Kozushi
Level 7 Valued Member
A short video by the BBC here.
How ancient Greeks trained for war - BBC Reel
I'm pretty sure they had what we would call callisthenics back then, but it would have fit more for them into the category of acrobatics. Acrobatics was hugely popular back then, primarily as far as the sources go, as a performance art. Tightrope walking, doing sommersaults, jumping and doing handstands from one horse to another as they gallop side by side, tumbling, shooting a bow with your feet while standing on your head and hitting a target, all that stuff that we still know as circus stunts is in the ancient sources and artwork, and it clearly depended on a solid base of bodyweight strength training. What for me as an ancient sports researcher isn't so clear is the link between acrobatics and the workouts of regular people, athletes and soldiers. Their workouts from what we have in terms of sources seem to be quite sport-specific. I've seen video of modern day traditional wrestling gyms in India, and the kind of things they are doing there minus perhaps the club exercises seem to come right out of the ancient Greco-Roman literature, things like burpees (actually a wrestling sprawl - a defensive move cum exercise), rope climbing, jumping, but the main "weight" lifted wasn't freeweights nor your own bodyweight it seems but your partner's bodyweight. As the old adage in India goes, "wrestling is strength", and I can see how wrestling drilling and sparring would be about the best way to develop strength in an ancient society that didn't have barbells or even chinup bars, gymnastics rings nor parallettes. The professional traditional wrestlers are in very good shape and can do remarkable things and feats of strength! Picking up another 250lbs human being repeatedly hours a days will do this to you!
How ancient Greeks trained for war - BBC Reel
I'm pretty sure they had what we would call callisthenics back then, but it would have fit more for them into the category of acrobatics. Acrobatics was hugely popular back then, primarily as far as the sources go, as a performance art. Tightrope walking, doing sommersaults, jumping and doing handstands from one horse to another as they gallop side by side, tumbling, shooting a bow with your feet while standing on your head and hitting a target, all that stuff that we still know as circus stunts is in the ancient sources and artwork, and it clearly depended on a solid base of bodyweight strength training. What for me as an ancient sports researcher isn't so clear is the link between acrobatics and the workouts of regular people, athletes and soldiers. Their workouts from what we have in terms of sources seem to be quite sport-specific. I've seen video of modern day traditional wrestling gyms in India, and the kind of things they are doing there minus perhaps the club exercises seem to come right out of the ancient Greco-Roman literature, things like burpees (actually a wrestling sprawl - a defensive move cum exercise), rope climbing, jumping, but the main "weight" lifted wasn't freeweights nor your own bodyweight it seems but your partner's bodyweight. As the old adage in India goes, "wrestling is strength", and I can see how wrestling drilling and sparring would be about the best way to develop strength in an ancient society that didn't have barbells or even chinup bars, gymnastics rings nor parallettes. The professional traditional wrestlers are in very good shape and can do remarkable things and feats of strength! Picking up another 250lbs human being repeatedly hours a days will do this to you!