Recently, some of the guys I fight with introduced me to an exercise that they called "fat batting". Essentially, it is a routine designed to speed up the reflexes, and build the fine muscles of the arm, for faster, more precise striking, and to teach the fighter to quickly reset, block, and strike. This routine uses the block strike routine, where participants stand a weapon's length away and then strike, block the opponents response, and immediately strike again at an opening they see from their opponents attack. They called it fat batting because were using the larger, and very light, pool-noodle bats that are popular in Amtgard. The lightness of the weapon allowed greater speed, which is the goal of the exercise.

I was only able to keep up with the guy I was practicing with for about 2 minutes on each arm, and then had to take a break; it was surprisingly tiresome.

So, what do you guys think? Any experiences with this routine? Did it help your game? Any other routines that you could recommend that fall along the same line?

It would be better to do it with a heavy blade at practice and then when you go to an event or something to use a lighter weapon of the same or greater length. If you're quick with a noodle bat, then great, you're quick with a noodle bat, but if you're quick with an overweight sword/mace/club then you'll be much faster with a properly weighted weapon.

The goal of the exercise is to be as fast as possible, I understand that, but you'll be slightly less quick during the drill in exchange for being a lot quicker in general. Your reflexes will still sharpen, and when you switch back to a nornal weapon you'll be pleased with the results.

Fat bats are really wide, though if the ones you were using weren't very heavy, I'm not sure what use they are. Block-strike is about blocking and building reaction speed, but fat weapons make it a lot easier to block, so the drill would lose effectiveness. You can use fat bats to block-strike to build muscle and endurance, but they should be heavier than normal equipment; the point of making them "fat" (adding weight, reducing density) is to keep you from welting each other.


Not really, and legions of crossover Amtgard fighters are the proof in the pudding. Speed should be trained, and to train speed, you use lighter equipment. This accustoms your body to going faster and your eyes and mind to reading and processing the fight at a faster pace. You use heavier equipment to practice form and build strength. You then combine muscles that move heavy stuff with a mind and hands that are used to going fast.

I agree with dane on training with lighter stuff to work on your body's ability to read and return at faster speeds.

But the fat bats, the point of them is to yes build up some muscle while blockstriking but its also to help you make your shots more precises and to help you read incoming shots because the fat bats are larger and easier to track. once you've mastered the fat bats then you move to your more standard noodle round swords for blockstrike.

How fat is fat?

Thanks for the input, guys.

* & Dane: Peter put it better than I did. The point of the drill is to sharpen reflexes, train fine muscle, and to build endurance.

*: Thanks for clarification

*: The bats are about 3 inches in diameter.

So far, I've noticed that when I get into a faster pace, I'm failing to reset my guard appropriately. Every time I reset, my guard floats further inward, until my elbow is almost resting below my ribs. This explains why I tend to lose out on matches where we trade a multitude of blows.

This is often related to shot mechanics, that is, reaching back farther than you need to to throw your shots.

I've been trying to focus on a few things, lately: Precision, shot selection, better mechanics, and better footwork.

Being more conscientious of what I'm doing seems to be the right first step. I need to shake that urge to bring my arm back to throw a shot, because with good mechanics I know I can throw that shot plenty hard enough. Overriding poor habits, I suppose. Thanks for the insight on that, Dane. I'll try to keep it at the front of my mind when I'm sparring.

It's a common problem a lot of us have worked through. Just the benefit of time well spent. It could also be fatigue, as it's easier to support a block closer to your body.

To remedy, when doing block-strike, as you said, consciously focus on blocking correctly (the blocking is the important part of the drill). That's keeping your guard projected, turning the hips, and rotating the sword around its tip.

np dude

Try to lift exercise and striking using heavy weapons to create muscles stronger, it can help to improve your power to be able to strike harder...

^Be careful if you decide to do this as doing this only helped to further bad body mechanics; sure my arms got ripped and I can throw a brutal (but incredibly slow) shot but I'm having to rework how to throw all over again. My biggest problem was with the heavy weapons was I ended up learning how to throw heavy weapons with all arm rather then hips. Boxing has been helping me get the power to derive from the ground up, via footwork up into the hips, via the shoulders then into the tip of the sword. I'm gonna give fat-batting a try this summer once monster-noodle hits the market. I've gotten lucky with some superb amtgard cross-over fighters being super into Belegarth and more-so training.
Trying to convince Delfino and Hrothgar to do anything but spar is like pulling teeth tho lolololol

I fatbat daily, usually twice, I never thought it really helped with my fighting though.

Significant increase in forearm strength.