Sorry for the re post, can you guys help me with some training stuff?

[dramamine]

I think a lot of the time I focus way too much on general physical fitness and not enough on fencing specific fitness. As far as general fitness goes I have good cardio, a good lift/bodyweight ratio in the gym, and decent sprint times, but I'm really unclear on what the best ways to just get better at the physical aspects of fencing. For instance, what do you guys do to improve the power in your lunge? I'm flexible enough to do lunge a pretty good distance, and it's fast I guess, but I don't want sorta fast, I want crazy fast. How much time do you guys spend on footwork every practice? I probably do around 30 minutes of fairly intensive footwork each fencing day, focusing on sitting very low, taking small steps, putting my arm first, etc. Everyone tells me that my footwork is good but I want it to be better.

Another problem I'm running into is currently being the strongest fencer in my club/area. I need to look for new conditions to make fencing intermediate fencers harder so I can continue to improve. I give myself conditions, such as only direct attacks and direct ripostes count, hits without priority don't count, I'm not allowed to parry, etc. What else do you guys do to make this type of thing hard? I'm sure many of you guys have similar situations. The fencers I am talking about aren't bad at all, so the condition could require some skill from the other person too.

Of course in the mean time I am trying to run footwork and bladework drills at each practice so the other fencers can improve and challenge me, and it's working to an extent, but more input can always help.

Thanks if you guys can offer me any suggestions! And if anyone is in a similar situation maybe I can suggest some things that I have found can really help you improve when you don't have really strong fencers to fence all the time.

Almost forgot, I'm a foilist

[D+F+P=Hadouken!]

If you want to be crazy fast, here are my suggestions....

1. Increase the amount of weight you squat
2. Do plyo
3. Do olympic lifts
4. Practice your movements

Also, try doing some 5 lunges after doing each set of squats. I've had good success with this method improving my speed.

[RITFencing]

Where is your area? There might be some good foil around that you're not aware of.

[Mr Epee]

Sounds like you have a very good start.

Remember that most training efforts don't produce immediate results, but rather show up in the results of subsequent seasons.

[dramamine]

Well I appreciate all your input.

As far as fencing in my area goes I don't live in the US and I am 100% sure there isn't more strong foil fencing in my area.

How often do you guys weight train in season? I weigh 160, I can bench 215, squat around 280 (olympic, much below parallel), deadlift 320 and hang clean 175. I probably focus way too much on weights than I should though (3 days a week), it's just that I can only fence three days a week right now (sucks I know, but w/e), so I am trying to be as strong and fit as I can to offset the lack of training. I also run tempo (8 x 300m with 45 sec breaks) once or twice a week and do sprints/plyos once a week. Up until a month or two ago my main sport was pretty much wrestling so I didn't train much specifically for fencing. Now that I want to get better at fencing I really don't know what to do. Does anyone have a resource for weight routines of national team level fencers?

I like the idea of doing some lunges after squats. That seems like it could help.