A Statistical Analysis On The National Foil Fencers Special Physical Condition

Introduction
Foil fencing is a sport that requires quick and accurate body movements. To meet the demand of foil fencing
competition, foil athletes should have excellent nerve-muscle system. In the past, we often use the methods that we used
in track and field athletes coaching and training to conditioning or evaluate foil fencers. Obviously, the conditioning
factors foil fencers’ difference a lot from other kind of sports. So we do a lot of statistical work and theoretical analysis
about foil fencers’ special characteristics in this study.

Methods
Subjects
The subjects were 25 foil fencers took part in the national fencing tournament in Shanghai China 2003, 15 male and 10
female. 13 bouts of male individual competitions and 8 females individual competitions are recorded.
Index choice
In the research, we choose some index that we think is correlated with the fencing performance. And we also made
some changes after consultation with several coaches. The statistical index which can reflect foil fencers’ special
characteristics are as follows:
Competition time (CT), time of high intensity (TH), times of high intensity (Tsh), time of low intensity (TL), times of
low intensity (TsL), times of relax (TsR), time of relax (TR), times of shift (TsSH), distance of shift (DSH) and thrust
times (THT).
About judging the high intensity and low intensity, mainly depend on the observers and the foil fencer’ fencing
behavior.

Results
All the related index data which can reflect the special character of foil fencers we get are in table 1.

Discussion
In foil fencing competition, fencer not only should not only have great explosive power in their joint such as heel, knee,
hip, elbow and wrist et al, but also can give a neatly control of them to fit fencing competition. For fencing competitors,
a lot of actions such as distance judging, opponents’ motion trend estimation, these optic actions take place before each
attack or defend, so fencers can attack effectively or avoid being hit to a possible extent, for fencers, judging speed,
timely reactive speed, joint and muscle action speed, ability of shifting back and ahead, these factors definitively
determine fencers technique and fencing performance.
Another conclusion can be made that foil fencer mainly depends on ATP-CP energy system, and aerobic system also
play an very important role during the game playing because this will be of great help for them to resume energy.
In the fencing, foil athletes mainly use their hand, arm, legs and heel to carry on an attack or avoid being hit in a correct
time. So the top fencers must have very great explosive power in such joints, to corporate perfectly with nerve and
vision system. The speed of judging, shifting, muscle explosive reactive takes a great role in fencing, so in foil fencers’
coaching and training, such factors as intensity and action time and energy supply should match fencers’ special needs
when we take fencing exercises in coaching courses.

References
[1] Stewart K.J., Peredo A.R., Willliams C.M; Physiological and morphological factors associated with successful
fencing performance. J HumErgol 6:53-60,1977
[2] Ketlinski R., Pickens L.: Characteristics of male fencers in the 28th annual NCAA fencing championships. Res
Quart 44:434-439,1974
[3] J.Harmemberg, R. Ceci, P. Barvestad, K.Hjerpe, J. Nystrom.: Comparison of Different Tests of Fencing
performance. Int. J. Sports Med.12(1991)

NOTA: O texto com a iconografia está no anexo.

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