American Parkour

               In the short time that I have been training I have heard the question “What is a good background to have before starting Parkour?” many times. The obvious answer is “It doesn’t matter. “ Parkour is first and foremost a method of training to overcome obstacles in one’s path. (1) It has never required anything other than a person willing to push themselves to do things that society may have deemed unacceptable. That is one of the most wonderful things about the discipline. However, their may be some activities that natrully help with Parkour.
               There will never be a need for additional training to be a good traceur. There are many people that only train by doing Parkour and are great at it. Some would even argue that it is redundant to train for training. In my opinion there is nothing wrong with practicing other sports, disciplines, training techniques, etc. to get better at Parkour. If Parkour is designed to create functional strength that fulfills the ethos “etre forte, etre utile” why stop at Parkour?
             In general, cross training is beneficial to the human body. According to the AMMA journal “[training] variations trigger new neuro-muscular adaptations or, in other words, new pathways from the brain to the muscles.” (2) These new connections allow the muscles to work faster and more efficiently. Cross training also reduces stress on joints and bones by changing the direction and amount of force applied to the bodyThis change of direction can be good to facilitate recovery. Runners, for example, use cross training to stay in shape after an injury. According to Runners World Magazine when you get injured “cross-training comes to the rescue in two ways: by helping runners maintain fitness despite being forced to run less or not at all and by correcting the cause of the injury.” (3) (Please remember if you receive an injury to seek medical advice before starting any more training.)
             Parkour should increase your success at many activities and the effect works both ways. If playing basketball increases your vertical jump and stamina, which translates well to Parkour, why wouldn’t practicing Parkour, something that also increases your vertical jump and stamina, make you a better basketball player?
               Many traceurs come from various backgrounds. Billy Hughes of the Tribe has a competitive diving background which makes his flips spectacular. Many have wished they had the upper body strength Tim ‘Livewire’ Sheiff gained from his break dancing experience. Dylan Baker has amazing skills on a slackline. Ryan Doyle has Martial Arts experience and ‘Frosti’ Zernow has taken up rock climbing to increase upper body strength for American Ninja Warrior.
                Even David Belle practiced Kung Fu. This was not necessarily to better his Parkour but I’m sure the two activities were mutually beneficial to each other. On top of that Traceurs all over the world are using weight training to better prepare their bodies for the physically demanding portions of Parkour.
                Consider what exactly you are trying to improve when doing Parkour. Parkour Generations’ Dan Edwards  says “Parkour aims to develop … the critical elements of coordination, body control, agility, strength, balance, spatial awareness, accuracy, timing, speed, rhythm and the sensitivity which comes from  practice, all of which are core to overall functional fitness.”(4) Many sports can improve these things. In my opinion there are few, if any; activities better at developing all of these attributes simultaneously than Parkour but, that isn’t to say other sports would not be useful in enhancing these attributes. Ozzi the founder of Hawaii Parkour says this about the subject “anything that challenges your body in any way will definitely help you, not only in Parkour but many other aspects of your life.”             
                As I mentioned earlier there are Martial Artists, break dancers, competitive divers, rock climbers, and slackliners. There are also weight lifters, yogis, runners, soccer players, gymnasts, and even basketball players who practice Parkour. Most of which would say that their sports background helped them in some way.
                Over the next year I will cross train in some complementary sport/discipline for one to two months. At the beginning of every new sport I will write an article giving an overview of the sport, what it should help increase, my workout plan, baseline measurements, and goals that I will try to achieve during my time practicing. My goals will be based on increasing my proficiency in Parkour skills and foci (using the American Parkour definition) as well as my “usefulness” in life.
After I complete the allotted time for each activity I will write a follow-up post about how it helped me, whether or not I achieved my goals, variations I took in the training routine I laid out, final thoughts and anecdotal evidence which I will attempt to keep as scientific as possible. In addition to all this I will also detail how, in my opinion, Parkour training helped with that activity.   
 
