Since there is always gonna be an opposing opinion, I Believe that through life you shouldnt have to do a regemin daily with a perfect eating and schedules the whole time. If we all did that wouldnt parkour become more of a job then something that makes you happy. Unless relentlessly working out and conditioning is what makes you happy.
Look if you want to be good at something you have to do hard stuff, you have to do stuff that is not fun, that does not make you happy when you do it only after thats reality. To quote david Belle "train while crying and you will win while laughing." Its through hard work through diligent practice that we progress and progression and growth are the keys to long term happiness and self worth
Let take an an imaginary beginner athlete call him joe average, Joe average is 18 he is 5"10 and weighs 150 pounds, he is 18 percent bodyfat, has an 18 inch vertical jump and 7 foot broad jump, he can squat 95 pounds, do one pull up and bench press 75 pounds. He has inhibited glutes and hamstrings, his knee collapse medially, and he rounds his back when he squats or lands.
He tries out a couple sports because his freinds are into them one is parkour, one is weightraining.
He goes out to do some parkour, he runs a little bit speed if fun but nobody pushes him to run to the point he actually gets tired so its fun, he takes a drop he didn't think he could do doesn't feel any pain has huge rush of adrenaline and thinks wow this is fun.
He goes and tries weightlifting, trying to figure out how do all the techniques is hard his body isn't mobile enough to get in the right positions, its tedious when he finally gets to some descent weight its really hard he sweats allot he can't keep the theory straight about reps or sets or what he is trying to achieve.
So lets assume option one he is like most lazy people and decides to just do parkour cause it makes him happy, he avoids any hard or smart training cause you know thats not easy and doesn't make him happy. In two years he is still 150 though he is down to 15 percent bodyfat, his knee's still collapse medially, he still rounds his back, his glutes and hams are still inhibited. The small amount of extra muscle and some neurological gains allow him to now do 10 pull ups, he could probably bench press 150 pounds now, and he could do a pistol on either leg except he has Knee pain. His vert is 22 inches and he can broad jump 8 feet. Like most deconditioned kids who try to do a high impact activity on concrete with no strength training he has bad patello femoral syndrome, he has back pain from rounded back landings, and he has sprained his ankle and broke his collar bone from bad landings and trips. He will never come close to being a good athlete on the path he is on and is mostly giving up on parkour because of his bad knee's he figures its just bad genes.
Assume he takes option two, in 6 weeks he fixes his biomechanical errors, adds 100 pounds to his squat, 4 inches to his vertical leap, a half a foot to his broad jump, 50 pounds to his bench press, and 9 reps on pull ups and 15 pounds of lean body mass while losing 3 percent bodyfat. After two years he weighs 185 pounds at 12 percent body fat he squats 315, benches 225, can do a pull ups with 70 extra pounds, and has vertical leap of 28 ich and standing broad jump of 9 feet. He doesn't know how to vault, underbar or climb but he is in the physical condition to quickly learn any sport quickly. He has also never suffered more then minor groin pull and a sore back from training.
Which do you think is happier about his training. The guy who is still weak and now injured who has some cool skills that he could do if he wasn't in pain or the guy who is strong, healthy and easily ready to pick up any sport people challenge him with.
This is generalized story but its absolutely based on the reality of working with both groups of athletes in depth for the last 3 years. I see guys with two years of solid lifting training and they are damn good athletes who are healthy and strong, guys who have trained parkour for 2 years with no strength training are biomechanical messes with chronic and acute injury problems who are still weak and skinny.
Take your pick short term ease and happiness at what cost or long term growth and progress.
