Want to train like a troubador? Crush it like a crusader? Become lean as Lancelot? Here’s how!

(Note: this workout is reserved for members of the nobility, males only of course. Before embarking on any physical exercise program, check with your governing feudal overlord to be sure this regimen is right for you.)

Your physical education begins at age fourteen, while you’re employed as a squire to a knight, and consists of vigorous sports such as hawking with a falcon, hurling stones, wielding a battle-axe, and casting a spear.

Most important of all, though, is getting on and off your horse. You’ll need to be able to leap into the saddle without using stirrups. Go ahead! Try it!

Still alive? Great! Now that you’ve mastered that, you’ll need to be able to leap down from the horse, while in mid-gallop, to pick up an “object” with agility. If this happens during a battle, the “object” may or may not be a part of your master’s anatomy.

From this point on, most of your aerobic training will consist of games that prepare you for combat: hunting, wrestling, fencing, horse-racing, javelin throwing, and, the toughest workout of all, jousting. This consists of galloping full-speed toward your opponent (who will be galloping full speed toward you), while wielding a heavy lance aimed at his heart, and while wearing a cuirass, leg armor, and helmet with the visor down.

Caution: fatalities on the course occur frequently, due to suffocation, heat stroke, or getting pierced through by a long, metal, pointed object.

Source: Dr. Ludwig H. Joseph, Gymnastics from the Middle Ages to the 18th Century, 1949