How did warriors and fighters in ancient times stay fit before gyms and weights?

True. Men in my family are well-shaped, muscular even if they aren't necessarily strong anymore.

I was super skinny (120 lbs 5'10") worked out for 2 years and got to 165lbs. Now after two years of minimal working out, I'm still 160lbs and look fit.

>not noticing that we currently live in a great depression

Yeah frail people never existed in the past and had kids.

Unironically being this stupid

Even the Ancient Greeks knew that lifting weights made you strong and hot and I doubt those faggots came up with that on their own.
Beefcakes have probably been lifting rocks since before written history.

>people cant even reading comprehension
fucking soyboy

If I wear armour, will it help protect against me dropping weight on myself?

like that guy who squished his chest while doing a bench press with suicide grip, would he have survived had he been wearing armour?

Armour was not that heavy

They trained 1000's of hours with bows and swords. Historians can tell by bone structures what some individual did in warfare

Armor helps against sharp edges more than blunt force. I mean its obviously better than nothing but IDK if you can survive fucking up a 3+ pl8 bench.

more importantly its not like everyone was constantly wearing plate armor out n about. Farmers didn't casually wear chainmail while picking turnips

Plus swinging heavy metal all day everyday

Saw some video a while back comparing a knight in full armor to the modern US soldier and the gear was about the same in weight.

>bronze/plate armor is heavy as fuck.
Steel plate armor weighs ~50lbs full suit. But that can vary depending on the thickness of the material used and the quality of the alloy. Considering that bronze is less dense than steel, it'd be less weight. Not to mention, people wore considerably less armor than in the medieval period.

>would he have survived had he been wearing armour?
Depending on what the person was lifting: maybe? For the chest alone, a full suit of armor is composed of a 1-2 inch thick coat of wool intended to absorb shock, suit of plates (thin plate mail), and the actual chest piece itself. By the time armor was at it's most advanced, armor had incorporated an air cavity between the chest and chest piece. That way any direct blows would dissipate their energy by denting the armor.

All things considered, they're definitely going to end up with many broken ribs and damage to their internal organs. What may save them though is whether or not they tense up; if they're relaxed, they'll compress letting a lot of the energy to transfer into the body. If they tense up, more of that energy should be dissipated.

The wartime generation in Britain will always be remembered as the greatest one, as it was the first time since 900 years that the mainland was attacked properly. Although, in fairness, more toughness was required during the civil war. But no-one wants to go that far back in history.

15th Century account of a tournament champion knight training regimen, with video illustration:
youtube.com/watch?v=q-bnM5SuQkI

"When populations around the globe started turning to agriculture around 10,000 years ago, regardless of their locations and type of crops, a similar trend occurred: The height and health of the people declined."
sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110615094514.htm

There's also mappings of height as a proxy for health and nutrition for a lot of regions in the last 2000 years. Decreases can be found during plagues, famines and the most recent one is with the industrial revolution. This last trend was reversed in the 1800's, though.

How do you swing dance to heavy metal?

The answer is butt sex. Lots and lots of butt sex. The Greeks are known for it, but spartan men were it. It being butt sex.

In ancient times, if you had an olive grove and pressed oil, you were a pro. A butt sex pro.

Now a days everyone is gay and have butt sex, but back then they had butt sex and were not gay.

Something happened that made butt sex be a gay thing rather than a warrior thing.

>attacked properly
no, it wasnt

>Something happened
Christianity. Fuckin' moralfags thought everything was heresy.

Famine, you dumb faggots.

Ancient warriors were never buff like how hollywood would like us to think, they're fit, but not muscular.

Full armor wasn't routinely worn. They were usually used in sport, or mounted on a horse. Most infantry and guards wore akaton/gambion because that shit was heavy as fuck for them back in the day. To sustain our modern troops to carry that weight is much better and plentiful food, and materials to help distribute the load better. Even then, they have powered fans in helmets and goggles now, and carrying at least 3L in a camelbak has been the norm for a long time.

>What were their regiments?
They just did what they wanted to be good at. There weren't any lifting or calistehnics programs, they didn't even have running routines - if they wanted to have some progression, they ran in armor, on sand, or both.

