Series 1 – The Circuit

Welcome to the first Freerunner's Fitness column. This month’s article is going to be slightly longer than the ones to follow as I feel it necessary to give a general background on myself.

My name is Charles Moreland and I am currently a 21 year old sculpture student attending the Rochester Institute of Technology. In addition to my fine arts training, I also hold a minor in Exercise Physiology. Professionally, I am a certified personal trainer working at the Student Life Center at RIT and a boys gymnastics coach for Zenith Gymnastics Academy in Rochester. In my free time, I am an avid practitioner of several martial arts, gymnastics, bouldering/rock climbing, slacklining, power lifting, equilibre, several forms of dance, and of course, parkour. I am also the co-founder of Rochester Parkour

Training to be a traceur can be done in multiple different ways and styles. In this article, I’m going to stray away from my usual strength/lifting preaching to discuss another conditioning style I have found integral to almost every traceur: The Circuit.

Most of you reading have probably at some point put together a circuit without ever knowing it. In its broadest sense, a circuit is simply a course that consists of several different exercises linked together and performed over and over to create a workout. A circuit can be as long or short as you like and can be repeated as many times as necessary (or as safe!). Given that, a circuit should also serve a specific purpose. While it may be okay to say, “Ok, let’s just do this and this and this,” without any forethought or planning, eventually it will cause you to plateau and stop seeing gains in your training.

A purpose or goal is easy to identify, but if you’re having issues, this article should be helpful to you. To be effective, the circuit must target a specific area you feel you are deficient in or needs attention. To use myself as an example, one of my main goals for this summer involves reverse QMing, and a lot of it! Because of this, many of my circuits so far have had a major emphasis on this exercise and the related muscle groups.

For this article, I put together a short film of a circuit I did while at Primal Fitness. The circuit consisted of two laps of QM up and down the stairs, QM to the GHR machine and do ten reps, QM to the stairs and do 5 dips, and then QM back to the stairs. I repeated all this for three rounds.

You can watch the accompanying video to this article on Youtube here:

3 Rounds for time of:
2x reverse QM stair climbs (roughly 10 steps)
10 Glute-Ham Raises
1 Muscle Up to 5
RTO dips

Between each exercise, I did some form of QM, whether it be front, reverse, or QM push ups. My time for the circuit was just over 10 minutes and left me pretty wasted. What’s important to remember is that I live in New York and I will probably never do this circuit again the same (seeing as I visit Primal only several times a year).

Along those lines, although traceurs may have their favorite spots, they may not always find themselves in a position to do the same workout each training bout. Identify your goals for the workout or conditioning session and get out and start finding your own interesting ways to set up a circuit. Keep it fun, but keep it productive and be as creative as you need to be to get the work done you are looking for.

If you find yourself having trouble, you can always find me or other helpful individuals in the General Fitness section of the forum. For further contact information on myself, you may reach me via email ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ) or by AIM (chadmanx02). Charles Moreland

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