Topic: Drops

[max eisenberg]

I'm liking where this is going! For a minute there I thought I was going to be restricted to making small drops if I wanted to walk when I hit the middle age. 

haha no, just dont make them a habit. we arent designed to take two story drops 100 times a day, its like drinking or smoking.

you probably wont die in moderation

[Dan Frank]

Yeah. Everything's a carcinogen if you look at it long enough, and everything you do just leads to the degeneration of your body... sounds like fun. We're all terminal. 

[PKAB]

Okay eis was right end of story. The highest drop iv done was eleven feet and That was actually a necessity (chased by dog ) we need to condition for drops, scope out drops look at drops. Never go do a big drop on purpose. We should be ready but dont break your legs.  

[max eisenberg]

Okay eis was right end of story. The highest drop iv done was eleven feet and That was actually a necessity (chased by dog ) we need to condition for drops, scope out drops look at drops. Never go do a big drop on purpose. We should be ready but dont break your legs.  

id love to hear the story behind a rooftop sized drop escaping from a dog.

and yes frank, in a sense we are all terminal haha. anyone know the age where our body slowly starts degrading?

i think its like 23 or something.

[Adam "Echo" C]

I don't know when that is. One of my science teachers said that you aren't full grown until you're like forty years old. 

Yeah really, let's hear about escaping from the dog PKAB!

[Muse_of_Fire]

anyone know the age where our body slowly starts degrading?

i think its like 23 or something.

Then I've already got one foot in the grave.  

So we've got that settled, it looks like; although I would like to point out that your body already knows on some level how big a drop you can take, and it tells you through fear. What I like best about parkour is it's an opportunity to explore your relationship to fear. Every fearful encounter while training is a chance for you to explore that and decide if it's real fear from self-preservation, or if it's just an overblown fear in your head that you can train to get over. I wouldn't recommend deliberately climbing tall buildings on a daily basis to test where your fear relationship lies; there are plenty of ways to explore that relationship with other things besides drops. But the point is, on some level you know what you can and can't handle based on your gut fear reaction.

There is no real set height limit that an "average" traceur can handle, because what is an "average" traceur? We are all at such different, individual places in our training that it's hard to determine what an average traceur is. Plus the traceur skill set is so varied that someone who is highly skilled may be stronger at climbing type skills vs. jump/drop type skills. So your question was kind of a non-question, really. I can see your curiosity, but it's not a simple thing to examine, as we can see from where the discussion went.

There are three rules of thumb I have always heard applied to the question of drops, that most traceurs kind of accept by way of general consensus:

1. Train for landings from small drops, and drill them repeatedly; try larger drops once in a great while to get the experience "just in case" but don't make a habit of it (essentially the conclusion we've all been getting at in this thread)

2. Do not climb up onto something that you know you can't safely get down from. Parkour is not just about going from A to B but you must also be able to go B to A.

3. A good maximum height limit for drops, for the first year to three of training, is the traceur's own height. And that's the *maximum.* So like those once in a blue moon drops we were talking about before, should only be from things your height, if you choose to follow this guideline.

Again, they're guidelines, they're not carved in stone. But hopefully it provides the information you were seeking when you posted.

Younger traceurs will probably look at my thoughts on this and think I'm some kind of chicken, gutless, "throws-like-a-girl" traceuse; but for me, I want to still do parkour when I'm 80 and I'm in no hurry to get spectacular at it. I would rather progress very slowly, and be vaulting my walker when I'm in a nursing home, than be Queen of The Videos, vaulting buses at my current age, and sitting in my Barca Lounger, only able to reminisce about it when I'm 80 and in a home. That's just my personal motivation. Plus as has been mentioned, I'm already halfway to my grave anyhow.

[max eisenberg]

anyone know the age where our body slowly starts degrading?

i think its like 23 or something.

