Body by Boffer - LARP for Health

I am a large man. I’ve always been a large man. There isn’t going to be much outside of spending hours in the gym that is probably going to change that. I am also in fairly decent shape for a guy my size, and I have one thing to attribute to that, my biggest hobby: boffer fighting.

Personal Experience

I took a couple of years off of fighting, and in that time, I gained a lot of weight. A lot. Without realizing it, I had let my self swell from being a big man to being dangerously obese, and I knew it would take work to get back into any semblance of shape. That’s where boffer came in.

I did a little digging around on Google looking for information about exercise and diet, searching for an activity that I could and would do because I enjoy it. While looking at a list of the average calories per hour burned by various things (ranging from driving a car to brushing your teeth), I learned that fencing actually burns a lot of calories, between 500 and 1000 calories per hour.

All those years of sword fighting really had kept me healthy.

I got back into boffer pretty heavily last year. I had been fighting off and on at events before that again, but I hadn’t been attending practices or really trying to keep up. I changed that last November, really throwing myself back into it full force.

I’m proud to say I’m down about 45 pounds.

No Mistake it IS Exercise - Don’t Hurt Yourself

It’s important to remember that not only is boffer fighting a great form of exercise, it can be a very intensive, high-impact workout. Make sure that when you are out there fighting you are taking care of yourself, and make sure to follow a few important tips:

• Be sure to stretch, especially your legs and shoulders.
• Keep hydrated, fight hard, sweat hard!
• Warm Up, Cool Down - don’t just jump into full beat down mode, work your way through some one-on-one fighting first.
• Take a Break - Give your body some rest as the day goes on, especially at events.

Make it a Regular Thing

Like any good workout, you need to do it often to get a benefit from it. Since you also get better as a fighter the more you do it, you’ll be getting a double benefit from making sure you get out at every chance you get to fight. The more, the better.

Trust me, you’ll thank yourself later.