rubberized flooring for fencing?

[Dan H]

Hey all,
My university's fencing club has been asked if rubberized gym flooring is acceptable to replace the old wooden floor in our fencing room. I've done some footwork on the stuff, and it grips sneakers and fencing shoes well; it gives a bit more than wood, which may take some getting used to.
Has anyone tried to fence on similar stuff before? Any comments? Does it affect the chances of injuring knees and ankles one way or the other?
Thanks,
Dan H

[MyraTrue]

Well... the one thing I know is that you don't want to sink in at all. Uni I fenced at for a while sometimes sent us down to a room shared with marshal arts classes, and there was a 1 inch foam with rubberized surface floor pad on most of the floor. It was ok, until you tried to retreat quickly and suddenly catch a heel. I think just fencing on the different surface might have been to blame after dusty wooden floors.

Figure if it cuts down on dusty slick floors, it might reduce injury by that factor alone!

[Dan H]

This isn't a foam mat - more of a hard rubber surface that's distinctly "bouncier" than a wood floor, but not soft enough that martial artists would want to land on it without a mat in the way. The gym in which it's already installed is used mostly for volleyball.
-Dan

[Gav]

It sounds ok. You might find that a few people pick up minor injuries while they are getting used to it - depends on the bouncyness. We use Rubber mats and they are fine - far better than the concrete floor. If this is a permanent flooring installation then you won't suffer from the biggest problem that we have - mat drift!

As a side note. One of the guys at my club fenced on a bouncy wooden floor after fencing on the concrete floor for years and picked up an injury to the inside of his front foot. It settled down for a while [he never got it checked out - idiot] but we think it was a small tear in one of the muscles there or maybe tendon damage.

[MyrddinsPrecint]

sounds like it's the same kind of material that in my high school's field house. we held a few tournaments there a couple years ago- i beleive new england divisionals, and maybe even northeast sectionals? i don't remember very well. however, i found it fine, and i don't remember ever hearing any complaints.

[whtouche]

NOrtheast sectionals, ~3, 4 years ago? Lasalle highschool in providence RI.

That was the first tournament I ever went to, as a spectator. Never even got to watch sabre, but decided fencing rocked.

Anyways..yeah..

[canthidefromme]

A more grippy rubber floor would probably cause more ankle injuries... who knows.

[Inquartata]

The sabre strips at the Rocky Mountain Sectional last year used thin rubber mats. They were wonderful, best I've ever been on at a competition. No idea how they'd be under a copper strip, but they couldn't be worse than plywood...

[Dan H]

Okay, thanks for your input everyone. I told the athletics dept. that wood is our first choice, but rubberized flooring is acceptable (and much much better than slippery tile). We'll see what they do.
*crosses fingers*

[pkt]

There are rubber floor and there are rubber floors. The difefernce is of course a result of the compound and the surface. I am no expert in this foeld except my two experience, one long term and theother short.

The UBC Fencing Club used to fence in a gym with a rubberised floor which was built for fllor hockey. The floor hockey players didn't like the floor, so it was used by the fencing club as well as the high jumpers who proceded to rip up the rubber floor with their spikes!!!
The floor was fine for fencing in spite of the dust and rubber bits.

Put it in another perspective:
A dusty rubber floor is grippier than a dusty wood floor.

PK


In Hong Kong, theyhave a full gym with with in pistes and buried cables for the reels in the Shatin Jubilee Sports Centre and a wooden raised Uhlmann piste... find out from the HK fencers, if you know anyone and see what they think. I only fenced there once in 1982!