Younger traceurs will probably look at my thoughts on this and think I'm some kind of chicken, gutless, "throws-like-a-girl" traceuse; but for me, I want to still do parkour when I'm 80 and I'm in no hurry to get spectacular at it. I would rather progress very slowly, and be vaulting my walker when I'm in a nursing home, than be Queen of The Videos, vaulting buses at my current age, and sitting in my Barca Lounger, only able to reminisce about it when I'm 80 and in a home. That's just my personal motivation. Plus as has been mentioned, I'm already halfway to my grave anyhow.

i whole heartedly agree with your statement. remember, parkour isnt just physical, its not even mental and physical. there is a line we all will come to eventually when we see parkour as something more, something greater than comprehension and understanding of a single person will allow.

those who train and really think about the movements and parkour have their vision change, not in the sense that their eyes show them something different. more in the sense that our minds perceive the world differently than a non traceur. we see the world through the animal inside us, as living beings we have a choice, adopt what society has told us or, move in the direction our heart tells us.

i guess what im trying to say is even when you and i are 80 years old and kicking back sharing a brew, we will watch the cat being chased through our neighborhood by the next door neighbors dog and cherish the movements going on. not out of envy because we can no longer keep up but, in the back of our minds knowing that no matter how old we get, we feel that instinctual desire to move. to be one with nature and move as animals, nothing can take that from us, not even old age.

something about your statement just made me think.

[Leon Mederos]

Wow great post eisenberg, I really enjoyed that last little bit about the desire to move. Wholeheartedly agree!! +1

[TR]

you misunderstand what i meant by the word hurt, hurt doesnt always mean pain. when you lift weights you rip your muscles in little bits, thats why muscles grow bigger. your body repairs them in such a way that it grows stonger yes, i get that.

when you take a drop of any size, your body does in fact get hurt to an extent. feel free to add your rebuttal, i wont be attending this thread to bicker with you any longer.

Word choice fail. Use a better word next time.... Hurt generally means injury..

every drop you take little or big, hurts your body.

Besides, you said "little or big" . . . taking a big drop multi times is not going to break the fibers down and strengthen it... it's more than likely going to break down and deteriorate the ligaments and tendons over time. Associating big and small drops as a form of "beneficial" (based off your idea of "hurt") exercise is just stupid.

"when you take a drop of any size, your body does in fact get hurt to an extent."
Taking your definition of "hurt" as a beneficial exercise that breaks down the MUSCLE fibers and strengthens them, I'm going to have to say this is a really stupid statement as well. If what you said is true, then I guess I can go jump off a 2 story building and "hurt" my legs, breaking down the MUSCLE fibers (as you say) and not damaging any of my joints! Isn't that fantastic logic...? (Based off of what you said of course... or is there a misunderstanding again?)

edit -

Just a quote from Teige

I hope you realise how much force passes through your body when you land a drop from, say, above your head height. Walking down stairs places 2x your bodyweight of force on the knee joint. It is not a simple case of: you're not strong enough and the drop damages you; you are strong enough and the drop dosn't damage you. All these forces wear away at tendons, ligaments and cartilege over time; it's more a case of landing in a way that puts the forces through muscles rather than tendons and cartilege, and landing in a stable posture where joints do not twist or stress ligaments. It's also more a case of getting -Censored- !strong! and only doing as many drops as you need to.
You can only get strong enough to not be injured immediately after a drop and carry on running; I do not believe you can get strong enough to not sustain any damage atall from landing a high drop.

So how would you build up to drops? Take lots of small drops? Do you really think this is going to make you strong? Get down to the gym and SQUAT, squat it DEEP and HEAVY!

Erik: Repeating precisions is no better; as when you land a precision, it is very common for your knees to bend out in front of your toes. The knees bending out far infront of the toes, especially if under any force, has been linked to conditions like tendonitis, arthritis, and other debilitating joint ailments. This is because the knee is under extreme amounts of force when bent out infront of your toes.

1 more edit -

You guys do realize that drops are essentially plyometrics right? Just look up "altitude drops" on youtube.

And looking at how it's suggested to be able to squat 1.5x your own body weight(which most Traceurs probably can't even do) before starting a plyometric program, it would be only damaging to jump right into things such as repeating hundreds of drops in one session.

Quote from PkDanno:

They have good and bad things to them, as all things do.

