches is pretty large comparatively, so when you go back on normal floor he says he notices a big difference. I personally haven't tried it.

Give it a shot and see for yourself.

[RITFencing]

Been done by a country once termed the "evil empire".

New Jersey? Must've been a long time ago; our beaches aren't safe any more from all the medical waste.

[RoninX]

It is one thing to use traditional sand training (sprint, run, jump drills) to improve the strength and explosiveness of your legs however practicing footwork is most likely to be counter productive in my opinion.

I have tried it on occasion - not as a serious training regime but just to see how it felt. The uneveness of sandy surfaces and the fact that your feet sink and dig in (primarily on change of direction) cause you to raise your feet too high. Rather than gliding forwards and back you feel like you are really stepping one way or the other. Now if you have a really flat stretch of sandy beach that you want to do footwork on right after the tide goes out or are uber-wealthy and can afford to hire guys to follow you around during your workout with a sand rake and tamp to groom and flatten the volleyball court as you work out ... than more power to you!