How to warm up for fencing

“We want faster, cleverer and more independent fencers”

an aspirational goal discussed by SW Fencing hub coaches last week. Part of my role is to teach them how to do specific fencing warm up.

I was fortunate enough to be working on 2 great fencing camps last week: Norman Golding’s summer course at Millfield School and James and Ian Williams’ sabre camp in Grantham.

The above quote came from many conversations I had with some great individuals over the course of the 7 days on camp.

How to start your fencing warm-up

I had a simple aim for the 4 days I was on Norman’s summer camp: get the fencers to walk away with 2 warm-ups that they could utilise at their home salles. 

I have failed miserably as a coach to get my athletes to do a fencing warm up consistently and well in my absence. As soon as they get to a competition, all planned routines seem to disappear.

I have been researching extensively latest thoughts on injury prevention in warm-ups, as well as discussing with coaches about how they work in practice. I have also added what works with the fencers I coach.

The principle is to warm up through stages:

General: (just got out of the car or classroom) Get the hips and T-spine moving, followed by a sideways, forwards and back gross motor pattern. Then do some work in prone to warm the shoulders up as well as coordinate arms and legs.

Related: Introduce single leg balance and control, followed by explosive movement from there and a braking action. Jumping work: single jumps with controlled landings and then reactive jumps. Followed by acceleration starts, and then a running action using spatial awareness.

Specific: By this stage, they are moving faster, have sweated and have been up, down, forward, back and sideways. They can then pick up their swords and start to rehearse footwork and tactics.

Each fencer went away with a written handout on these warm-ups. It took a good 90 minutes of coaching to get each one right (or at least in the right direction).

Here they are on video.

Thanks to all the fencers and coaches for helping me on the course: great feedback and interaction.  

Further reading:

• Introducing fitness to fencers 
• The Ultimate guide to warm ups.
• Individual strength and conditioning coaching
• Guide to pre-season training