We don't use them as a main part of our training methods because it's hard to gauge when a person is getting better/stronger/etc. It's why plyo stuff is always additional to the main strength training program in most cases. With box squats (what our program is based around), we know when you are getting stronger because you are lifting more, how deep you are going, you sit back the same everytime, and the weight dictates your progression safely, and we know exactly what muscles it's targeting. Not to mention 100million other variable that we can record. It's essentially a great indicator exercise for strength.

Exercises like that should be the staple of training routines, because it takes the guess work out. If your squat isn't going up, then sport is effecting it. If you have knee pains doing squat, then sport is effecting it. Etc etc.

While there are benefits to doing small drops in Parkour, we feel this is a bonus to our training, and shouldn't be anything else. Parkour already beats up the body enough as it is.

Anyone going to say I'm wrong? I'm waiting :/

[max eisenberg]

you misunderstand what i meant by the word hurt, hurt doesnt always mean pain. when you lift weights you rip your muscles in little bits, thats why muscles grow bigger. your body repairs them in such a way that it grows stonger yes, i get that.

when you take a drop of any size, your body does in fact get hurt to an extent. feel free to add your rebuttal, i wont be attending this thread to bicker with you any longer.

Word choice fail. Use a better word next time.... Hurt generally means injury..

every drop you take little or big, hurts your body.

Besides, you said "little or big" . . . taking a big drop multi times is not going to break the fibers down and strengthen it... it's more than likely going to break down and deteriorate the ligaments and tendons over time. Associating big and small drops as a form of "beneficial" (based off your idea of "hurt") exercise is just stupid.

"when you take a drop of any size, your body does in fact get hurt to an extent."
Taking your definition of "hurt" as a beneficial exercise that breaks down the MUSCLE fibers and strengthens them, I'm going to have to say this is a really stupid statement as well. If what you said is true, then I guess I can go jump off a 2 story building and "hurt" my legs, breaking down the MUSCLE fibers (as you say) and not damaging any of my joints! Isn't that fantastic logic...? (Based off of what you said of course... or is there a misunderstanding again?)

edit -

Just a quote from Teige

I hope you realise how much force passes through your body when you land a drop from, say, above your head height. Walking down stairs places 2x your bodyweight of force on the knee joint. It is not a simple case of: you're not strong enough and the drop damages you; you are strong enough and the drop dosn't damage you. All these forces wear away at tendons, ligaments and cartilege over time; it's more a case of landing in a way that puts the forces through muscles rather than tendons and cartilege, and landing in a stable posture where joints do not twist or stress ligaments. It's also more a case of getting -Censored- !strong! and only doing as many drops as you need to.
You can only get strong enough to not be injured immediately after a drop and carry on running; I do not believe you can get strong enough to not sustain any damage atall from landing a high drop.

So how would you build up to drops? Take lots of small drops? Do you really think this is going to make you strong? Get down to the gym and SQUAT, squat it DEEP and HEAVY!

Erik: Repeating precisions is no better; as when you land a precision, it is very common for your knees to bend out in front of your toes. The knees bending out far infront of the toes, especially if under any force, has been linked to conditions like tendonitis, arthritis, and other debilitating joint ailments. This is because the knee is under extreme amounts of force when bent out infront of your toes.

1 more edit -

You guys do realize that drops are essentially plyometrics right? Just look up "altitude drops" on youtube.

And looking at how it's suggested to be able to squat 1.5x your own body weight(which most Traceurs probably can't even do) before starting a plyometric program, it would be only damaging to jump right into things such as repeating hundreds of drops in one session.

Quote from PkDanno:

They have good and bad things to them, as all things do.

We don't use them as a main part of our training methods because it's hard to gauge when a person is getting better/stronger/etc. It's why plyo stuff is always additional to the main strength training program in most cases. With box squats (what our program is based around), we know when you are getting stronger because you are lifting more, how deep you are going, you sit back the same everytime, and the weight dictates your progression safely, and we know exactly what muscles it's targeting. Not to mention 100million other variable that we can record. It's essentially a great indicator exercise for strength.

