Fencing as a Sport of Physical and Mental Conditioning

Fencing is a sport that is one part physical and one part mental. Conditioning both helps to ensure that you are at the top of your game. The process of conditioning is through practice and experience. Conditioning is not found through only fencing practice but also in complementary activities. It has been argued that fencing during practice is 95% physical and 5% mental while in tournament it is the exact opposite (1).

It is first beneficial to understand what physical and mental conditioning means.  Physical conditioning requires the preparation of the body for rigorous aerobic exercise and ensuring the muscles are both tone and have endurance. Mental conditioning includes learning a variety of movements, ensuring quick reaction, and perceptive within the game.

Physical conditioning requires the ability to engage in aerobic, stamina, and physical strength (2).  Fencing requires heavy clothing and lots of speed and can get most athletes winded quickly. The body must be prepared to take on these jumps, movements, and leaps or you will simply lose from being out maneuvered. Engaging in sprinting, swimming, tennis, weight training, and other activities conditions the body as well as ensures coordination of movements (3).

The concept of physical conditioning in fencing is not new. Dating back as far as 1400 instructors like Vittorino da Feltre stated that fencing “required as a correlative to a fine intellectual humanism a standard of physical excellence and personal bearing to match (4)." His argument was that fencers needed to wear the right clothing, handle the elements of nature, and need to be conditioned for the sport.

In addition to the body the brain must also be conditioned. A person must memorize, internalize and use the various movements that act and interact against an opponent. This requires having a thorough understanding of the sport and judging the body mechanics of the opponent to maintain a leading edge. Without the mental conditioning overreaction, slow reaction, and sequence failure is likely to occur.

Fencers should understand how their personality impacts their performance. Fencer personalities can be categorized as active, passive, risk oriented, risk averse, cautious, offensive and defensive (5).  A person’s personality will determine their overall style, what movements they should focus on, and their weaknesses within the sport.

10 No-Gym Exercises that Condition the Body for Higher Fitness

At its most fundamental level fitness is about getting the body and blood to move within the system. Slow and methodical movements do provide a benefit but that benefit is much lower than what can be found in a higher paced fitness plan. The speeding of the heart and allowing it to rest a few minutes conditions the body for even more rigorous activity.

Conditioning is important for sporting activities. If you enjoy sporting outside of health the overall conditioning helps to improve upon your general performance across a broad range of activities. It provides higher levels of endurance, speed and sustained movement that can push your tennis game, martial arts, or swimming to the next level. 

It is recommended that people receive at least 2.5 hours of moderate exercise a week. If you raise the quality of that exercise you may need a little less. However, the more you do the better as long as you are targeting the right areas of the body and going for maximum gain. 

A problem that many people face is finding the time and money to go to the gym. The truth is that most workouts, other than heavy muscle building, do not require a gym. The far majority of exercise can be done almost anywhere under most circumstances. Below you will find ten fitness moves that will raise your hear and condition your body. 

Walk in Place: Start in standing position. Lift your right knee as high as you can and then place the foot back down on the ground. Raise your left knee as high as you can and then place back on the ground. Repeat.

Jog in Place: Lift right knee up to 45 degree angle and place back down and lift left knee up to 45 degree angle and then place back down. Swing arms while completing the motion. This should look like a jog. 

Alternative Knee Lifts: Stand and bring one knee to chest while twisting opposite elbow to knee. Repeat on the other side. 

Inchworm: Stand and then bend over until your fingertips touch the floor. Walk forward while keeping your legs straight all the way till you reach a push up or plank position. Walk your hand back until you are in the original position. Stand up. Repeat.

Jumping Jacks: The traditional jumping jack with feet starting together and then jumping your feet outward just past shoulder width with arms swinging up in the air in a Y shape. Jump back to traditional position and repeat. 

Diver’s Push-up: Start in the downward dog yoga position making a downward V with the body. Slowly drop the stomach to the floor creating an upward dog position. Repeat. 

Side Lunge and Windmill Arms: Standing position with legs spread as though you just made a jumping jack. Bend the right knee into a side lunge while taking the left arm down to the foot. Return back to original position and repeat. 

Mountain Climber: Start with hands and knees on the floor. Bring left knee to chest and keep right leg straight. Put left knee back creating a push up position and repeat on the other side. 

Squat-Thrust: Start in standing position and squat down and place your hands on the floor next to your feet. Jump feet backwards into push-up position. Jump feet back to squat position and stand up. Repeat.

Burpee: Start in squat position with hands on floor by your feet. Jump back to push-up position and quickly jump back to squat position. Jump straight up with arms in the air till you come back down to squat position and repeat.

Varying Fitness Routines in the Military and Sports Training Reduces Injury Rates

Fitness is an important aspect of life. The variety of fitness activities, sleep, and overall rigor may have an important impact on both health and exposure to injury. Injury costs time, money, and pain and therefore should be avoided.  Researchers Wyss, et. al. (2014) wanted to study how injuries occur in military practice. They looked at 12 basic training centers and volunteers to determine whether certain practices are raising injury in Swiss Military training. 

Repetitive patterns of training can cause injury. When sports players and military members complete the same activities over and over they run the risk of potential injury. The same process occurs when running every day with no rest, using the same movements repetitive, or not cross training causes an injury. Adjusting these patterns can improve both health and reduce overall risks while lowering fatigue.

The study used body monitoring equipment, logs, and injury reports to assess the results. They tested measures like body heat, heart rate, movement and more. Their goal was to measure the physiological response of activities and training on the recruits to understand what was going on before injury. Through these methods they were able to create specific and general findings that can be applied both to the military and other areas of study.

An average of 18 injuries out of 100 people were recorded each month.  Each injury cost about $2,000. The majority of injuries were musculoskeletal types based in basic physical training. They found that high monotony and lack of conditioning before engaging in rigorous activity caused injury. Time spent in repetitive material handling also increased injury risks. Most of the injuries occurred during fitness training but these may be a focal stress point based in other daily activities. The recruits slept about 7 hours a night with 6.5 in actual sleep thereby increasing injury risks in other areas. 

The authors recommend adjusting fitness to include other sporting activities to change the type of motion and pressure points of injury. They encourage using some time in walking, marching, jogging, and other physical sporting activities while not reducing the necessary training quality. Likewise, rest and recovery were extremely important in training (military or sports training) and recommend moving the time up to 8 hours. Total factors measured accounted for 98.8% of injury variance and can be controlled while improving fitness output. 

Wyss, et. al. (2014). Impact of Training Patterns on Injury Incidences in 12 Swiss Army Basic Military Training Schools. Military Medicine, 179 (1).