Imagine doing sports instead of lifting, basically. I mean, Greek boxers did shadowboxing ("skiamachia") and pretty much nothing else. This was called "the Greek way of boxing", whereas there also was the "Roman way", which was mostly sparring.

They later had a bag to hit (a small bag full of grains and sand) named "korykos" that weighed maybe 20, 30 lbs or so. They also had an exercise called cheiromachia later, which nobody reaklly knows what it was. Maybe sparring, maybe drills, maybe kata/forms (the word seems to imply going through pre-set motions, it's mainly used in dance nowadays).
And that's it. They didn't run, or jump rope or hit all kinds of bags, really. They just did what they wanted to be good at.

Fun fact: Cuban boxers do pretty much the same (mainly shadowboxing and not much else) and they're pretty dominant in amateur boxing.

Wrestler just wrestled, really. Pankratiasts had a heavy bag instead of the light weight bag boxers used.

Sadly,w e really don't know about any routines or programming. There was the Tetrad (basically weekly periodization), but that kind of training was heavily critiziced for not being individual enough. So, think instinctive training.

Anyway, all these "cardio, BWE, weights" posts are dead wrong, the stuff didn't even exist back then.

Oh yeah, diet was meat (1lb a day) and bread (2 lb a day; athletes ate MUCH more, like 20 lbs of each), some veggies, fruit (some ate a lot of fruit), a lot of oil (Butter, olive oil, depending on country).

Who was that French knight who could do a full somersault in armour and climb up the bottom side of a siege ladder as well?

Theres was no smoking ciggarettes, so it was pretty hard to fuck your lungs up. There was periods of very little food, so most if not all people were always lean. There was no electricity, so all choirs required manual labor. It would have been really hard NOT to be fit

Over 40,000 people killed in the Blitz. What's your definition of a "proper" attack, user?

What did the metal men think as they ran off to war? These bloody, gruesome battles where they impale one another and rip each others guts out with weapons. What drove them through it? What did they think of it?

Dunno his name, he ran a lot and danced in armor for cardio and to get accustomed to the weight, iirc.

People always smoked, even before tobacco was a thing.

>There was periods of very little food, so most if not all people were always lean
People ate 4000 calories+ until the World Wars, bro.

See

Walking around and fighting in armor. They did not weigh much, but swinging shit around in them the whole day was surely hard. They did chin ups in armor too. And riding horses will give you some pretty decent legs.

Deus Vult, same way ragheads praise Allah before they nuke themselves in public

can't be so courageous if you don't believe there's a lovely afterlife ahead of you

Marching, riding, swimming, lugging heavy shit around, hunting, swinging sword and axes all day long, pulling 100 pds longbows for hours, chopping wood, doing farmwork, etc.

I highly, highly, HIGHLY doubt that. We are talking about ancient times. There was no carb overloaded food back then, so peoples insulin response would be vastly different to ours. They would have gotten fuller quicker, most likely eating substantially less food at every meal. Their meals would be worlds apart from what we eat today, and they would most probably be all eating ketogenically i.e meat, veggies and thats it. A good snack for them would be like a piece of fruit or something.

>I highly, highly, HIGHLY doubt that. We are talking about ancient times. There was no carb overloaded food back then, so peoples insulin response would be vastly different to ours. They would have gotten fuller quicker, most likely eating substantially less food at every meal. Their meals would be worlds apart from what we eat today, and they would most probably be all eating ketogenically i.e meat, veggies and thats it. A good snack for them would be like a piece of fruit or something.
American education.

They ate loads of bread and porridges. 2 lbs per day, man. Much more than us. they also ate more meat (I think only the US recently tied medieval Europe for meat consumption per capita).

Basically, you're talking out of your ass as usual. Stop watching so much TV, mutt.

Are you an unironic retard?

fat >>> carbs

Weights have existed for thousands of years you retard.

Grain was a staple everywhere, though. Only upper class people could afford better stuff than grains as a mainstay. You're right about fruit though, with the added fact that fruit was only a seasonal treat, so definitely not a constant.
As a bit of an anecdote, peasants in my country would eat mainly cheese and fish, with wheat only on special occasions, and corn in only small quantities, since these were cash crops for them (so these were "taxed" by the landowners). So there is some merit to your point, but it's not exactly ketogenic, only low carb at best.