Exercises like that should be the staple of training routines, because it takes the guess work out. If your squat isn't going up, then sport is effecting it. If you have knee pains doing squat, then sport is effecting it. Etc etc.

While there are benefits to doing small drops in Parkour, we feel this is a bonus to our training, and shouldn't be anything else. Parkour already beats up the body enough as it is.

Anyone going to say I'm wrong? I'm waiting :/

no one is going to tell you that you are wrong, seeking a fight is too foolish to me.

hurt can mean a variety of different things, its up to you no how you want to take the words i use. thats like taking everything the french traceurs say to heart when in reality most of what they say in english is broken and or misconstrued because it is not their native tongue.

give it a rest, you are becoming too much like me. go for a run, come back and then think about what was said.

[Ken PKChiro]

way too defensive taylor.  I see no problem in his word choice.  Hurt=damage...  Technically hurt means a sensation of pain, and therefore the whole of english speakers use the term incorrectly, as you can definitely do damage without hurting yourself.

Technically...

And technically, a person (ie diabetic) who has a minor scratch in the toe could lose the toe.  Just the same, someone immune deficient, or stressed out and unhealthy could take a small drop, "hurt" their muscle fibers, and never recover.  All movements do damage biologically, even no movement does damage.  Drops are highly dependent on the individual yes, but I think all we are saying is that there is a point where the physical body looses, and physics win.

[TR]

no one is going to tell you that you are wrong, seeking a fight is too foolish to me.

hurt can mean a variety of different things, its up to you no how you want to take the words i use. thats like taking everything the french traceurs say to heart when in reality most of what they say in english is broken and or misconstrued because it is not their native tongue.

give it a rest, you are becoming too much like me. go for a run, come back and then think about what was said.

If I took what you said wrongly, then I'm sure others will as well. Others that aren't as educated will likely believe what you say and take it the wrong way... as it's already been said, the word hurt is usually associated with injury or damage.

All I'm saying is: your word choice was bad, and I explained why it was bad to leave it in such broad terms. TO ME (and I'm sure I'm not the only one...) it seemed as if you were promoting big drops to build up leg muscles, at least, how you worded your sentences, it seemed that way.

And trust me, I don't want to become like you... I am only defending my points and making sure people get the right idea, or at least multiple view points.

[max eisenberg]

no one is going to tell you that you are wrong, seeking a fight is too foolish to me.

hurt can mean a variety of different things, its up to you no how you want to take the words i use. thats like taking everything the french traceurs say to heart when in reality most of what they say in english is broken and or misconstrued because it is not their native tongue.

give it a rest, you are becoming too much like me. go for a run, come back and then think about what was said.

And trust me, I don't want to become like you... I am only defending my points and making sure people get the right idea, or at least multiple view points.

in a way, that hurts. in a way you are becoming alot like me. 90 percent of the people in this thread had absolutely no problem with my word choice, and you are fighting to the death to make it seem like it was horrible and acting like i made it seem we would be crippled from a one foot drop.

there is no reason to defend anything, no one here is arguing but you. in a discussion the person that argues is the one whos word choice is bad.

read more of my recent posts, maybe you will want to become like me then. face it, i was no way wrong in anything i said, you are just trying to make me seem like the bad guy here.

no reason for this to continue, please keep any further rebuttals to yourself.

[bioobird]

according to my mother, the first time she ever brought me to a playground, i would just jump off the bottom of the slide to the ground, (like maybe a foot) and as i got older i started to go higher and higher, by the time i was in 5th grade i could jump from the top of the swingsets at my school... i have never stopped taking drops, so i guess pretty much all my conditioning is from a lifetime of drop training, i am going to be 20 years old this july, and i have absolutely no pain in my knees, ankles, or any of my joints,

obviously my upbrining wasnt typical....

for a NORMAL person who hasnt undergone extreme conditioning, no drops should be taken at all, but after years and years, slowly working your way up, it can be acheived

cause lets face it guys, people are gunna take drops, its just going to happen.

no matter how much we EXPLODE on every person who mentions the word.

so if you guys really want to keep parkour in your schedule into your later years, hold off on the jumps. your time will come with hard work!

