As soon as the opportunity to organize mass training appeared in Finland, local HMB athletes immediately took advantage of it. Risto Järvinen, active board member in Finnish buhurt association Medieval Combat Sport Finland, founding member and captain of the Tavastia Armigeri’s Finnish National League, shared with HMBIA News reporters that in the HMB athletes training process they combine sport innovations with usual exercises.

“We think that knee (ACL) injuries have become more and more common in our sport. To counter these injuries we have started doing FIFA 11+ program exercises. It is scientifically proven that these exercises reduce the risk of knee injuries”.

Being a member of Tavastia Armigeri HMB club, which is one of the biggest buhurt clubs in Finland, Risto understands that for the constant improvement of the fighting skills it is important to have regular training sessions.

“We arrange common training sessions twice a week, some Finnish clubs have three training days. Usually, we have 8-14 people attending the training, both men and women. One of our weekly training is done in HMB soft equipment and the other one in armor. The idea here is to learn some new techniques. First in soft gear or without gear and then try it out in armor next time”.

Usually, the training program is as follows:
– First, we do warm-ups:
– Second, we do short fitness exercise:
– Third, we focus on some technique or other buhurt related exercise;
– Almost every time we do a bit of sparring in the end, either buhurt or 1vs1 sparring.

According to Risto, this summer Tavastia Armigeri’s Finnish National League team has had an extra training session each week. In these sessions, they focus on team training exercises by turns using soft gear and armor.

“For example, we have been training in 2vs1 situations, fast takedowns and throws, and wrestling. In addition to these common training sessions, we encourage people who want to compete to start doing fitness and stamina training on their own. We have many good people in our club to help out with these, and some like to use a personal trainer or do some other sports (e.g. Crossfit, weight lifting)”.

It seems to us that such innovations in the training process as the FIFA 11+ program should be used, because we all want our HMB athletes to be healthy and in excellent physical shape not only on the lists, but also outside of it.

HMBIA News thanks Risto Järvinen for the interview.

Photos by Tavastia Armigeri