>keto fag
hahahahahaha

That's wrong. What is your country so I can prove you're lying (again)?

Meat was fairly rare and expensive. There was also a religious calendar prohibiting certain types of food at certain times. Fasting was also a thing.

Main source of calories in the middle ages was barley, oats, rye, vegetable and fava beans for the common people and wheat for the nobilty. Meat consumption was quite low and reserved for the nobility. You are so fucking far off.

I doubt you'll find historic data on my country (Romania) in English. The situation I presented held only until the 20th century, anyway, with grains being requisitioned for the armies mainly. Luckily famine was mostly avoided, as there was this trade going on with peasants from the lowlands driving fish carts up, and shepherds bringing dairy down. So you got fish/dairy as the peasant's food, grains and meat for the soldiers, and the upper classes having whatever they wanted.

Armour wasnt heavy at all back then considering what soldiers carry on themselves today

They were in shape because warfare recquired you to walk and train a lot, most people would at least train a little every day and their food wasnt calorie dense, also labor

I read about this one guy who ran a lot in his full armour and did a lot of exercise to stay ready.

Boomer tweet oof

Life itself was heavy enough to make you strong

Weapons werent that heavy, like we're talking sub 1 kilograms for most ancient era swords

1) More like 1.2-2kg approximately
2) Go to a HEMA school and swing one around a whole bunch if you think it isn't a decent cardio work out, at a minimum.

not true and also
t. Jack Donovan

They did not eat much meat, far less than we do today.

Well, Chainmail can come to around 45lbs, too. Now imagine carrying that around all day and still walking around the whole time.

Most ancient swords were 40-60cm in length and weighed from 70g to 1kg tops, axes were also quite light, shields were the heaviest part of the panoply. A greek hoplon roundshield could be 10-20kg or even more, a Roman scutum was about 8kg.

If you wear full plate you are very unlikely to wear full mail too, you would wear mail in the gaps, such as neck, armpits, groin etc. You are also very unlikely to walk around much in armor/full mail. Especially mail is very easy to take off/on so unless you expect to fight at any moment then you would just take it off.

Thinking of the Romans here, IIRC they marched in that shit.

depends which rank of soldiery, richer triarii had heavier equipment but they got their gear moved for them in wagons and on pack animals since they were the last line that had to form up so didn't have to be ready at any time. The hastati had fairly basic gear amounting to maybe 15kg tops. Compared to phalanx infantry under Alexander with Sarissa, hoplon and full breastplates it was nothing, and they marched and fought to India and back in some of the harshest conditions on earth.

Ah, that's true, but that would be with either mail or plate too. Mail in earier periods and plate in later.

Medieval men at arms? Training to fight (sparring) and wearing armour. Late medieval/early modern English longbowmen? Shit load of hard albour from childhood and pulling a heavy fucking bow (80 lbs minimum) all the time. Think cable Kroc rows.

They rode a horse too, which possibly gave them good glutes

Dude, you just clicked something in my brain. I will create a whole new "workout" for myself, based simply on "what I want to be good at". That's the way I used to train back in my teens, but it got burried under all these different concepts and shit.
Just like the Bugz said, if you want to get got at something, practice that move and nothing else.

Thanks user, I just got a huge motivation to become much more physically active, and having a blast doing that.

They ate raw onions

Ever heard of peasants? You do realize people of the past lived in absolute squalor and we're incredibly unattractive? Marriage was arranged too, you idiot. Sex was a chore

>screencapping that retarded post

Modern soldiers today carry more weight than any other soldier in history

They might not have invented the bench press yet, but they still knew lifting heavy things made your stronger.

The highland games is a good example. The "sport" event thing where scottish or canadian people wear kilts and throw big metal balls, big logs, run with big rocks and then throw them at the finish line.

That originated from their version of strength training to make their warriors strong.

Pretty sure most ancient cultures had figured out similar/the same training methods too.

We haven't evolved since those times. We might be lucky enough to be forced to learn how to write and memorize shit well from a young age. But we aren't more intelligent than people 1000+ years ago by default... They obviously could figure out lifting things made you stronger and running made you run faster etc.

congrats user, you matured a little

You haven't taken the bittsexpill faggot. Try it just once and all of your pr's will double overnight.