I will try to address the basics of this and some of the most common misconceptions. If your goal is to be faster and more explosive then this is not something you can train in isolation. Like many movements or areas of fitness people want a single solution when there are none and for explosiveness, it is a multi pronged approach that is required.

A common solution that people come up with is to perform a movement weighted. This however is often considered less than ideal as you end up doing the movements slower and messing with their mechanics. While some benefits have been shown for this, benefits have also been seen using lighter tools to allow for adaptation to moving a similar object, quicker. So ankle weights, wrist weights, weighted vests and other similar tools do have their use but they are not necessarily the best for building power.

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Why Historical Training Matters

When I first started HEMA Strong, one of my dream ideas/projects was to run a seminar or event based on historical training methods because about once a month someone in the group asks: “How do we set up our physical training like that of a historical knight?”

Why does that matter? Why would we?

I did some initial research to figure out how and why I might do this, and had a few conversations with Arturo Camargo. We talked about his project and some modern analogs to historical training, things like Strongman, Highland Games, and specifically the Swiss living traditions of Steinstossen (rock throwing) and Schwingen/Hosenlupf (folk wrestling).

If you are looking for a good starting point and summary of historical training, please check out Arturo’s article on HROARR: https://hroarr.com/article/take-great-pains-in-your-knightly-practices-a-brief-review-of-medieval-and-renaissance-training-methodologies/

Then, as fate would have it, earlier in 2019 Charles Lin mentioned that he actually wanted to do this since I hadn’t done anything beyond have a few conversations about it. This made me incredibly happy because it was one less thing for me to have on my to do list, and because Charles isn’t a personal trainer, and is thus free from the modern training biases that I know I have. In my opinion, Charles’  “specialty” is doing research, experimentation, and asking questions in order to make the history aspect of HEMA far more accessible to everyone.

I probably would have set this event up like a race or competition with keeping score and recording distances, times, etc. Instead, there were teams, and an open discussion about what each person’s strengths were. In retrospect, I’m glad it was done this way as the team aspect was one of my favorite parts!  Go red team!

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Welcome to the first of hopefully many coaches roundtables, where some of the coaches that are part of HEMA Strong answer questions about a variety of topics. If you are a coach, personal trainer, HEMA instructor, etc and would like to be included in a future roundtable, please reach out to Chuck Gross on Facebook.

The Coaches and The Questions

The coaches for this first roundtable are Michael Adams, Chuck Gross, Jon Mills, and Zach Springer. We will be answering the following 8 questions:

1. What does your training look like?
2. What are in, your opinion, the three most overrated exercises for HEMA athletes?
3. On the flip side, what are the three most underrated?
4. What would your 6 weeks from tournament prep look like?
5. What do you struggle with in your own fitness?
6. What is your biggest strength in your own fitness?
7. What got you started on fitness?
8. What is your favorite weapon in HEMA? (Ringen is a weapon)

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