Note: I have always believed that Parkour is a personal discipline. I cannot tell you how to train and am not trying to get you to sign up for gymnastics classes. Nobody has Parkour training down to an exact science. There are good and bad things about every school of thought. In the case of cross training, American Parkour and PK Generations both support Cross Training to some degree. (5) Again this is one path and you don’t have to believe in its validity or results, just as I don’t have to be held back by views about the usefulness of other activities to train for Parkour.

I expect to have an activity picked and goals posted by Friday!

Please discuss. What do you think about my plan? Am I full of crap or do you think that my idea has merit? Any suggestions about what I should train first or later? Be as specific as you want. I would love to see some quality discussion.

   
Sources:
(5) Edwards, Dan. "Off The Wall - Articles | Parkour Generations." Off The Wall - Articles | Parkour Generations. Parkour Generations, n.d.   
                     Web. 13 June 2012. <http://www.parkourgenerations.com/article/wall>;.
 
(4) Edwards, Dan. "Parkour as Functional Fitness." Parkour as Functional Fitness - Articles | Parkour Generations. Parkour Generations, 
                     n.d. Web. 13 June 2012. <http://www.parkourgenerations.com/article/parkour-functional-fitness-through-movement>;.
 
(3) Fitzgerald, Matt. "Eight Benefits Of Cross-Training." Runners World Aug. 2004: n. pag. Www.runnersworld.com. Web. 13 June 2012.
                       <http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-238-263--7420-1-1-2,00.html>.
 
(2) Krause, Paul. "The Benifits of Cross-Training." AAMA Journal (2009)
                   Attachments and other options: n. pag. Web. 13 June 2012. <http://www.ttmg.net/sites/default/files/Cross- 
                   Training%20Article.pdf>;.
 
(1) Toorock, Mark. "What Is Parkour?" American Parkour. N.p., 12 Oct. 2009. Web. 13 June 2012.   
                   <http://www.americanparkour.com/learn/faq-english/faq/155/221-what-is-parkour>;.

Hey is anyone in Kansas city area? I know someone who moved there recently and was looking for some contacts?

So I feel like I've wasted a lot of time going randomly to the gym and doing exercises with no reason other than they are leg exercises.

My goals are:
1. Higher Vert. (I haven't measured for a long time but I would like to add 6 in.)
2. Greater distance (I don't really know what is a reasonable distance to add)
3. More power for things like flips and precision. 
4. Strengthen Knee to prevent injury (I'm not taking any big drops I just want to protect myself.)
5. Strengthen Ankle to prevent injury (same thing as above)

Currently

I squat once a week with a 10 5 5 5 plan. The last rep should be difficult. It's how I did it in high school but I'm not sure if that was right.
I haven't maxed out since HS and I really don't remember how. I have dead lifted once (wasn't sure if I was doing it right and just never looked it up). I generally do hang clean and power clean. Same set scheme just less weight. O I run (on a treadmill) once a week. All of this in addition to sparatic Parkour training.

And since I know that goals are supposed to be time sensitive I want to say by late March.

Any help would be great. Please don't say "just get starting strength." I don't have the money for that right now. I did try to search but I couldn't find anything. Ideas? Please and thank you.   

"Être fort pour être utile" we have all herd it and we have all herd about the connections between Georges Hébert and Parkour. More specifically Hébert's "méthode naturelle" and "parcours d'entrainement."

Everyone always claims that doing Parkour makes them more useful. In actuality how many of us have taken the time to judge how useful we really are? What skills besides Parkour do you have? If you lived in New Orleans, Joplin MO or in one of the states flooded by hurricane Irene would you really be that useful? In an emergency situation could you administer basic first aid, could you help someone with a broken foot get out of harms way, could you carry an unconscious person to safety?

Even in everyday life if you were walking down the street could you stop a mugging or a sexual assault? Could you provide accurate descriptions of people to the police, change a tire or administer the Heimlech maneuver. Just because you can get someplace doesn't make you useful. In many cases it makes you another liability to emergency services. A liability that is not worth the risk to anyone unless you are doing some good.

