# What Kind of Athlete Would Make the Best Medeival Warrior? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [October 7, 2013, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-athlete-would-make-the-best-medeival-warrior/670570 "2013-10-07T06:11:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2013, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-athlete-would-make-the-best-medeival-warrior/670570/1 "2013-10-07T06:11:57Z")
I play an MMORG game (Second Life Gor) that has a strong combat element and we were discussing what the warriors who fought in the battles were equivalent to in terms of Earth athletes. (The primary weapons were sword and bow, with some spears, blowguns, etc., with Roman type armor if any (some combatants are outlaws and some are primitives). The winning athlete in the discussion was: NFL linebacker. Big men, strong, fast reflexes, able to run very fast as well, able to read a defense very quickly (akin to reading a tactical situation in battle very quickly). But there may be other kinds of athletes – decathletes, rowers, etc., the guys who ski and shoot, forget what they’re called, etc., who might be better, and the crew on this message board would be the ones to know better than video gamers. So, what kind of athlete would make the best bow and sword era warrior? You can propose boxers, sumo wrestlers or MMA fighters if you like, but let’s assume most kinds of athletes are trainable as medieval warriors. If you could pick from any kind of athlete, who would you pick? I’m sticking with NFL linebacker, it wasn’t my idea in the discussion I mentioned, but I like it. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2013, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-athlete-would-make-the-best-medeival-warrior/670570/2 "2013-10-07T11:10:22Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > But there may be other kinds of athletes – decathletes, rowers, etc., the guys who ski and shoot, forget what they’re called, The sport is Winter Biathlon, so I guess they’re winter biathletes. ---
**Author:** ![Kinthalis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kinthalis/32/16084_2.png) [@Kinthalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kinthalis)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2013, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-athlete-would-make-the-best-medeival-warrior/670570/3 "2013-10-07T11:23:36Z")
You’d need to combine the training, healthcare and nutrition of a linebacker with proper weapons and combat training at an early age. But yeah, I think someone like this: [![](http://media.mlive.com/lions_impact/photo/10836862-large.jpg) ](http://media.mlive.com/lions_impact/photo/10836862-large.jpg) Yeah, he’d make one heck of a warrior. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2013, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-athlete-would-make-the-best-medeival-warrior/670570/4 "2013-10-07T13:33:18Z")
I would say decathlete. Linebackers are going to run out of gas after a march of any length, and there are no downs in battle. Decathletes already have the stamina, upper-body strength from discus, javelin, and shot put, they can jump. If I can mix and match, I have a bunch of bow hunters using longbows, equestrians for mounted cavalry, and everyone else is a decathlete in a pike square. I’d match that against an army of linebackers any day of the week. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2013, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-athlete-would-make-the-best-medeival-warrior/670570/5 "2013-10-07T13:41:24Z")
Depends on what sort of role they’ll be playing. Mounted knight? I’d think maybe a decathlete or a running back type would be good- if only to not weigh down the horse much more than necessary. Archer? Obviously modern-day bow-hunters and competitive archers would have a skill advantage over the untrained. Knight in dismounted combat? Probably your linebacker or someone like that. Pretty much everyone else was just there to get chopped up by someone else, or was working in a formation (think Saxon shield-walls, Scottish schiltrons, or pike squares), and individual prowess isn’t nearly so important as being able to form up, stay in formation and not try and bolt) ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2013, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-athlete-would-make-the-best-medeival-warrior/670570/6 "2013-10-08T02:37:40Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I would say decathlete. Linebackers are going to run out of gas after a march of any length, and there are no downs in battle. > > Decathletes already have the stamina, upper-body strength from discus, javelin, and shot put, they can jump. > > If I can mix and match, I have a bunch of bow hunters using longbows, equestrians for mounted cavalry, and everyone else is a decathlete in a pike square. I’d match that against an army of linebackers any day of the week. > > Regards, > Shodan Decathletes are a definite competitor here, especially in the areas of spear throwing and endurance. And I recall reading somewhere that the ancient Roman legionnaires used to march 20 miles in a day carrying 40 to 50 pounds of armor and gear, and sometimes had to fight at the end of the march with little or not rest. Must have been awesome endurance athletes. But there’s also the mental game too, linebackers are skilled at quick reads of defenses, which has to come in handy in a less organized melee battle. If I were a Viking raider chieftain I might prefer the linebackers to the decathletes. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2013, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-athlete-would-make-the-best-medeival-warrior/670570/7 "2013-10-08T16:41:47Z")
Gymnasts. They may be small, but they’re probably the strongest athletes pound for pound in the Olympics ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2013, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-athlete-would-make-the-best-medeival-warrior/670570/8 "2013-10-08T17:05:20Z")
Roman-type armour? The Priest-Kings are going to be royally pissed - anything other than helmet and shield is a clear contravention of their laws, and they’re not known for listening to excuses. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2013, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-athlete-would-make-the-best-medeival-warrior/670570/9 "2013-10-08T21:31:57Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > Gymnasts. They may be small, but they’re probably the strongest athletes pound for pound in the Olympics Yeah, but 14 year old girls tend to lack poundage. Male gymnasts might be a good candidate but from what I’ve seen of the Olympics, they tend to be small in stature. Certainly they’d be good in a melee fight where quick reflexes and the ability to move in surprising ways would be at a premium. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2013, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-athlete-would-make-the-best-medeival-warrior/670570/10 "2013-10-08T21:32:58Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > Roman-type armour? The Priest-Kings are going to be royally pissed - anything other than helmet and shield is a clear contravention of their laws, and they’re not known for listening to excuses. I never read anything in the books that suggested the Preist Kings had a thing against body armor. They just don’t like gunpowder and dynamite and so forth. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2013, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-athlete-would-make-the-best-medeival-warrior/670570/11 "2013-10-08T22:09:20Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > I never read anything in the books that suggested the Preist Kings had a thing against body armor. They just don’t like gunpowder and dynamite and so forth. Perhaps you never got all the way to chapter 3, “The Tarn” of volume 1, _Tarnsman of Gor_. p46 of my Star Books edition: > [@Tarl Cabot](#): > > …Towards the end of my training I always fought with shield and helmet. I would have supposed that armour, or chain mail perhaps, would have been a desirable addition to the accoutrements of the Gorean warrior, but it had been forbidden by the Priest-Kings. A possible hypothesis to explain this is that the Priest-Kings may have wished war to be a biologically selective process in which the weaker and slower perish and fail to reproduce themselves. Unrelated, I always remember that the Gorean lifestylers I knew online a decade or so ago had a vast contempt for roleplayers. 😃