a body question

[Izanaki]

I'm not sure how many people have thought about this, but my question is in regards to the body(its muscles) and fighting. I guess to simplify this i'll make it a list. Increasing speed, and/or power are generally what im talking about improving.

What muscles do the most work, or are more involved when using:

Sword/board.
Spear/glaive
flail
javelin
bow(i would think it would be more of the shoulder)

[Black Cat]

The shoulder muscle is used most in normal archery. I remember being told that by an experienced archer. I don't see how Belegarth archery is any different. The only differences between the two from what I can tell is the lower poundages and how you aim the bow. I wouldn't know about any of the other stuff though. I'm still a newb.

[Big King Jimmy]

Sword and board:

If your right handed, you work your left bicep a lot holding up your shield. Your right forarm from swinging. Depending on your shield, you'll be using your back muscles too to keep the * thing up.

Spears and glaives work your muscles very differently. Glaives will work you Sides more since you use your whole body to swing. If your using a spear or thrusting with a glaive you'll use different muscles. The question becomes how do YOU thrust? With your arms and shoulders, or your whole body?

[Digoza]

as for sword and board (or Flail, as well as florentine) if you throw a lot of wrap shots, you're going to work your left (if you're awesome and left-handed) or your right forearm/wrist a LOT. We were puttin' on demos all day at ISU's quad day at Spring Fest and then we fought on Sunday. Sunday night I could barely pick up my glass of water and bring it to my mouth to drink when a bunch of us went out to eat.

[Chicken]

I'm no body builder, but I can at least say from experience that my shoulder bears the brunt of my * heavy shield and my tricep gets the biggest workout from spearing (though everything else gets tired, too, eventually).

[hahaha]

I've always thrown strong clean shots from the hips. Most good fighters I know do this. If you're not knowingly including your entire body in a movement, you're cutting it's potential way short. If you want to improve speed and control with swings, lift weights (or go rowing), and fightfightfight. Throw shots against a pell or tree if nobody's around.

If all your energy for a swing is coming from your biceps or shoulders, you're going to wear yourself out much faster and potentially damage your wrists. Your hips are designed to sustain a lot of weight. Generating momentum with your lower body also makes your shots less telegraphy.

[Izanaki]

thanks for everyones help on answering these questions for me.

I've always thrown strong clean shots from the hips. Most good fighters I know do this. If you're not knowingly including your entire body in a movement, you're cutting it's potential way short. If you want to improve speed and control with swings, lift weights (or go rowing), and fightfightfight. Throw shots against a pell or tree if nobody's around.

If all your energy for a swing is coming from your biceps or shoulders, you're going to wear yourself out much faster and potentially damage your wrists. Your hips are designed to sustain a lot of weight. Generating momentum with your lower body also makes your shots less telegraphy.

how do you put your body behind your shots? the way i have been trying it is to twist my hips while swinging. are there different ways, or is this the best way.

[Chicken]

I found this site really useful to get me swinging from my hips. I think one of the biggest things for me is not squaring up my shoulders with my opponent. If my sword shoulder and hips are back at an angle, then I have to swing from the hips up if I'm going to have any range.

For what it's worth, coming from a pretty poor sword-and-boarder

[Sir_Mel]

ok, I've worked with some pretty prestigous sports trainers (Don Beebe, Dr. Jeff Schutt, and others) in the past and can tell you with confidence what you should do.

First of all, NEVER EVER work one side more than the other. Unless you've got an olympic trainer to show you how to properly do this and you're doing it for something like shotput or the like, always train both sides of the body evenly.

Ok, when you work, try to do as much as you can with free weights, it allows for a fuller range of movement and helps to build up the the tiny connecting tendons and muscles called balance muscles between your large muscle groups. A lot of the stuff you'll want to do will be with dumbells, these workouts include: Bench Press w/ dumbells, Tricep Extensions, Military Press, Bicep Curls, Butterfly Press, Speed Lunges, Rows, etc. You'll also want do some excercises that require a bit more equipment like: Bench Press (Regular), Power Clean <optional>, Rows, Dead Lift, Squat (Front), Squat (Regular)<optional>, Incline Bench Press, Crunches, Hanging Ab-Loops, Pull-ups<if you can>, Chin-ups, Bicep 21's, Tricep 30's, as well as any machines you feel you need to use.