I say all this not to dissuade you from training in Parkour to be useful. In fact I am trying to do just the opposite. We as traceurs and traceuses have the ability to do a lot of good. In an emergency situation we could safely reach areas that many people are not trained to do without help or specialized equipment. (Only in extreme emergencies should this be attempted!) Because of this we should be prepared for such an event. So go sign up for more training. Take a search and rescue class, take basic first aid, sign up for your local CERT. Even learning basic survival skills can be the difference between being an asset and a liability.

How useful are you? Do you know any first aid, are you trained in self defense, do you know how to safely judge if you can move a person, can you provide basic necessities (i.e food, water, shelter and first aid) for yourself or others. Are you a certified lifeguard, do you have a plan for what you are going to do if disaster strikes? Does your family know your plan? To those of you with kids this is especially important.

I'm not saying that you have to be able to do all of these things. In the end you decide what is useful to you. So tell us. How useful are you? They don't have to be listed here it can be as simple as knowing how to change a tire all the way to how to treat a sucking chest wound. Tell us what you can do that would be useful in an emergency and tell us what you could do to make yourself more useful.   

Here are some good links:
Red Cross training locator: http://www.redcross.org/portal/site/en/menuitem.d8aaecf214c576bf971e4cfe43181aa0/?vgnextoid=46de1a53f1c37110VgnVCM1000003481a10aRCRD&vgnextfmt=default

CERT locations and information: http://www.citizencorps.gov/cert/

FEMA information: http://www.fema.gov/plan/index.shtm

Here is my skill list: Basic first aid with some advanced skills, ability to carry a person safely and decide if it's necessary to do so, basic woodland survival (i.e. hunting, making fire, building shelter, direction finding), Martial Arts training, proficient with many types of firearms (Rifle, pistol, shotgun), construction knowledge including electrical systems, welding, and basic mechanic skills.

Some of the things i'm doing to make myself more useful are: taking a wilderness survival course through the army ROTC at my college as a refresher, training to become a lifeguard, searching for more first aid classes, trying to get stronger in everything I already do preparing to sign up for CERT.       

Also feel free to discuss how useful Parkour really is or isn't or does or doesn't make you more useful.

So this is right up there with the 1000 ways to die.
Worlds dumbest on "Tru TV" just what we need.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JME3oF76zs


I'm touched though generally they don't have full mini segments dedicated to one sport. 

Has anyone every heard of this vault before. It just looks like a combination of a lazy vault and a turn vault.

It's at 1:07 here ---> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZhgIn4iVzg

Any tips on doing it. If so how about teaching it. I have a kid that really wants to learn it and I can't find a good tutorial. (I did teach him a climb up from a cat so he can do that now a lot easier.)

So two things.

One, this doesn't look like it's very difficult but it's about 12ft tall. This wall is pretty close to my limit. Whats odd is I did it one day no problem and then yesterday and today I couldn't get the distance up the wall.

Two, I was very tired and sore. I had trained hard for two days in a row so my legs were not up to their full power.

I'm showing you this because I pushed myself and I think it showed in the picture. I was pretty proud that I was able to do that.

So without further adieu.


So I look kind of intense. anyway comments?
 

So this was written by my training partner. It's good publicity but not perfect there really hasn't been a perfect article that I've seen. It's good for us though because we are trying to get set up to launch Rolla parkour and we'll need more people over the summer.

Anyway just give your thoughts as usual. ( o and 10 to 15 includes people that just come and watch there are only 6 that train.) also you get to see a pic of me. 
http://mominer.mst.edu/2011/03/03/not-just-running/

http://www.parkourgenerations.com/naoki.php

I just thought that this was neat of them to try especially for a good cause.

So I was looking at a website that was in blackbelt magazine to see what kind of clothes they have. Well the answer is expensive. But today I found out that they have these they are fairly new to the market and they look well I'll let you decide....








and the grip




So they look ok. Very steam punkish... They are for a very particular group of people but the grip looks great. I also like that you can give them the exact size of your foot. They are very pricey though. Here is the original webpage. Take a look at some of he other stuff too. If only for laughs.


http://www.ayyawear.com/store/footwear/tabi/parkour-tabi


EDIT!!!!: the black looks much better!!