(replying to two conversations in the thread)
To be fair, the competition scene is really only getting started in the WMA/HEMA world. Only in the last two years, I'd say, has it started to pick up, and we're seeing some fairly athletic people involved in it.
But I'd say a much larger proportion of practitioners are just hobbyists, or are coming at it from a more scholastic angle, where they want to do enough of it to know how it works, but don't plan to ever be "good" at it.
Over at VAF, while I was still taking classes there, most of my classmates were taking their fitness very seriously. Some of them made an arrangement to work together to be able to work up to doing 100 burpees daily, for instance.
Personally, I fall into the more casual hobbyist category most of the time, and then try to do a mad dash to build up endurance before large events like WMAW.
Do you think it wise to go to the school first, learn the requirements, then purchase? The reason I said $1000 was because the a HEMA site showed the swords I needed and the equipment. I forget the site, the top of the page showed two men fighting in this gear. Oh, I thought HEMA had schools like fencing schools 
Make my own school you, I don't know about schools, but I'm pushing for a chivalry club if that counts lol
Yes, most "schools" start out as study-groups, or sword clubs, or something along those lines. There are very few paid, professional schools teaching this, but they do exist. A great example is VAF, where I took formal classes for Liechtenauer arts for about 8 or 9 years.
Almost everyone else starts small, with a couple of friends and a few books, and work through the material. It helps to interact with people who are already doing it, to correct some of the mistakes and bad habits you might pick up, but if you're doing the bulk of the learning yourself, then those interactions can be quick and effective.
And yes, for most activities in general, it's best to see what your local group recommends for equipment, before buying anything. This is harder to do if you're starting the group yourself, of course, but there's a wide range of gear that's usually acceptable in most places.
For starting out as a pure beginner, as Sir Brian mentioned, you'll do really well to start with lacrosse gloves, a
3-weapon fencing mask (they're the tougher version), and some sort of training sword. This will be enough for doing paired drills, and the like. The trainer can be a wooden waster (more period), or perhaps one of the synthetics from Purple Heart, which cost about the same, but are safer for hitting each other. Or you can go super cheap and even more safe, and start with a shinai. However, they're not as good of a teaching weapon in that they lack the weight and feel of a longsword, and don't have a proper crossguard (which is important for certain techniques).
The nice thing is that you can start cheap that way, and then pick out the more expensive gambesons and steel trainers after you start to get a feel for what you're doing.
