How much strength training does HEMA need?

[Jose_Pereira]

While on most hand to hand martial arts strenght and speed are not necessarily connected, in our fencing I belive they are. Why? Because both fighters are suposed to be using relatively similar weapons, in weight and size. Therefore, a stronger fighter will deal more easly with the sword's intertia, striking and changing it's direction in an easier and faster manner.
Also, strenght training does a great job to make us more injury resistant (if done correctly).

We all know at least one great fencer that's not very tall or strong, but wins with his inteligence and technique. But I bet those fencers would be even better if they where stronger.


I'm a firm beliver that in an ideal world, physical strenght and stamina should be trained separatly from fencing technique and sparring. But since there's no ideal worlds, shortcuts must be made.
Since fencing requires the use of a "tool", I'm of the opinion that most beginners should start with a pure technical trainning. When they get accustomed to have a weapon in their hands, their practice should start to include fitness training. Then, when they evolve even more and start to have competitive concerns, I think that that same physical training should be removed from the fencing practice, to be worked in a separate form.

[Joeli]

I'd say that strength training has an important but narrow role in HEMA - joint strength and healthy stabilizing muscles are very important. Most of HEMA people already have enough strength in the big muscles to do whatever they need to do. If you put a fencer in a leg press machine and ask them to press double their body weight, most will succeed. But when you ask them to make one legged squat, they will complain that they are out of balance, shaking and feeling that their knee will give out. It's the strength of the smallest things that counts in these cases, and give ability to use the body in different ways when fencing, not the strength of the biggest things. I suppose that kind of thing can be practiced without adding weights. Something like this.

As far as physical ability goes, I'd rank strength fifth important thing for a hema fencer. Coordination, explosiveness, reach and stamina, in that order, are more important in my books.

Jose, I know people who are weaker than I am in the terms of calisthenics or free weights, yet they can move a 1,5kg sword faster than I can. Speed has other components too, than just strength. Like relaxation, lack of interfering muscular action and simultaneous recruit of muscle fibers. I agree what you say about separating strength training from technical practice at some point in training - just for the fact that you can do all the conditioning on your own, but you need the partner for many of the technical stuff, so why spend precious training time to do more conditioning than what is necessary for the training session at hand.

Edit: Added a link.

[admin]

While on most hand to hand martial arts strenght and speed are not necessarily connected, in our fencing I belive they are. Why? Because both fighters are suposed to be using relatively similar weapons, in weight and size. Therefore, a stronger fighter will deal more easly with the sword's intertia, striking and changing it's direction in an easier and faster manner.

Like in sport fencing, or kendo, or tennis, or golf?
Let's face it, strength is important, but not usually a critical deciding factor. The person who wins at longsword, for example, is almost always the person who is best at longsword... not the strongest person.

Just thinking back to the last few winners from the last few competitions I have witnessed I can't think of one of them that is particularly strong. Just sufficiently strong. The same seems to be true of other sports and martial arts. Increasing strength is useful, but not at the detriment of improving skill.

I'm a firm beliver that in an ideal world, physical strenght and stamina should be trained separatly from fencing technique and sparring. But since there's no ideal worlds, shortcuts must be made.
Since fencing requires the use of a "tool", I'm of the opinion that most beginners should start with a pure technical trainning. When they get accustomed to have a weapon in their hands, their practice should start to include fitness training. Then, when they evolve even more and start to have competitive concerns, I think that that same physical training should be removed from the fencing practice, to be worked in a separate form.

I don't disagree with this.

[Jose_Pereira]

When I talked about strenght I was refering to it as an extra to other, more important skills. Someone of a certain skill and speed level will generally speaking benefit from extra strenght, but those base factors are still more important.
Sometimes an oversimplification is needed to express an idea... or to mess it up.

I belive that for the original masters, high physical fitness was not a priority, they generaly mention that one needs to have an healthy body (all members, tubererculosis/siphilis free and not obese probably did the trick) and that's it. Skill and pure "smartassness" where probably the top priority.

Nowadays we have different lifestyles, which don't gives us the same fitness of our ancestors, unless we train for that. Also, we generally like to be competitive, and have the means to safelly test that against each others. And when skill and inteligence levels are equivalent, fitness starts to have an important role.
So yes, I belive that physical training has a role in HEMA, even if we can have an extremely good fencer with 0 physical preperation.

But, in other way, lets admit it, for a great part of HEMA practicioners, the martial art is their only relevant physical activity, so a bit of action helps everybody

[Angantyr]

One thing strength training will help you with is "body awareness", especially learning explosive hip power and "hip awareness". I am primarly thinking of olympic style lifting, kettlebells and various wrestling drills here.

