American Parkour

Hey guys,

I know I've seen this around before, but it's been awhile. I'm looking for a bodyweight circuit routine that hits then entire body (major muscle groups - legs, shoulders, chest and back) that I can perform once a week.

I went through Starting Strength and Stronglifts programs in the past, but I'm currently doing a bodybuilder type split (upper/lower/arms). I know the arguments about functional strength, but I'm not all sold out for the purists view on functional training - I like how I look naked .

That said, I want to improve my conditioning (cardio a few times a week isn't quite cutting it for martial arts and parkour practice) and I had good results with that when I performed bodyweight conditioning in the past.

Can anyone link me to a good full body workout that I can use with typical playground equipment (pull-up, dip and monkey bars, etc.). Thanks in advance for the help.

(This is focused on Parkour, not Freerunning - assuming you recognize the difference, not everyone does anymore.)

I've found that on my runs, when I'm just flowing, I always find more than one move that I need to work on during my training sessions (when I'm practicing one or two moves in repetition). The problem I'm having is that I find too many moves to train while I'm just running .

My martial arts practice has taught me to isolate a violent situation and practice the most practical means of dealing with it (in addition to "free sparring" where I just let everything flow), and I'd like to do the same for Parkour. I figure that if I can identify the most common obstacles - the ones that are encountered on nearly every run - then I'll be able to practice different moves and approaches on those primarily, to par down the number of moves that I find when I flow.

So far, I have identified the following obstacles:

Fields (Empty space greater than 400m, requiring endurance to cover)
Walls and Fences (they both have different approaches, so this may need to be separated)
Low Walls (also long-low walls like the hood of a car or a park table)
Beams (balance-type beams, or the tops of walls)
Drops
Gaps
Rails (usually with gaps between the bars, but otherwise just like a low wall)

Can anyone add to this list?

I understand that many Parkour people believe in not overthinking their training, but this is the best way for me to approach things and stay motivated.

Thanks guys!

Hey guys,

I wrote an article on my blog about the self defense strategies of parkour. (I tried to copy and paste it here but the wordpress text stuff gets funky. Sorry)

Here's the link: Escape

I haven't had much success with consistency, but I'll try the online journal method. Maybe having this up will keep me motivated just by knowing that others may be watching.

I'm 27 yrs. old and am new to parkour (actually I've been a groupie for quite a while, but I'm giving it a go now). For those of you unfamiliar with my "Newbie Needs Help" thread, I'm starting from scratch here. My body is conditioned well enough to handle the very basic moves of martial arts. I have extensive knowledge and experience in that area, but for the last couple of years I have been focusing on theories, letting my conditioning and skill go to the wayside, which, by the way, I'm ending here and now.

So now that I've established that I'm starting from rock bottom, I'll lay out my goals. For my first stage, I'm going to use the Animal Workouts from Urban Freeflow. The goals outlined there are very similar to my own, and they have a very good structure to go about attaining them. This choice came about from the comparisons made with suggestions for my other thread, and a few additional sources, as well as a complete evaluation of my goals.

My overall goals are to:
- Obtain the physical fitness necessary to perform the APK and CF WoDs as prescribed.
- Be able to perform the basic parkour movements (everything in the tutorial video).
- Be able to run a mile in 6 min (my best was 5:30 in highschool).
- Be able to touch my toes and do the splits both ways (never been able to do either).

I have other goals, but they are unrelated to either fitness or parkour so I'll not list them to save on space .

Here is the link to the workouts I'll be performing: http://www.urbanfreeflow.com/2009/02/04/animal-workouts

The first stage (Gibbon) has this listed as the goals:
6+Pull-ups.
10+ Inverted Rows.
4+ Pistol Squats each leg.
30 push ups in a minute.

As of right now, I measure up as:
3 Pull-ups
14 Inverted Rows
1 Pistol Squats each leg.
35 Push-ups in a minute.

A few are above, some are below.

To make my goals SMART (acronym), I'll place a time restraint of 1 month. I'll take the test (try to hit all of the values above) on Oct 10th.

Is it possible to use the "Grease the Groove" technique for general fitness? Or is it better to follow something like the WoD and then "Grease" individual problem areas within your fitness?

I just learned of this type of training, and it is very appealing to me.