[TR]

in a way, that hurts. in a way you are becoming alot like me. 90 percent of the people in this thread had absolutely no problem with my word choice, and you are fighting to the death to make it seem like it was horrible and acting like i made it seem we would be crippled from a one foot drop.

there is no reason to defend anything, no one here is arguing but you. in a discussion the person that argues is the one whos word choice is bad.

read more of my recent posts, maybe you will want to become like me then. face it, i was no way wrong in anything i said, you are just trying to make me seem like the bad guy here.

no reason for this to continue, please keep any further rebuttals to yourself.

I'm stating my view points and how your choice of the word "hurt" was a bad one... The way you structured your sentences can throw off anyone, just because a couple people posted in here saying they don't have a problem with your word choice, doesn't mean everyone else agrees...

Besides, who said I'm trying to make you look like a bad guy? Just correcting your bad grammar/statements and turning it into something more understandable Not everyone is going to understand your idea of 'hurt' as breaking down the muscle fibers and building them stronger. Some will take it as something that will cause them injury.

Just because you make a statement, doesn't mean it's 100% true and everything said against it is totally false... If that were true, it would just be a case of the blind leading the blind, and the passing of ignorance would just dominate Parkour.

I already told you why your word choice and description on things was bad, so take it how you like..

You sound very uneducated to be honest. (and disregarding rebuttals is also total ignorance, probably an attempt to continue thinking of yourself as knowledgeable, or to avoid being proven wrong...)

well see, even a drop of 5 feet puts TREMENDOUS stress on your body. you cant just 'work your way up'. Ugh... it's called progression.

every drop you take little or big, hurts your body.

no matter how conditioned you are, drops hurt you.

then...

you misunderstand what i meant by the word hurt, hurt doesnt always mean pain. when you lift weights you rip your muscles in little bits, thats why muscles grow bigger. your body repairs them in such a way that it grows stonger yes, i get that.

when you take a drop of any size, your body does in fact get hurt to an extent.

Do you see the Contradiction here...?

Let me explain....

You say "every drop you take little or big, hurts your body."

Ok, makes sense.... Then you come back and say that what you meant by "hurt" was that it's breaking down the muscle fibers and building them stronger...(least... that's what it seemed like of course)

So what you're saying is... if I do a big drop, It's going to "hurt" my body (Build up my muscles of course, not Hurt [Damage/Injure] my joints and tendons) in a good way, so I guess I'll have to do big drops to strengthen my leg muscles!! /end sarcasm

Does anyone understand where I am coming from..?

I'm sorry but if you can't see this contradiction Eisenberg, then you need an education.

[bioobird]

if you cant "work your way up" then i'm not exactly sure how i'm not in an immense amount of pain right now.

[Adam "Echo" C]

I agree with bioobird.

[PKAB]

Okay eis was right end of story. The highest drop iv done was eleven feet and That was actually a necessity (chased by dog ) we need to condition for drops, scope out drops look at drops. Never go do a big drop on purpose. We should be ready but dont break your legs.  

id love to hear the story behind a rooftop sized drop escaping from a dog.

and yes frank, in a sense we are all terminal haha. anyone know the age where our body slowly starts degrading?

i think its like 23 or something.

Okay its actually a short story. So I go to my friends house (he lives on a hill so the house is kind of weird and there is an eleven foot drop on one side of the house just a clear drop) so his dog is medium sized but the thing is vicios and it just come tearing out the door. I had just gotten bitten a little while before and I dont enjoy it so I ran like crazy and just jumped off. My ankle had a sharp pain and I rolled (thank goodness) at least it was onto grass and some dirt. So yeah drops can get you away from just about anything if its far enough because most people I know wouldnt follow me down that drop.

[Leon Mederos]

Locked. Too much bickering. Great points were brought up, the original post was answered, and it seems this thread is turning into a personal fight. If you'd like to keep posting on another subject, please open a new thread or send me a PM to reopen this one.