Topic: Kurt's Training Log

[Kmg403]

PHYSICAL BACKGROUND - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I have absolutely no background in martial arts or gymnastics, and I never played any sports or anything for any of my schools
(or outside of school for that matter).  I DID participate in a good deal of backyard wrestling for a while when I was like 14-
16, so I guess that's something.  Other than that, I enjoyed running the track in high school during gym class.  Weight Training
class was where I discovered my ability to build muscle mass.  I raised my maximum bench press from 135lbs to 185 in about a
month, and soon after got it to 205.  All I did was 75 pushups per day (and not even all in one "sitting", it was more like
25+25+25 throughout the day).  My flexibility was decent in high school, but also dropped dramatically once it was over.  Oh,
there WAS a period of a few months in which I got into Muay Thai (thank you, Tony Jaa lol).  I was buying books and I bought a
heavy bag which hangs in my basement now.  I studied the books as well as videos online, and I was getting back into shape with
some workouts.  Eventually I stopped doing it though, mostly because I wondered if I was building bad habits from doing it on my
own without instruction.

NUTRITION - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I'm not that great at any of the PK techniques yet, and I chalk that up to the past few years after high school in which I've
sat in front of the computer stuffing my face with various unhealthy (mostly fast or microwave) foods.  Most people would still
categorize me under "skinny people."  In my own eyes, though, I've gained quite a bit of unnecessary weight.  Now, I try not to
eat fast foods except things like Subway, Jimmy John's, or Long John Silver's (always hated seafood but I'm starting to like it
cause I know it's good for ya).  I've also been drinking plenty of water, which is a great contrast to my years of (almost
purely) soda consumption.  I'm working on completely removing soda from my diet (I miss the bubbles... ).  I have been trying
to eat more fruits and vegetables as well.

STRENGTH - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I consider myself to be quite strong, if you read the physical background paragraph then you got the gist of it.  I did spend
some time with building up muscle (mostly curls and tricep stuff) for the past few years, but I really enjoy body weight
workouts.  Partially because they're free, but also because they work muscles that I haven't been using for a long time.  When I
do climb ups on walls or even just pull ups, I can definitely tell I have a lot of work to do with my body weight strength.

ENDURANCE - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I have no endurance.  Seriously.  The warm-ups at the two jams I've been to kicked my ass pretty well.  I think my legs are
becoming more conditioned to the battery of squats and precision jumps, but I still have a long way to go before I'm satisfied. 
I kind of have bad knees, not from any specific horrible injuries, but there have been a lot of instances in which my knees were
damaged that I think have caused the pains I get today.  My dad also had bad knees and had to have surgery (though I don't know
what the problem was exactly), so maybe it's just hereditary.  My upper body can't last much longer than my legs in the warm-
ups, but it definitely seems to heal quicker.  If we max out on pushups, I'm ready to go again in like 15 minutes.  When my
quads have been maxed out, they're in pain for days lol.

FLEXIBILITY - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Again in high school my flexibility was much better.  I know flexibility isn't a huge must-have in PK, but I would love to be
able to put my parts where others' parts typically don't go! lol.  I doubt I'll ever get to that guy Mark's level, but getting
anywhere near that would be amazing.

BALANCE - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Honestly I'm not sure how to rank myself here.  I used to be able to walk around the house on my hands when I was like 7 years
old.  If I try a handstand now it's not scary or anything, but I usually can't stay balanced in it for more than a few seconds. 
My cat balance on rails is pretty poor, unless the rail is sloped upward then I'm fine.  I feel like I have decent balance if
I'm standing on a rail walking across it, but if I'm standing still on a rail again I don't get more than a few seconds with it.

CONFIDENCE - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I'm rather confident that I can do just about anything I set my mind to.  Right now I'm still rather afraid of doing anything on
rails (not vaults, I'm talking precisions), but I'm sure that when my legs have become more conditioned and my balance is at a
higher level I will be just fine.  Also, height still gives me some jitters, but that's because my rolls aren't anywhere near
where they should be.  I really need to work on my rolls.

