Morehouse Cross-Training Video 4

[10000Fencers]

I'm going to try to put a video up each week around Tuesday.

http://timmorehouse.wordpress.com/20...ining-video-4/

Let me know what you think. Will do some fencing videos in the near future.

Tim

[rudd]

Thanks Tim

Keep it coming.

[10000Fencers]

This was deifnitely a tough work out!

[rudd]

How often do they change the workout. This looks like a variation on a previous one Kettlebells replacing dumbells and pullups replacing pulldowns.

[D+F+P=Hadouken!]

Tim,

I think you're a great fencer, and you contribute to not just the fencing community, but the community at large.

However, I think your workouts are a joke.

[darius]

At least they're fairly broad multi-joint movements. There are probably plenty of folks just doing curls and leg presses.

But if you're gonna throw stones, DFP, what would you recommend? O-lifts are awesome, but who has the time to teach that technique?

darius

[whtouche]

I saw the first video...and I see this one. Where are the other 2?

[oiuyt]

I saw the first video...and I see this one. Where are the other 2?

http://www.youtube.com/results?searc...rch_type=&aq=f

or

http://www.youtube.com/user/timmoorehouse

-B

[bigdawg2121]

At least they're fairly broad multi-joint movements. There are probably plenty of folks just doing curls and leg presses.

But if you're gonna throw stones, DFP, what would you recommend? O-lifts are awesome, but who has the time to teach that technique?

darius

Is Olympic technique really that difficult? Not that there aren't other things that might useful.

[darius]

It's difficult enough that I'd be hesitant to recommend it to a bunch of teenage fencers (even high-level ones) without a heckuva lot of supervision.

Plyometrics and mobility exercises are really what we use most. For strength work, our fencers either go somewhere else or use our in-house facilities, but there's nothing in the way of formal training there.

darius

[D+F+P=Hadouken!]

Who has time to teach olympic lifts?

Somebody who cares about the results that their athletes get.

This is sport, it takes thousands of hours to get good, spending a few weeks working on something important is perfectly reasonable.

Olympic lifts are not that hard to teach.

High school athletic teams use them.

Fencing needs to ditch the mentality that years of conditioning and expert knowledge are neccasarry to do anything more strenuous than play hop scotch.

People think fencers are pussies because they train like em.

[FoilBlender]

Just out of curiousity, what would be the purpose of the O-lifts? What muscles groups are you going to be developing and how does it benefit your fencing?

[D+F+P=Hadouken!]

Just out of curiousity, what would be the purpose of the O-lifts? What muscles groups are you going to be developing and how does it benefit your fencing?

You're developing all of them, and increasing motor unit coordination throughout your entire body.

Having strength, conditioning and coordination in fencing is like having defrost on your car that works; you don't realize how important it is until you need it and don't have it.

(My blower motor in my piece of **** car broke today, so my defrost didnt work. There was freezing rain. I was ****ed.)

[darius]

This is sport, it takes thousands of hours to get good, spending a few weeks working on something important is perfectly reasonable.

Unless it comes at the expense of something else. Opportunity cost is the name of the game, and while I'm a big fan of strength training, it's not more important than the fencing-specific training.

Olympic lifts are not that hard to teach.
High school athletic teams use them.

Yep, and I've got an athlete who was out nearly a month because his high school athletic spotters weren't paying attention when he was pushing his limits on a squat. We need an environment that we can control, and unfortunately, my time has to be spent developing fencers.

Fencing needs to ditch the mentality that years of conditioning and expert knowledge are neccasarry to do anything more strenuous than play hop scotch.

It doesn't need to. In fact, I encourage my competition to please please please make your students do distance running overtraining...it'll give them a competitive edge.

However, when it comes to coordination, there are much better things -- O lifts don't develop the divisibility of attention, spatial reasoning, and change-of-decision like other things we do with the kids. It's a great addition, but not at the time expense we'd want to dedicate to it.

darius

[Allen Evans]

I'm with Darius on this. I'd love to see my competitive fencers doing an Olympic lifting program (only a few of them do these lifts, outside of club with trainers) but I've also seen the results at the college and high school level of poorly (or un-) supervised lifting getting people into trouble, and lifting programs that do real damage.

There is still a belief among some coaches that training outside of fencing should be discouraged. I think a lot of that comes from a lack of knowlege of what training should be being done. It's not just a question of doing the lifts--which is probably the easiest part--but also in building a program around the lifts and the competitive season/training load of the athlete. Frankly, my own experiances in searching out this information leads me to believe that there is a lot of contridictory or even bad information out there. So rather than do the wrong thing, many coaches/fencers do nothing, because they dont' have the time to get the expertise to make good choices about programs.

Morehouse's exercise may not be the ideal (and I'm certainly not someone to judge) but if fencers were doing even these, it would be a step in the right direction.

AE

[D+F+P=Hadouken!]

Unless it comes at the expense of something else. Opportunity cost is the name of the game, and while I'm a big fan of strength training, it's not more important than the fencing-specific training.

I think you over estimate the importance of your role when it comes to developing your fencers.

Yep, and I've got an athlete who was out nearly a month because his high school athletic spotters weren't paying attention when he was pushing his limits on a squat. We need an environment that we can control, and unfortunately, my time has to be spent developing fencers.

Injuries happen.

Don''t be a control freak.

[D+F+P=Hadouken!]

Morehouse's exercise may not be the ideal (and I'm certainly not someone to judge) but if fencers were doing even these, it would be a step in the right direction.

AE

You're 100% right.

I don't disagree with the intent, just the method.

[Allen Evans]

Injuries happen.

No, accidents happen. Over-training, bad techique, and pure ignorance can cause injuries as well, and those should be prevented.

AE

[Adler]

You're 100% right.

I don't disagree with the intent, just the method.

Would you care to offer an alternative method?

[darius]

I think you over estimate the importance of your role when it comes to developing your fencers.

Maybe, but it seems to work out. I've had a fencer make serious gains by lifting and playing ultimate frisbee (while still taking lessons), but he was at a serious plateau. Given a minimal time, lessons + drilling + bouting are the most important things.

Injuries happen. Don''t be a control freak.

It's hardly control-freaky to want to make sure the job is done right. We don't have the time/equipment to use O-lifts for strength/power with groups. We can, however, use body-weight exercises, plyometrics, and medicine balls -- some of this stuff will also help their spatial reasoning and coordination, and it'll put them in a place where they know that non fencing-specific training is the name of the game. As they get older/more competitive, we send them places that specialize in strength+power development.

darius