They will also do wonders on your joints, your grip strength, your general explosiveness, make you used to heavy weight bearing down on you, pain and your posture. All very good attributes for fighting.

Jump rope is also a neat thing, but it is more cardio related, it teaches you to be light on your feet.

Do not come here and tell me that this is not an important part of MA. Personally I wish I started earlier with this type of training...

[Mitlov]

While on most hand to hand martial arts strenght and speed are not necessarily connected, in our fencing I belive they are. Why? Because both fighters are suposed to be using relatively similar weapons, in weight and size. Therefore, a stronger fighter will deal more easly with the sword's intertia, striking and changing it's direction in an easier and faster manner.
Also, strenght training does a great job to make us more injury resistant (if done correctly).

We all know at least one great fencer that's not very tall or strong, but wins with his inteligence and technique. But I bet those fencers would be even better if they where stronger.


I'm a firm beliver that in an ideal world, physical strenght and stamina should be trained separatly from fencing technique and sparring. But since there's no ideal worlds, shortcuts must be made.
Since fencing requires the use of a "tool", I'm of the opinion that most beginners should start with a pure technical trainning. When they get accustomed to have a weapon in their hands, their practice should start to include fitness training. Then, when they evolve even more and start to have competitive concerns, I think that that same physical training should be removed from the fencing practice, to be worked in a separate form.

I agree with everything you say but would go a step forward and say that speed always benefits from strength training, regardless of the art or sport. It's not the only factor, of course--good technique, relaxation, and efficiency of movement are critical for speed--but those three things equal, the stronger fencer will always be faster. An Olympic saber is a very, very light weapon by HEMA standards, but even there, my speed increased dramatically when I started doing barbell lifts a couple times per week. If you look up videos of Olympic team sabreurs such as Tim Morehouse cross-training, you'll see a lot of plyometrics and a lot of weightlifting.

Someone mentioned not taking time away from training to lift. I say: you don't have to. Lifting is so easy to fit in during odd hours, when your club doesn't have regular meetings, that you don't need to cut any training time to add in one or two lifting sessions per week.

For people with access to a lifting coach, there's nothing better than the Olympic lifts (snatches and clean-and-jerk) for improving performance in essentially any martial art or sport. But they're easy to injure yourself if you don't have a lifting coach. So for those who don't, I always recommend five basic barbell lifts, including the three powerlifts and two others:

Bench press
Squat
Deadlift
Shoulder press
Pendlay rows

Those are the five I do (5 sets of 5 reps of each, twice per week) and it's been fantastic since I started.

[Steven H]

For people with access to a lifting coach, there's nothing better than the Olympic lifts (snatches and clean-and-jerk) for improving performance in essentially any martial art or sport. But they're easy to injure yourself if you don't have a lifting coach. So for those who don't, I always recommend five basic barbell lifts, including the three powerlifts and two others:

Bench press
Squat
Deadlift
Shoulder press
Pendlay rows

Those are the five I do (5 sets of 5 reps of each, twice per week) and it's been fantastic since I started.

I agree with most of what you said. However, for longsword guys the overhead lifts are a potential problem. Due to the high stress on the shoulder from doing overhead actions the overhead lifts should be avoided. This is common advice for tennis players and baseball pitchers.

So do an incline press instead of the shoulder press (and do a vertical pull exercise as well e.g. lat pulldown, pull-ups, dips etc.). And only do cleans for Olympic lifts, not the snatch or jerk.

Cheers,
Steven

[Mitlov]

Interesting--I'd heard of impingement syndrome arising out of repeated overhead work in a Workers' Compensation litigation context, but I hadn't thought about a similar issue with weightlifting. Looking around, there are some articles from multiple sources discouraging the shoulder press. I might scale back on it as a result.

[admin]

Interesting info here guys, thanks!

[Lyceum]

What? no military press or push press? What about pull/chin ups? Pretty vital to anyone I think.

[admin]

Pull-ups are mentioned above.

[Steven H]

What? no military press or push press? What about pull/chin ups? Pretty vital to anyone I think.

And the reason not to do the military press and push press is also mentioned above.

[Lyceum]

That's rather worrying. To be honest I have worried about the mil.p before due to lifting a lot of watch like that, but it seems to confer large benefits, I've never been nor do I know anyone who has been injured by it and pretty much every strength coach I've had advocates it. I think I'll stick with it.

[Motley]

For people with access to a lifting coach, there's nothing better than the Olympic lifts (snatches and clean-and-jerk) for improving performance in essentially any martial art or sport. But they're easy to injure yourself if you don't have a lifting coach. So for those who don't, I always recommend five basic barbell lifts, including the three powerlifts and two others:

Bench press
Squat
Deadlift
Shoulder press
Pendlay rows

Those are the five I do (5 sets of 5 reps of each, twice per week) and it's been fantastic since I started.

