Topic: Nothing to Something

[Daniel Bremner]

Hey all, very first post here, yay! Well a little bit of background:

Names Daniel. I've been incredibly interested in parkour for quite a while now, but have never had the motivation/drive to give it a go. Unfortunately I fall into the incredibly skinny category for body types, and my incredibly high metabolism rate doesn't really help that much haha. I weigh 147 pounds, and am 6 foot 1, just so you can get a picture.

Well I've finally decided to get into this (want to move and be free to "fly" in my own body XD) and thought this will help me to keep motivated, feel free to abuse me if i don't post at least once a week haha. As of now I'm trying to sort out a training routine that would be able to help me get a basic level of fitness, as well as light practice of techniques (working on rolls, lazy vaults, landing safely).  Reading through some of the articles and that in the sticky.

Anyways, we have an elliptical cross trainer at home, and i was wondering, would it be more beneficial for me to run on that, or to just go outside? Will post soon with my first training.

sorry for making this an essay haha

[cjgallagher]

Hey Dan congrats on starting parkour! To answer your question, I like to run outside because it's more conditioning. Literally... You learn to deal with tough conditions and such, but treadmills are great if you push hard on them. I found an article that goes a little deeper: http://sportsmedicine.about.com/od/tipsandtricks/a/treadincline.htm
It's really up to you and what you want though.

So how about some goals? Goals are really important to keeping you motivated and on track of your progress (always fun ) and you (and everyone else) can get a general idea of where you are physically, so we can help you and you can train more towards specific goals.

Sorry for the mass of text haha good luck!

[Daniel Bremner]

Hey man thanks for the reply, goals would definitely be a great place to start!

Well, one of my main goals is to gain weight, muscular of course. Not only would this help with my self esteem, but everyday activities that would become so much easier. Invaluable to parkour of course.

I'd love to gain a basic level of fitness, because currently I can do some exercises, but not nearly as well as I'd like to. I managed to do 3 set of 10 pushups, but only just. My wrists seem to be pretty sore while doing those so I'm going to do wrist training as well. (first two goals pretty much go hand-in-hand). Developing my flexibility would be helpful as well.

Of course I want to be proficient in the moves and ways of parkour, and what I really want most of all is to be able to flow over obstacles. I've watched videos of people doing this, and i don't know why but I have a deep desire to be able to push myself to the limit to get the results that I have seen achieved on the internet.

But first comes the muscular side and just general fitness level! Might be a long road but it's one I'm very willing to travel down!

[Daniel Bremner]

Just a small update:

Went for a run today (elliptical cross trainer) and was incredibly surprised I manged to run 2.5 miles in about half an hour. Though the machine we have is pretty nice, probably helped me along much more than I would like. Probably use it until I get comfortable enough with running that I could do it in public without major embarrassment 

Working on ankle and wrist exercises. Won't go into detail about them but its very easy to research a couple of excesses to do.

Will go for another run tomorrow, as well as some weight training, mainly to find out my limits so I can get a starting base.

Off to practice my rolls!

[Daniel Bremner]

Well I wanted to start working out but it seems I'm helping deliver some wood to my grandparents. That seems like a decent workout though, at least for my upperbody haha. Still need to go for a run when I get back, most likely half an hour again.