I'm probably one of the older traceurs you'll meet. I'm the
second-eldest in my gym, and I'm 37 years old. Training for something
as intensely physical as parkour beyond a certain age can be humbling
in ways it's sometimes difficult to accept and process fully,
especially while it's happening.
This is one of the hardest things I've ever had to put down on a
computer screen, for starters. As a 20-something, I became accustomed
to being good at things without too much effort. I used to train
intensively in the martial arts as a kid, and then as a rock climber in
my late twenties. But my professional development seemed to take over
in my thirties, and I let myself go physically. Actually...I let myself
go pretty bad. Traveling consultants don't generally eat or exercise
well at all.
I didn't even realize what was happening to my body until I
discovered parkour. At age 35, I found Primal Fitness in DC, and a
great community of people whose company I enjoyed. The physical
challenge was awesome--it was just what I needed.
There was one problem, though. Before this point in my life,
putting on a few pounds and then losing them again was really no big
deal. "Getting back in shape" used to be a matter of a week or so of
moderate effort: a few jogs around the block, cut back on the crappy
food, maybe a few trips to the gym, and I would be able to handle
whatever it was that was coming my way, be it a 10k, a climbing trip,
or a long hike.
But suddenly that wasn't working. My body just seemed reluctant to
obey me. I could (and have) lost weight, but there were these other
obstacles, too. And many of those were also mental. Many of them still
are, and I'm not sure that they're exactly something I can "overcome,"
per se, because age changes how you look at the world sometimes, no
matter how reluctant you are to admit it.
One of the hardest things to accept has been this inability to
progress the way I used to progress. Before I found parkour, I could
tear through a physical discipline by throwing myself into it
wholeheartedly, and my body would just follow along, taking whatever
abuse I threw at it without much complaint. Now, suddenly I was hearing
from my body, and it was forcing me to listen. I got hurt. Then I got
hurt again. And again. Sometimes it was single "dramatic" injury, and
sometimes it was just a slow "wearing out" kind of thing.
I got shin splints. Then the shin splints became chronic. I worked
through them, but they never fully went away. My shins feel like
they're at 95% on a good day. On a bad day (after a week of training
tic-tacs and landings on hard surfaces), they hurt like hell, and I
walk like I've been hobbled. Massage helps; so does some forms of
training (and thanks to APK and Travis for all the advice!). I've
gotten tons of tips, but really...it's not my shins' fault. It was hard
to admit this, but my shins were like a warning sign: your body changes
as you age.
The one day I broke my hand, and it was pretty bad. I caught my
fingers on a rail, and broke two fingers in multiple places. The
four-hour trip to the E.R. was the easy part, in retrospect. The fear
of rails it instilled in me, however, is something I've been working to
overcome for almost exactly a year now. The first time I got up on a
rail after my accident, I got the shakes so bad I had to jump down
immediately.
Then I got shoulder pain. I'd injured my shoulders when I was 18,
and up until now I'd just "muscled it out." If I worked out a lot, my
shoulders wouldn't bother me too much. But suddenly my shoulders
weren't taking any more, either. I guess they saw what my shins
accomplished, and felt like maybe they could go on strike, too. Between
my shoulders and my rail fear, it felt like my training was on hold. I
was still going to the gym, still working out as hard as ever, but what
the hell?! Suddenly I was only treading water, or maybe even moving
BACKWARDS in my training.
I decided to step my training up a notch again. If you're faced
with a challenge, my way had been to push through it through sheer
force of will. I got cortisone injection for the tendonitis in my
shoulders, and adjusted my workout, and...well...
Big mistake.
After my knees decided to develop the same
sort of patellar tendonitis that many of the rest of you have, I
decided to step back and rethink some things.
