What better way to avoid capture and escape from people than training parkour?
What is parkour? This is best explained by a video -- you’ve probably heard of it or seen it. Parkour is the art of moving efficiently through your environment. Its getting from point A to point B as fast as you can and as efficiently as you can, doing flips and tricks along the way is cool and flashy, but is not efficient -- that is called free-running. Many parkour practitioners also practice free-running as it is fun, and an excellent way to training your body.
Keep in mind, the person in that video has been training for almost 7 years, but imagine with even basic training, you are already going to be able to escape from any potential pursuant, almost nobody will be able to catch you.
I have been training parkour and free-running regularly for the past 4 years, I use it as a way to condition my body and mind. The training I do to look after my knees and joints while I practice parkour helps keep my fitness overall at a very high level, I will share with you some tips and how to get started in parkour training.
Can anyone do parkour?
Of course, if you go to youtube and you search parkour or parkour training you will find videos from people of all ages and both genders practicing parkour. There is no limit to how old you can be, both men and women can do it, you don’t need anything to start (like a ball or a racket) and you can do it anywhere you want, as there are no laws prohibiting parkour like there are for skateboarding.
Before you go out and start training you’ll want to find yourself a light backpack you can carry around and put down at your training spots to hold onto your valuables and water as you don’t want to fall and land on your phone. Dress in light clothing, shorts or tracksuits and a shirt. Wear old sneakers/trainers as your shoes will get torn apart after some time.
How do you train parkour?
There’s many aspects to parkour, first you need to have a body that can handle the forces involved with jumping around and doing things that you wouldn’t normally do. I recommend you either find a good bodyweight training guide, or a weight training guide, depending on what you wish to do. I will go over some basic bodyweight techniques and training you can do and how to train for parkour.
Having good balance is very important, having a high level of balance and being sure-footed will make you safer and make performing movements easier. I recommend that you practice balancing in whichever shoes you are going to be training parkour in -- do not practice your balancing barefoot if you are training in sneakers as this will put your proprioception off. You can walk along rails and practice jogging/running on narrow paths to increase your balance. Running along a low wall that is fairly narrow is good training as often you will find yourself needing to sprint along a narrow wall to jump to the next one.
When you go out to train parkour, I suggest you find some local traceurs in your area, simply search in google “your city name, parkour”. There are parkour organizations world wide that are designed to help beginners starting off.
If you want to train on your own then its important not to watch some youtube videos and start doing roof gaps or anything silly. Start by practicing moving around rails and doing cat-passes and other vaults.
Kong vault
The aim is to pass over an obstacle, start small then move up to bigger and larger objects. Run towards the object, jump and plant your hands on it, let your momentum carry you over it, then use your hands to readjust yourself so you land on your feet.
Precision Jump
Stand still and focus on where you want to jump, bend down and explode up as hard as you can, trying to launch yourself UP as opposed to FORWARD. Land on your toes and try and stay still, without moving. The goal of a precision jump is to land on something that is small or narrow, such as a railing. Practicing on concrete (as above in the picture) is a good way to start.
Wall-run
Run towards the wall at a fast pace, kick off the wall at about knee height and push yourself upwards while reaching with your hands to the top of the wall. Grab the top and pull yourself up.
These are three basic techniques that you can practice today and go out and try. Take a look at a few videos to get the concept sealed into your mind and try them. There are MANY more techniques such as rolls, different kinds of vaults, arm jumps and rail/bar techniques but going out and practicing moving around with your friends is an excellent way to train.
Conditioning
This is by far the most important part, having a strong body will make everything a lot easier and you will be a lot safer in performing these movements if your body can handle it.
- Pushups (regular, diamond, hands at hips, wide)
- Pullups (regular, chinup grip, wide grip, close grip)
- Dips (weighted/unweighted)
- Planks
- Pistol squats
- Handstand pushups
- Crunches
- Sprints
These are exercises you should spend 15-20minutes doing after your training sessions, depending on how fit you are you should make them difficult enough for you to be dead tired after you are done. Mix it up and train with friends and it will be a lot easier to complete.
Weight training is also a highly effective way to train and I recommend you find yourself a program incorporating squats, deadlifts, overhead pressing, rows and bench presses if you choose to use weights to condition.
