Staying Fit for Fencing, with Dr. Elizabeth Scott

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to: https://swordschool.shop/blogs/podcast/episode-204-staying-fit-for-fencing-with-dr-elizabeth-scott 

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Elizabeth Scott is a historical martial arts and armoured combat practitioner on foot and on horseback, which is extremely cool, as well as being an orthopaedic surgeon, which is arguably even cooler. Her latest venture is Sprezzatura Sports, a company providing health and fitness training for sports fencers and historical martial artists. Of course, her main claim to fame is having appeared on this show before in episode 114.

Things have changed for Liz since our last conversation in 2022, as at the time of recording, she was preparing to move herself, her dog, and maybe her horse over to the UK to start a master’s degree in Sport, Strength and Conditioning at Loughborough University. It’s just Liz doing the degree, not the dog or the horse.

In our conversation we talk about recovery from injury, how to stay injury free and take care of our bodies as we age. We also talk about training for historical fencing, training for tournaments, and dealing with both the mental and physical sides of tournament fencing.

Liz is a mounted combat enthusiast, and we discuss vaulting onto your horse – while in full armour – and how this was an essential part of the medieval training, despite seeming pretty impossible to us modern folk.