THE TECHNIQUES - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Straight from the list on APK (with a few techniques added), here's a breakdown of my self-proclaimed skill for each technique. 
Obviously it's a scale of 1-10.  If anything says N/a, it means I haven't trained it yet.  If I'm missing a technique please let
me know so I can throw it on there (and look it up to see what it is if I don't know it).

Rolls:                         2/10
Cat Balance:      2/10
Basic Landing:      7/10
Turn Vault:       5/10
Cat Leap:         2/10
Gate Vault:              N/a
Precision Jump:       2/10
Reverse Vault:         N/a
Kong Vault:       1/10
Dash Vault:              1/10
Underbar:          1/10
Lazy Vault:        8/10
Speed Vault:      6/10
Wallrun (vert):      4/10
Wallrun (horiz):       2/10
Tic-Tac:           N/a
Kash Vault:       N/a

[Spencer B]

Very concise and organized, but to some extent, a little more then may be needed in categorization on the moves. You can't really rate them... Well, you can, but it helps if you just try to get better and focus on just moving more, I think.

FLEXIBILITY - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Again in high school my flexibility was much better.  I know flexibility isn't a huge must-have in PK, but I would love to be
able to put my parts where others' parts typically don't go! lol.  I doubt I'll ever get to that guy Mark's level, but getting
anywhere near that would be amazing.

Flexibility is very useful in PK. I have all three splits myself! Don't think it's not useful, and read up in general fitness if you haven't already; Muse has a great article on stretching.

[Grayson]

Hey welcome to APK! I'm just going to give some friendly criticism

I raised my maximum bench press from 135lbs to 185 in about a
month, and soon after got it to 205.  All I did was 75 pushups per day

Just for future reference, doing an exercise more than 20 times unless you're training specifically for endurance is not strength training, it's endurance. If you want to train for strength keep your reps low and your weight or intensity high.

Now, I try not to
eat fast foods except things like Subway, Jimmy John's, or Long John Silver's

Long John Silver's is as bad as any other fastfood chain, just going to leave at that. Subway and Jimmy Johns is okay as long as you get chicken breast (and if you're are trying to lose weight, I'd avoid the cheese and sauces except for regular mustard.) The only beef I have with those restraunts is they claim to be healthy, but they still have unhealthy meats like salami, bologna, etc. and a 6 inch is alot of bread and simple carbs.

I kind of have bad knees, not from any specific horrible injuries, but there have been a lot of instances in which my knees were
damaged that I think have caused the pains I get today.  My dad also had bad knees and had to have surgery (though I don't know
what the problem was exactly), so maybe it's just hereditary.

If you don't take drops your knees won't get any worse and if you condition properly they'll probably feel better.

Honestly I'm not sure how to rank myself here.  I used to be able to walk around the house on my hands when I was like 7 years
old.  If I try a handstand now it's not scary or anything, but I usually can't stay balanced in it for more than a few seconds.
My cat balance on rails is pretty poor, unless the rail is sloped upward then I'm fine.  I feel like I have decent balance if
I'm standing on a rail walking across it, but if I'm standing still on a rail again I don't get more than a few seconds with it.

Balance comes with practice.

I'm rather confident that I can do just about anything I set my mind to.  Right now I'm still rather afraid of doing anything on
rails (not vaults, I'm talking precisions), but I'm sure that when my legs have become more conditioned and my balance is at a
higher level I will be just fine.  Also, height still gives me some jitters, but that's because my rolls aren't anywhere near
where they should be.  I really need to work on my rolls.

Rail precisions are rather tricky, I'd advise you to work precisions onto something wider before to progress onto those, if your interested, there's a wonderful tutorial here http://www.americanparkour.com/content/view/890/378/ on how to build a pair of precision trainers which are wonderful tools for technique and conditioning.

