I would submit as a working hypothesis that a medeival knight was in much better physical shape that the average volunteer selected today. Consequently, he could have carried the armour without as much distress. The other interesting observation from looking at old suits of armour is that the medieval man was much smaller that the modern H. Sapien.
8.4 Emergency Approach March Load Circumstances could require Soldiers to carry loads heavier than 72 pounds such as approach marches through terrain impassable to vehicles or where ground/air transportation resources are not available. Therefore, larger rucksacks must be carried. These Emergency Approach March Loads can be carried easily by well-conditioned Soldiers. When the mission demands that Soldiers be employed as porters, loads of up to 120 pounds can be carried for several days over distances of 20 km a day. Although loads of up to 150 pounds are feasible, the Soldier could become fatigued or even injured. If possible, contact with the enemy should be avoided since march speeds will be slow.
Exactly. Even more to your point, anyone who could afford to wear plate armor back then had probably been training to fight, in armor, from the time they were 9 or so. It's what their class did for a living. Also, the general idea was that the knight fought from horse back as much as possible.
I would also add that had they not worn armor the battle would have been even shorter, with the French knights stapled to their horses by arrows 300 yards from the English.
They might as well have said that the swords are real heavy too and that would have slowed them down as well as the heavy armor. But like you said, the people wearing them trained in them, so the armor wouldn’t have been as much of a problem for them as four volunteers who never wore armor in their lives before the experiment.
We have a tendency today to downgrade the men of those times as ‘smaller and weaker’ than we are. However when a few actual english Long Bows were pulled up from some water that had preserved them perfectly it was found that the “pull” on them was a lot higher than formerly theorized. The truth is that when a mans life depended upon his mastering a thing HE MASTERED THE HELL OUT OF IT!
I agree with your hypothesis. After all, they trained from childhood in this armor and reputedly some were trained to leap to the saddle in full armor (probably not the armor we see in jousts in the movies).
Another comment along this line. Look at some of the surviving weapons such as battle axes, maces and broadswords. They were huge and made out of steel and had to be a bitch to swing all day in battle, but they did—while wearing mail and carrying shields.
Tough knights don’t dance.