Fencing Strength
Attending fencing practice every week is not the same as training for speed. Drilling footwork and tactics develops technical proficiency — but speed, explosiveness, and the capacity to move faster than your opponent are physical qualities that require dedicated fencing workouts to develop. If a fencer has been putting in the hours on the piste without seeing meaningful improvements in their explosiveness, the likely answer is not more fencing. It is what happens away from fencing.
Three training methods make the biggest difference.
1. Sprinting
If the nervous system is never trained to fire at maximum speed, it will not fire at maximum speed when it matters. Sprinting is the most explosive expression of human movement available. It teaches the nervous system to recruit muscle fibres faster, builds hamstring strength through the high-speed eccentric demands of the sprint cycle, and develops the kind of acceleration that translates directly into attack and retreat speed on the strip.
Adding multi-directional and reactive components — direction changes on a signal, partner-led drills, reaction-based sprint starts — develops agility alongside raw speed. Sprints should be short, fully recovered, and executed at maximum effort. Anything else is conditioning, not speed training.
2. Plyometrics
Plyometric training develops the ability to absorb and redirect force rapidly — exactly what happens in every lunge recovery and direction change in fencing. A well-structured plyometric programme works three mechanisms:
- Depth drops and drop jumps — train force absorption and reactive strength
- Pogo hops and variations — develop tendon stiffness and elasticity, which is the basis of efficient, low-cost footwork
- Intensive plyometrics (broad jumps, bounding) — translate the speed and tendon qualities into explosive power output
These three categories are not interchangeable. They develop different physical qualities and should all be present in a complete plyometric programme.
3. General Strength
This does not mean training like a bodybuilder or powerlifter. It means building a consistent, progressive foundation in the fundamental movement patterns: squatting, hinging, pushing, and pulling. These patterns underpin every physical demand in fencing and in sport more broadly.
A strong foundation serves two purposes. First, it reduces injury risk — athletes with higher base strength levels are demonstrably more resilient to the repetitive loading of a demanding training and competition schedule. Second, it raises the ceiling for speed and power development. Sprinting and plyometric ability are built on top of general strength. Trying to develop explosiveness without that foundation produces limited and fragile results.
Putting It Together
These three elements work together. Strength feeds power. Power feeds speed. Speed feeds fencing performance. The challenge is that none of them are developed through fencing practice alone — and waiting until the month before a major tournament to address them is too late.
Fencers who want to be meaningfully faster and more explosive by summer competition need to be building these qualities in structured training sessions away from the piste, consistently, over months.
Related: How the #1 Ranked Junior Epee Fencer Trains for Speed — a full sprint session breakdown from Mahmoud Elsayed showing exactly how elite fencers structure speed training. Contrast Training: How an Olympic Fencer Builds Explosive Power — the power training method used by Guillaume Bianchi, 2024 Olympic silver medalist.
The Explosiveness fencing training program at Fencing Strength is built specifically around sprints, plyometrics, and foundational strength — structured across 12 weeks so all three qualities develop together. 7-day free trial, no commitment.