For starters, I think I've been competing with the younger people
at my gym, sometimes at a subconscious level. It's hard to watch
someone who's been training for half as long as I have pull off a move
that I still can't do. It used to be utterly galling and impermissible
to my own ego and pride. Now it's just a fact of life: I can train and
train and I just might never be able to do that thing that I really
want to do. Tendons lose elasticity with age, like cracked and
stretched rubber bands, but it's even more important to acknowledge
this out loud: so does your mind. It may take me a year to
learn how to do a front-flip; but now, that's okay with me. I'm just
happy that I can learn to do one at all.
Equally important is this idea that I've developed, that some kinds of challenges are just not okay
anymore. We had a house party, and a very talented and young traceur
traversed our apartment's balcony on the 16th floor via cat hang. I got
the cold sweats just watching him, and forbade him from trying it
again, even though he really didn't have any problem doing it.
To me (and to many others out there, I hope) this just isn't how or
why to train. There's conquering fear, and then
there's...well...stupid. Traversing a balcony 16 stories up at a house
party becomes an equation of risk and reward in my head, and I know
this is my age talking. The risk is obvious: become a pizza decal on
the roof of someone's car and totally bring down the mood at the party.
The reward is rather miniscule: you traversed a rail doing a cat hang,
which just about any beginner can do. You just did it with 150 feet of
air under your feet.
In an emergency, maybe you'll have a slight edge when traversing
that rail because you got over your fear of heights so entirely that
you don't even hesitate to jump over the railing to your cat hang.
Maybe traversing that rail wasn't a form of bragging, but rather just
more training. Maybe...but somehow I doubt it.
On the other hand, I feel like I might live long enough to deduce
that there's a fire before it gets to my door, and maybe wind up just
taking the stairs down. It might be less dramatic, but maybe it's an
equally effective form of training: to know when you don't need to use parkour.
I guess I'm rambling a little, which is also a hallmark of old age.
But since I'm already throwing hypotheticals around, maybe being
fearless is just easier when you're younger, and maybe certain
kinds of fear are actually good for you in the long run. And maybe this
article will be relevant to some of you young back-flipping
whippersnappers one day, when you feel that first twinge in a joint or
muscle that had never complained before.
We all age, whether we like it or not. Training helps, but training
can't push back the clock, no matter how hard you might believe
otherwise. But if you know happen to know otherwise, well...come on
over and check out the railing on my balcony.
Assuming you're old enough, I'll buy the beer.
Users' Comments
Display 13 of 13 comments
1.
08-08-2009 23:08
Wow,Salil,your story resembles so much with mine! I'm a 35 year old Dutch traceur, training for two years now. Lately I was thinking about the same things and talking with younger traceurs about these kind of things. I think it's not even so much my aging body that holds me back from progression in my trainingas fast as younger tracers but merely the mental blocks. As you get older there's apart from your decling the adding of more responsibility and "common sense". Would be nice to contact you, maybe by mail or msn? I'll send you a pm with my contactinformation.
2.
08-08-2009 23:09
hey!
I'm 37 also and have been doing parkour.... I also did martial arts for years and years. I'm finding I'm just spending time doing a lot on conditioning as it seems when I first started I kept hurting myself , wrenching muscles etc, and it can take some time to bounce back from those. So yeah, a lot more focus on conditioning.
3.
08-09-2009 11:23
60 is the new 40 my friends. I'm 35 and progressing in my movement journey every day thanks to POSE movement principles. I'm vaulting further, jumping higher and feel like I've got many years of progress ahead of me. My elasticity is improving and I have the confidence to know that the way I land from jumps is bio-mechanically correct - hence zero knee issues (something I used to struggle with pre-POSE). I'm so passionate about the difference POSE principles make to an individuals movement that I became a coach. Net: If you're getting shin splints, knee issues, etc. look into POSE method.
4.
08-09-2009 14:19
The balcony story sounds a lot like an incident at your housewarming party... .
5.