I agree with most of what you said. However, for longsword guys the overhead lifts are a potential problem. Due to the high stress on the shoulder from doing overhead actions the overhead lifts should be avoided. This is common advice for tennis players and baseball pitchers.

So do an incline press instead of the shoulder press (and do a vertical pull exercise as well e.g. lat pulldown, pull-ups, dips etc.). And only do cleans for Olympic lifts, not the snatch or jerk.

Cheers,
Steven

Sorry, this does not make any sense, you are going to have to explain more if you are making statements like this.

If the assumption is that longsword is likely to cause 'more' injury then surely having better developed muscles in that area would be a benefit to prevent injury. If the assumption is that doing overhead lifts is too stressful and will therefore lead to injury then why would longsword be any more susceptible than anything else. In fact is that is the assumption then you are effectively saying don't do them at all, which is strange.

[Mitlov]

What? no military press or push press? What about pull/chin ups? Pretty vital to anyone I think.

Shoulder press is another name for military press.

[John H]

I would consider your goals for HEMA/Fencing. If you are seeking better all-around fitness and muscle tone, yes supplement with weights etc. If your goal is to increase your ability with your weapon, pick up a heavier version to train with than you would actually use in ‘practice’ or a tourney. I have a wall hanger sabre that is ‘too heavy’ and the PoB is too far forward, great for strength training. For longsword after using one of the NSA wasters if I pick up a Hanwei Tinker the thing feels light as a feather. We also have ‘the anchor’ that is great for strength training if needed (8lb wall hanger.)

This is a very old idea, Vegetius states the Romans trained with heavy swords, and there are suborito that are meant to be heavy to strength train with.

[Steven H]

A little anatomy first: the head of the humerus rests in a socket, the glenoid cavity. Above the socket is the acromion, a projection off the scapula. In between these two is the subacromial space, which has to fit tendons, muscle and bursa.

Lifting the humerus above about 90* tends to compress the subacromial space. This can be lessened by strengthening the rotator cuff muscles. Healthy, strong rotator cuff muscles will help the head of the humerus move correctly, so that it doesn't impinge.

However, strengthening the muscles that pull the humerus upward will not reduce the upward compression of the humerus against the arcomion.

Overhead work, like house painting, and overhead sports, like pitchers and tennis, involve much more upward movement of the humerus. Most people bodies can't tolerate a large amount of overhead movement of the arm. There is variation in this characteristic; differences in acromion shape, glenoid cavity health, rotator cuff health and strength and history of injury will all effect the likelihood of developing impingement.

Motion at the edge of a range of motion increases the likelihood of chronic injury. So overhead athletes have a much higher likelihood of impingement. Even with correct form for pitching or serves in tennis, the stress is still high. Professional athletes frequently subject themselves to predictable injury because of their drive to compete.

I'm at school and don't have my references on hand. This blog post does a reasonable job of discussing it.

To produce the same strengthening of as an overhead press you can do an upright row and a shoulder shrug. Same muscles, used the same way, but each avoids excess abduction of the humerus.

I hope this explains the situation well.

Cheers,
Steven

[Mitlov]

Is there a way to "like" or "thank" posts? Because Steven H's post directly above mine is fantastic.

[Steven H]

I would consider your goals for HEMA/Fencing. If you are seeking better all-around fitness and muscle tone, yes supplement with weights etc. If your goal is to increase your ability with your weapon, pick up a heavier version to train with than you would actually use in ‘practice’ or a tourney. I have a wall hanger sabre that is ‘too heavy’ and the PoB is too far forward, great for strength training. For longsword after using one of the NSA wasters if I pick up a Hanwei Tinker the thing feels light as a feather. We also have ‘the anchor’ that is great for strength training if needed (8lb wall hanger.)

This is a very old idea, Vegetius states the Romans trained with heavy swords, and there are suborito that are meant to be heavy to strength train with.

Galen also describes heavy weightlifting as part of training. The reason is that there is a response by the muscle based on how difficult the exercise is. In short if you can do a movement more than about a dozen times then you are gaining endurance and not strength. Endurance is useful, obviously, but it's not the same as strength.

Lifts that you can only do 1-6 times will do the most to increase strength. A heavy sword just doesn't cut it. I discuss this in more detail here.

Cheers,
Steven

[Mitlov]

Once again, I agree completely with what Steven said. I'm a firm believer in the practice of doing five sets of five reps for each lift, with as much weight as you can handle while still completing the 5x5.