For all workouts, strive for good form, if you have to, go down in weight until you can master the form then try and do more. If you're goin for muscle building you're gonna want to do about 8-12 reps of about 1-3 sets, whichever you feel comfortable with. On a general hold, do the same weight as you increase reps and when you can do 3 sets of 12 without much problem, add some more weight. If you are going to be at a fitness center of some sort (and most likely you will be), try to ignore pretty much everyone else there unless they ask for a spotter or something. Alot of the guys I see workin out hardly ever use correct form and are there just to try showoff how much weight they can throw up using their entire body (not proper form). Also, you're going to want to alternate your excercises every workout so your muscles have time to rest and rebuild and so you get into a state of redundancy. Before each workout, you should warmup for at least 15 min. This does not mean stretch for 15 min. Stretching a cold muscle to much can cause it to tear and that would be problem. Instead, do some like jogging or biking for about 10-15 min, nothing super strenuous but at least enough to work up a sweat. Then proceed with your workout. Try to do about a 1-2 hour workout, have about 45 sec breaks in between each set of each excercise. Drink lots of water, about 1 oz. for every 2 lbs of bodyweight you are (take your weight and divide it by 2, that's how many ounces of water you should drink). You're also gonna want to stop eating crap food (i.e. Fast Food, processessd chips, processessed deserts like twinkies, etc. basically, anything that's not good for you.) and start eating more protein in order for your muscles to have something to rebuild with and eat more fiber so your body can digest the protein properly (unless you want some sever constipation).

As for swinging with your hips, talk to any of your friends who play baseball, have them show you how to swing a baseball bat. Then go to the batting cages w/ your shield and a smaller bat and practice applying the same principles using only one hand. Yeah people'll think you look like an idiot but you'll be better at fighting so what do you care. Try and find one of those places that can throw random pitches instead of just in one place. This'll help your reaction time, your swing technique, and you'll be able to play baseball one-handed should you ever lose your off hand. Another application of the same principle would be to go and get one of those kiddie self pitching machines that throw the wiffle balls (or just have a buddy throw them) so you can use your belegarth sword. In fact, you can do the batting cage version, then do the kiddie pitch version, and lastly do some sort of stretching. This applies a common workout techinque in sports, you're training the muscle to be 3 things: Strong, Explosive (fast), and Flexible.



That's all I feel like saying about this for now, not much is it (lol). Sorry if I sound long winded or like a know-it-all. If there are any questions (most likely there will be) just let me know and I'll try to explain it. I'll try to post a detailed explanation of how and why you do all the above mentioned (unless you already know how to, then kudos to you) workouts so that you can become a ripped belegarthian fighter.

Hope this helps.
Later

damnit, stupid computer, didn't mean to double post. Somebody please fix this.

Deleted your double post and moved your request post to your original--Kyrian

[moondog]

get to a bench and press press press
lift homey lift

[Kyrian]

There's also this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plyometrics

Kyrian

[moondog]

nice

[Kage]

find some SCA manuals for throwing shots and stuff. There is many factors that speed and accuracy in this sport come from. First you have to have a good proper stance that will allow you to move freely without losing very much balance. The next thing you need to understand is the proper basic, and I cannot stress that enough, basic techinique. For example when people ask me where I throw a shot from I tell them my leg. There is a reason for that statement though. When I begin to shoot press off my leg without raising my heel off of the ground. That movement pushes alot of power up to the hips forcing them to either go up or forward. In this case you want it to go forward and up to the shoulders, and the down the arm. The wrist only directs my shots. Never do I throw a shot with the wrist or my forearm. There is simply just not enough strength in them to fight for a long time.

This is so much easier to show and talk about in person so take what you can out of it.

[Sir_Mel]

I'm gonna have to agree with Kage, I could show you countless ways to better your overall performance but it would be soooo much easier to show you in person. So if you see me at an event or if you're ever out at a Loderia practice, look me up, I'll make sure you have enough info about working out what not for the rest of your life.

Another tip I forgot, and lot of guys aren't gonna like this, stop drinkin alcohol and soda especially before and during events. The carbonation in soda and the alcohol in hard beverages breaks down your muscles like crazy and in fact can reverse of the process of your muscles rebuilding themselves.