"The full range of field sports was played; running, discuss, javelin, jumping and wrestling... ...we know for example that soldiers spent their spare hours practicing athletics while they were on campaign."
From a very young age, Spartan children learned to fight and practise rigour, physical fitness and obeying orders. They also staged pretend battles. This kind of formal training, called agōgē, started when they were about seven years old and continued to age 29. Boys and girls were trained separately.
All aspects of daily life in Sparta were strictly regimented with no luxuries. Spartan men were raised to be warriors their entire lives and to practice absolute obedience and service to the state. They lived in military barracks until the age of 30.
In addition to foot races and wrestling, their sports included a particularly brutal contest in which two teams would try to drive each other off an island by pushing, kicking, biting and gouging their opponents, according to Kyle's book. To make life even tougher, Spartan boys were fed a meager diet.
Contests included footraces, the long jump, diskos and javelin throwing, wrestling, the pentathlon (a combination of these five events), boxing, the pankration (a combination of wrestling and boxing), horse races, and chariot races.
At the age of 7, Spartan boys were removed from their parents' homes and began the “agoge,” a state-sponsored training regimen designed to mold them into skilled warriors and moral citizens.
All male Spartan citizens became soldiers at age 20. Men retired from soldiering at age 60 and could then become elders.
Training in the Agoge
Spartan youths were required to train barefoot. This would not only toughen them up but also develop superior athleticism and agility.
While little is known about exactly what was done to achieve ultimate physical fitness, the Spartan warriors likely focused on drills that practiced strength, agility, and building stamina. Drills like marching extremely long distances, wrestling, and even dancing built stamina and agility required for long battles.
Spartan Society
All male Spartan citizens between the ages of 20 and 60 served in the army and, though allowed to marry, they had to belong to a men's dining club and eat and sleep in the public barracks. They were forbidden to possess gold and silver, and their money consisted only of iron bars.
What was important was to be a brave soldier. Spartan boys were taught to suffer any amount of physical pain without complaining. They marched without shoes. They were not fed well, and they were encouraged to steal food as long as they didn't get caught.
Spartan boys were trained to be soldiers from their youth. They were raised by their mothers until the age of seven and then they would enter a military school called the Agoge. At the Agoge the boys were trained how to fight, but also learned how to read and write. The Agoge was a tough school.
They were taught to endure pain and hardship, hunger, thirst, cold, fatigue and lack of sleep. It was a brutal training period. The young Spartans were not allowed to wear anything but one cloak. No shoes, no underwear, and no additional clothes were permitted -- even in winter.
Other children born with disabilities were left in the woods to die, their feet bound together to discourage anyone passing by from adopting them. In the military city of Sparta, the abandonment of "deformed and sickly" infants was a legal requirement.
Granted, Spartan citizens also pursued rugged pastimes such as equestrianism, but their love of poetry and dance belies a contempt of pleasure. In histories written by Plutarch, Herodotus and others, we find a picture not of stern, militaristic ascetics but of bons vivants and patrons of the arts.
Excercising routine:
For the ancient athletes running was a must. They run a lot as running gives the highest cardiovascular payoff with the littlest effort. There were no slick gym machines and Greeks relied purely on body-weight exercises using whatever they could find. Lifting stones and animals for strength.
A Spartan workout calls for a minimum of 25 rep push-ups. It can go up to 50-100 reps depending on your stamina. The same goes for pull-ups, surya namaskars and other exercises.”
The site hosted Sparta's brutal initiation ritual in which young boys were beaten to prepare them for military service, but there was more to it than warfare.
The Spartans, noted among ancient writers for their austerity, prepared a black broth of blood and boiled pig's leg, seasoned with vinegar, which they combined with servings of barley, fruit, raw greens, wine and, at larger dinners, sausages or roasted meat. Spartan boys were sparingly issued barley cakes.
Meaning “a leading,” this thirteen-year physical, military, religious, and moral education trained a boy in the aptitudes, knowledge, and virtues he would need to become a man and join the Homoioi — the “Equals” or “Peers.” Only these Spartiates could become full citizens of Lacedaemon and join its elite warrior class.
The actual training of the Spartan youth was brutal, focusing on cultivating skills such as fighting, stealth, pain tolerance, as well as dancing, singing, and developing loyalty to the Spartan state.
The female Spartan was honored as the equal of the male in her own sphere of power and authority and, even in the accounts of detractors, performed admirably. It could be argued, in fact, that the strength of the Spartan women allowed for the formidable reputation of the same in the Spartan men.
At 20, Spartans became eligible for military service and joined one of the messes (syssitia), which included 15 men of various ages.
At age 30, they became full citizens of Sparta, provided they had served honorably. They were required to continue serving the military, however, until age 60.