08-09-2009 17:57
I'm 35 & began parkour about 2yrs ago. I too have grown accustomed to excelling in athletics. I competed through college in wrestling & was also a competitive distance runner. Marriage, work, and kids have made it difficult to workout regularly. My level of conditioning oscillates through the seasons, and takes more work each year to try to attain the same level of fitness. I attribute any injury in the past few years to inconsistent training moreso than age. My bet is the author's difficulty getting back into shape is proportional to the amount of time he 'slacked' since he was last fit
6.
08-09-2009 18:05
...though I do acknowledge the gradual breakdown of bones & joints.
I strongly agree with the wisdom portion of the article. 'Be strong to be useful', not 'be strong to be admired for your great feats'. While many young men do many stupid things that don't catch up to them (me included), I've witnessed enough to say that plenty of them end poorly. Adding to the Risk/reward paradigm, going splat is only the risk to self. But, going splat also leads to more negative parkour media...affecting all of us.
7.
08-10-2009 03:53
At 41 y/o I feel your pain. One thing I've noticed is the difficultly I experience recovering from injuries. As you know, if you avoid situations where you can get hurt, the training suffers. I hear ya w/ the fear factor. I fell this weekend in class. Rob had put 2 layers of mats down, and initially I felt fine (missed a grab and landed on my back). By the time class was over, my lower back had stiffend dramtically and today, 2 days later, I'm still very sore.
Will I try again? Absolutely. Just like you, I will be careful, and accept that the healing just takes longer.
8.
08-10-2009 06:10
at 28 I think I am the youngest one agreeing with you but I can relate I used to be a whitewater kyacker till I had a nasty bail and got pinned at the bottom of the river. Every since this I have had that "common sense" fear holding me back in all I do. That is why I think pushing the line is for the young of body and mind. Also getting married tends to change what you are willing to risk.
9.
08-11-2009 18:14
I am 38 years old and was introduced to parkour a few years ago. I do not have a regular PARKOUR training regimen and have not progressed in my training very rapidly. But I have been in the army for over 20 years and have been very active for the entire time ('cept some injuries and a couple car accidents.) I have applied the techniques and principles to obstacle courses and urban terrain; I still out perform most of the youngest, fastest, and strongest troops. But I have never been the top guy at any one thing-just good all around. My advice is to take any new routine slowly.
10.
08-11-2009 18:22
No matter your age, you can suffer from an over use injury if you go too hard, too fast. My age has made me wiser and I will not be doing anything on the balcony of the 16th floor unless my life depends on it. But Parkour has helped me expand my limits and better understand where they lie. Oh, jon_levi, after you are married for longer, you might want to take a few more life-threatening risks...
11.
08-14-2009 13:39
I believe genetics play a big part in how age affects your training. I started training at the age of 33 and I will be 36 in a couple of months. So far I haven't noticed any physical limitations due to my age yet. It seems to me like I actually have more control over my body now than I did at a younger age, and I'm definately stronger than I used to be. The amount of progress I make is roughly approximate to the effort I put in.
12.
08-21-2009 22:43
I’m also a 37 year old traceur and martial art practitioner and definitely know of the aches and pains you speak of! For me, the more I train the less it bothers me. Take a break and I find the pain of training will settle in for up to a week. As long as I stay active I’m good.
I will say that my training has certainly helped keep me young!! I don’t know many other traceurs, but I have yet to meet a teenager willing to do a jumping dive roll off a 3’ ledge. I couldn’t have done that when I was a teenager, so maybe by training I’m actually turning back the clock?
Great article!!
13.
09-11-2009 07:34
Fantastic article. I'm 34, been training for a couple of months, and glad to not be alone. :-) I think the idea of being old enough to know better plays out a lot. I look at a situation and can only envision all the ways it can go wrong. So I balance that with, does this really help me? Sure I can vault over this 10 foot drop, or I could just drop down one flight of stairs, and drop down from there. Even if I think I can do something there are many times that I will chose not to. Just in case. But Gryphon is right. Ever since I got married I've been trying to find new ways to kill myself.
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