Getting Medieval with Strength Training!

Children of the Sun

So I recently came across this cool video on YouTube of Medieval Strength & Conditioning exercises.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOxWqdydnD4

This is a fun topic. The creator of the video is a PhD student named Maciej Talaga and is working on “an embodied study of the martial system of Hs3227a and its corresponding physical-cultural context” for their dissertation. I, of course, am interested in the part that I italicized. Altho that may win the prize for best PhD research ever.

The video, and underlying dissertation work, is based on a variety of historical sources, but which are nonetheless limited. Talaga describes them further in a Patreon post. 

I see two basic ways of looking at this information. 

1. Choosing to do strength training in a historical style for the purposes of better understanding and living one’s Historical Fencing training. This is essentially a living history approach. This is cool. And if that’s what motivates you to exercise (more) then that is awesome. 

2. As inspiration for your personal training program using some mix of old and modern equipment or entirely modern equipment. 

I’m going to focus on option two here because it falls within my wheelhouse.

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So Let’s Talk About the Exercises Shown

Stretching and Calisthenics

Talaga starts with some basic stretching and calisthenics. My understanding of the history of exercise is that this didn’t start to become a specific organized practice until the 19th century and that it started in Britain. Talaga does not detail it in the accompanying blog post and notes that it was recommended by a modern exercise professional related to some pre-existing injuries.

A good warm-up is, of course, useful, but there’s no particular magic to any specific warm-up and there are lots of right ways to do it. 

Wrestling drill

During the warm-up portion of the video there is a picture-in-picture of what appears to me to be a modern looking grappling style of drill/exercise. Also not referenced and just as good as other warm-up options.

Windmill exercise

No historical source listed but still a good exercise for developing shoulder stability and strength throughout range of motion. Which is particularly good for historical fencers.

Headstand

Categorized as activation by Talaga. This may be a terminology and/or language thing because I’m not sure what they're getting at. BUT it certainly is a historically attested exercise and there’s no reason not to do it.

Staggered and Hockey Deadlift

The rationale given for this one is questionable to me. There are historical images that look like these two exercises but Talaga concludes that they are actually in preparation for doing throwing motions. This is plausible to me. However, based on watching old-style throwing sports i.e. Highland games, I don’t think this part is a key element of the throwing itself. So I would hesitate to conclude that these were done as exercises themselves in period.

That being said I think they are good exercises and worth including on their own. They also help with equipment limitations since getting a really heavy deadlift is hard with rocks.

RDL

As the weight increased with the unilateral deadlifts Talaga transitioned to a Romanian style or straight leg deadlift. He calls it a regular deadlift in his write up but that’s a minor distinction here. 

Straight leg deadlift on the left, context suggests set-up for stone throw

Still a good exercise choice.

Single-arm Press

Very good exercise. Sport specific by being upright and unilateral. This is a routine thing for me to include with my clients currently.

Positioned for a single arm press

Zercher Squat

Best squat you can do with the equipment. But it illustrates one of the key limitations of using the period style of equipment - weight progression is limited by the arms, so the legs just don’t get as much as they could.

A modern front squat permits maxing out the legs instead of the arms being the limiter.

Deadlift

Eventually, while doing the Zercher squats they reach a point where it’s hard to keep the weight off the ground and they switch to doing an Atlas stone style deadlift. Again, good exercise selection. Equipment limitations are noteworthy tho.

Pullup

Good exercise of course. But also not accessible for someone who doesn’t start with the strength-to-weight ratio necessary to do a pullup. Period equipment would make this a hard problem to solve, since the only strategy would be to do negatives. 

Inverted rows are within the ability of the time, but hard to progress just by finding branches of the correct height.

This then is an area that makes modern equipment shine. Substitute/combine this with DB and BB rows and you’ve got your pulling motions covered.

Javelin Throwing

I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS

I have wanted to incorporate javelin throwing into my regime ever since I learned it was a period exercise many years ago. But it’s hard to do while living in a city, in an apartment with no yard. Sigh.

But I get a similar stimulus from doing medicine ball throws. Light weight, high velocity, can be adjusted for movement specificity. 

Stone Throwing

Also great! Same trouble as the javelin tho, but easier to overcome. I throw sandbells for this instead.

Clearly about to throw the stone

 Long/Broad Jump

Talaga calls this a long jump. English language usage would call it a broad jump - the long jump involves a running start. Also a great exercise. Normal thing for me to include in my clients’ programs. Altho I prefer the box jump because it’s easier on the knees and allows for clear progression and tracking.