Also like I said above, you shouldn't be jumping off of any height that makes you jittery, probably nothing more than 2-3 feet. For a great roll tutorial check here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6I1J0zmE7U

If your looking to be a good traceur you must condition, check out this site by our own Steve Low and Chris Salvato and read the articles in the beginners section, then the intermediate to find out how to set up a good diet and get some good info on some subjects that are frequently asked then post back here.
http://www.eatmoveimprove.com/beginners/

[Kmg403]

Very concise and organized, but to some extent, a little more then may be needed in categorization on the moves. You can't really rate them... Well, you can, but it helps if you just try to get better and focus on just moving more, I think.

Flexibility is very useful in PK. I have all three splits myself! Don't think it's not useful, and read up in general fitness if you haven't already; Muse has a great article on stretching.

The rating on the moves isn't a rating of like...how "good" I am at them.  It's more like how comfortable I am doing them without worrying about bailing and/or how comfortable I am doing them on the fly/in flow.  As far as flexibility, I was just noting that I don't think it's a big necessity for doing Parkour, I know it's useful!

[Kmg403]

Hey welcome to APK! I'm just going to give some friendly criticismJust for future reference, doing an exercise more than 20 times unless you're training specifically for endurance is not strength training, it's endurance. If you want to train for strength keep your reps low and your weight or intensity high.
Long John Silver's is as bad as any other fastfood chain, just going to leave at that. Subway and Jimmy Johns is okay as long as you get chicken breast (and if you're are trying to lose weight, I'd avoid the cheese and sauces except for regular mustard.) The only beef I have with those restraunts is they claim to be healthy, but they still have unhealthy meats like salami, bologna, etc. and a 6 inch is alot of bread and simple carbs.
If you don't take drops your knees won't get any worse and if you condition properly they'll probably feel better.
Balance comes with practice.
Rail precisions are rather tricky, I'd advise you to work precisions onto something wider before to progress onto those, if your interested, there's a wonderful tutorial here http://www.americanparkour.com/content/view/890/378/ on how to build a pair of precision trainers which are wonderful tools for technique and conditioning.

Also like I said above, you shouldn't be jumping off of any height that makes you jittery, probably nothing more than 2-3 feet. For a great roll tutorial check here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6I1J0zmE7U

If your looking to be a good traceur you must condition, check out this site by our own Steve Low and Chris Salvato and read the articles in the beginners section, then the intermediate to find out how to set up a good diet and get some good info on some subjects that are frequently asked then post back here.
http://www.eatmoveimprove.com/beginners/

Yeah, I know about more weight/lower reps and less weight/higher reps.  but somehow those pushups did wonders for me lol.

I know that LJS and Subway and Jimmy John's still aren't that great for me, but it's a step up from eating Wendy's spicy chicken sandwiches and all the crap at BK I've been feasting on lol.

For my knees, do you have any tips for conditioning that might improve how they feel?  They're usually the first thing to start aching after I'm done training (or just walking around at work for that matter).

I don't mean to sound like a jerk or like I don't appreciate your help, but 2-3 feet drops made me laugh lol.  Oh...unless you're talking about when I work on the rolls...then 2-3 feet is fine...ha!

I'll read up on some of that nutrition stuff in the links.  Thanks for all the comments and advice sir!

[Grayson]

For my knees, do you have any tips for conditioning that might improve how they feel?  They're usually the first thing to start aching after I'm done training (or just walking around at work for that matter).

Pistols http://www.beastskills.com/Pistol.htm
Natural leg Curls http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44DAxF6bneY (the goal of this is to have a controlled movement all the way down to the floor and a controlled movement back up without using your hands, but if you can't get back up at first use your hands to give you minimal support)
Broad Jumps http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdjOARfnOmg
Sprints
Burpees
Tuck jumps
etc.

[Grayson]

But I would go get your knees chacked by a doc before doing any of these exercises.

[Kmg403]

But I would go get your knees chacked by a doc before doing any of these exercises.

Yeaaaaaah definitely can't afford that.  But thanks for the advice and the exercises above sir!