The best exercise for fencing always has been and continues to be...
fencing!

(Strength training, properly applied, can also be beneficial, of
course, but that's a separate issue.)

Instead of running sprints to improve your endurance, do more line
drills (solo or with a group) and paired drills emphasizing footwork.
You'll improve your endurance and you'll be training your body to
perform fencing actions better at the same time.

After a proper warm-up (no stretching!), work on a mixture of
advances, retreats, lunges, pattinandos, and balestra-lunges, staying
in continuous motion and varying the tempo and size of your movements.
If you can, do this with your foil. If the foil is a distraction, then
set the foil aside until such time that the footwork no longer
requires conscious thought. If you are working alone and have access
to a mirror, use it to monitor the correctness of your movements. As
you get better, try visualizing a "shadow fencer" as your opponent
during line drills.

Keep the intensity at such a point that you are just shy of huffing
and puffing. You should not be working so hard that you cannot speak
fairly easily. If you have a heart rate monitor (available for $50 or
less at Rite-Aid, Walgreen's, etc.), keep your heart rate in the range
of your anaerobic threshold (AT) down to to ten beats per minute below
that.

AT = 180 - your age - 10 (based on what you are describing for your
current condition) *

So, if you are 30 years old, keep your heart rate in the range of
130-140 beats per minute. This will not seem like you are working
"hard enough", but you will be building your aerobic endurance and
enabling your body to do more with less effort. Going beyond that will
be training your anaerobic fitness, and that's not what you need to
work on right now....

As you begin to fatigue, you will not be able to maintain the
intensity of your workout within your target heart rate range. Now
it's time to start cooling down. Gradually reduce your intensity so
that your heart rate slowly drops down to where it was when you
started your warm up. As a rule of thumb, a one-hour aerobic workout
should have 10-15 minutes of warm up and the same amount of cool down.
If you're fatiguing during a bout, you will probably want to start
with a shorter workout—say, 30 minutes, with 7-8 minutes at each end
in warm up and cool down.

Disclaimer: Consult your physician before beginning any exercise
program—especially if you are overweight, have cardiac issues, or have
a history of other serious illnesses or musculoskeletal issues.

After you've been doing this for a few days and become familiar with
the tempo you need to maintain your target heart rate, you might
experiment with a mix of music at the appropriate tempo. Use music
with an easily discernible beat for most of your workout—it may be
that music you do not normally listen to works best, as the beat is
what is important. The tempo of the music should fit with the tempo of
your footwork. Using music can help you to learn about the tempo of
your own footwork and how to change it. You can gradually increase and
decrease the tempo at the beginning and end of your music mix to help
you with your warm up and cool down. If you have iTunes and a Mac,
there is a very nice application called Tangerine that will
automatically calculate the tempo of your music in iTunes and will
even build playlists based on tempo. There is probably a similar
product out there for Windows.
http://www.potionfactory.com/tangerine/
Disclaimer: I have no connection with the company—I just like the
product.

Good luck!

-Mike


* For more information, see The High Performance Heart by Philip
Maffetone.

--
Michael Heggen
certified 3-weapon moniteur, US Fencing Coaches Association
head instructor, Salem Classical Fencing
354 Belmont Street NE
Salem OR 97301
503-375-9209
http://www.salemclassicalfencing.org
michael@...

This e-mail may have my digital signature attached.





On Nov 19, 2008, at 3:11 PM, classicalfencing@yahoogroups.com wrote:

> Classical Fencing Mailing List
> Messages In This Digest (1 Message)
> 1.
> Sprints? From: Rebecca Warner
> View All Topics | Create New TopicMessage
> 1.
> Sprints?
> Posted by: "Rebecca Warner" slumberparties_bybecca@...
> slumberparties_bybecca
> Wed Nov 19, 2008 12:28 pm (PST)
>
> Would running sprints be a good way to train my body to not tire
> easily in a bout?
>
> Thanks for any advice,
>
> Becca
>
> Sent from my iPhone
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