What’s Missing?

Really, not much besides the pulling exercise limitation. 

We have all the basic categories covered: 

• Lifting

• Squatting

• Unilateral leg exercises

• Pushing

• Pulling

• Anti-rotation/oblique abdominal exercises

• Explosive exercises

Those are the categories I look to include in each exercise plan. 

Conclusion

The other sort of limitation with this equipment is limited options for progression. And I suspect that the idea of a clear progression scheme may be missing from historical sources as well. At least based on the written sources that I am familiar with - that some folks in the era had an oral tradition of a progression scheme is of course possible. 

I think this was cool PhD work, a cool idea and an informative video. It’s an interesting way to think about one’s modern training program as well. Have fun with this.

No, I don't need to Just Try It

 One of the common responses I get when I provide critical* feedback of a diet or exercise idea, is that I should, “just try it”. But no, I shouldn’t. And the suggestion that I should indicates a lack of understanding of science. Either the science underlying the specific topic or of scientific methodology in general and why it is the way it is. 

Science underlying the topic

For the topics of both nutrition and exercise science we have 70+ years of published research. The research is not all confined to ivory tower laboratory experiments and deals with people eating in the real world and athletes competing in their sport. 

We have enormous amounts of research to back our conclusions. Many landmark studies that exist have been running for decades. 

The basic findings of these research programs have all been repeatedly replicated with enough variations to demonstrate broad generalizability. Outcomes are clearly predictable. 

As such, no, some new (or old) exercise tool is not going to be some exception to these patterns.

And, no, some new diet is not going to show that actually, this, that or the other was actually the key all along. 

Nutrition is NOT always changing

The obvious comeback to me pointing out that there is more than half a century of research backing nutrition science would be the claim that it’s always changing. I even had a nutrition professor say that during the unit on the history of nutrition science. But if you look at the basics and broad eating patterns instead of focusing on details, there has been little change. 

• Every US food guideline has said that Americans should eat more vegetables and fruits and fewer calories added with sugar and oil/fat.

• Eating fewer calories than you burn is the key to weight loss - everything else is single digit percentage fiddling with details.

There are more consistencies than just this and there is more consistency than changes.

Scientific Methodology

My personal experience with an exercise or diet is basically irrelevant. When the published, replicated results and my personal experience disagree then the correct conclusion is that I am wrong. 

Personal experience with a topic is not an experiment. You are not controlling for confounding factors in any way. 

With dieting this usually just a matter of a person liking whatever diet was the one that they could best live with. When my friend uses a low carb diet with periodic fasting to get back down to a healthy weight then more power to them. But if they say I should do that they are going to run into the brick wall that I am miserable when fasting and really like carbs. 

Or the person has bought into bogus health claims. Your diet is not making your blood acidic. So if the low-acid diet** gets you to eat more vegetables and less high calorie density foods then your improvements are from the fiber and better calorie balance. You didn’t control for confounding factors and you are attributing success to the wrong thing. This is exactly why understanding the basic science and doing controlled experiments are so necessary. 

Ye Olde exercise tool is not great for everything. No tool is. But if adding that tool got you to actually do more than you were doing before you will see some improvements. It is basically true (for most things) that more exercise will produce some improvements even if they are modest or inefficient. 

If your shoulders are getting tired from holding your sword up then sure, gada exercises will help with that, but that doesn’t prove they are good for anything else. Or that they are cost-effective. Or safe.

I will, however, reserve the right to get grumpy about specifically dangerous diets and exercises.

The history of this

The history of what was learned by humans who “just tried it” is well illustrated by the history of medicine. Because there are a staggering number of medical treatments documented in historical sources that just don’t work. But some humans tried them and became convinced that they worked. And then it ended up being written down by somebody called a doctor (or equivalent in their language). 

In short, humans have hyper-active pattern recognition; it’s hard-wired into our brains. This is useful in many basic life situations but can also go badly wrong. We think that A caused B when they are in fact unrelated. 

Good reasons to do things

There are of course plenty of good reasons to do something that don’t have to do with optimal outcomes. Where I get grumpy is when a person is really just describing their personal preference as if it were the best idea for everyone.

Exercise plans that fit your circumstances, equipment and motivation are great.

Eating patterns that are sustainable for you and improve nutrition are great.

But don’t insist that I need to just try it.

*critical here in a technical sense, not just destructive criticism

** the low-acid diet I’ve seen actually recommended eating oranges which are the most acidic food that humans eat :-D