With that in mind, take minute to think about the definition of parkour.

Parkour is the discipline of overcoming obstacles with speed and efficiency. Most people associate it with teenagers and young adults. However, there is no reason you can’t apply it to the entire human lifespan.

Here are five parkour concepts that relate to healthy aging:

Scaling of Abilities

Vaulting a waist-high wall can seem out-of-reach to parkour beginners. However, by training a series of precursor movements, even the most fearful student will be able to get over the obstacle.

You might need to start by hoisting yourself onto the wall, sitting on it, and then swinging your legs over. From there, you might transition to arms and both feet, but no contact with your butt. As you get stronger your level of support decreases, from two feet to one foot, and then no feet. After enough training, you can eventually vault the wall with only one hand in contact.

Scaling is the term used to describe the process above, wherein you work through a series preliminary movements tailored to the level of the athlete. Parkour coaches use scaling to help their students build strength and confidence. The same framework can also be used to help older adults improve their level of functional mobility.

Take for example the difficulty many elderly have with getting out of a chair. It’s not uncommon for some people to be so weak in their lower body that they need to use both hands to push themselves out of a chair. Sometimes they actually need physical assist, like a mechanized lift or the help of a caregiver.

Regardless of the level of impairment, scaling can be used to improve a one’s abilities. In terms of getting out of a chair, a first step can be to raise the height of the seat with one or more pillows. Once the person can confidently stand up from the new position, the seat is height is gradually lowered (over days or weeks) until returning to the starting level.

It might take time, but this strategy is a great way to build the muscle to accomplish any number of challenging tasks. You can scale your way into climbing a flight of stairs, doing yardwork, or even unloading the dishwasher.

Understanding Falls

Falling down is part of life. In parkour, athletes tend to fall when they miss a jump, slip on an obstacle, or simply lose their balance. It is such a common occurrence, that coaches always train their students how to fall without getting hurt.

Beginners are taught to disperse the impact, favor rounded body shapes, and roll when necessary. By understanding when to anticipate a fall, and how to recover without injury, parkour athletes condition themselves for a lifetime of safe training.

Now, compared to younger athletes, when seniors fall down it can often be a matter of life or death. In fact, according to the CDC, falls are the leading cause of fatal and non-fatal injuries in adults over 65-years old. Many factors contribute to an older adult’s fall risk, including poor vision, neuropathy, generalized weakness, and drug interactions.

As a society we have done a poor job of protecting our older citizens from fall-related injuries. Yet, by identifying what factors put an adult at risk of falling, he or she becomes better prepared for the world.

Thus, like parkour athletes, older adults need to understand when and how they are at risk for falling. Once the factors are understood,  steps toward fall prevention can be taken. Likewise, with the help of an experienced practitioner, older adults can be taught to recover from, and avoid an injury when a fall does happen.

Environmental Awareness

Experienced parkour practitioners always perform a safety check of their environment before starting to train. They know that wet concrete, dusty surfaces, and loose obstacles all contribute to the risk of injury. By understanding the hazards around them, they minimize their risk.

This same habit is useful for older adults. By taking a few moments each day to identify the risk factors in your environment, you become much safer. Is the sidewalk in front of your house covered in wet leaves or ice? Could you trip on the many throw rugs or extension cords in your living room? The more you understand the external factors affecting your mobility, the more secure you become in the world.

The Importance of Balance

Tiptoeing across an overhead beam might be terrifying to some people, but it’s childs play to a veteran parkour athlete. That’s because a refined sense of balance is crucial in parkour.

Without good balance, landing jumps, crawling across railings, and scaling high obstacles would be impossible. But note though, that balance is a skill that is cultivated through practice. From low to high surfaces, and simple to complex movements, parkour athletes are always working to improve their stability.

Aging gracefully also demands that you continually work on your balance. For some older adults, simply turning around to see what is over one’s shoulder can lead to a fall. Standing on one leg to put on a shoe can be another tremendous challenge. Fortunately, when you put in the time and effort to improve your balance, the results can be astounding.

Over my 15-year career in physical therapy, I have spent thousands of hours helping 70, 80, and even 90 year olds improve their stability. And guess what, either you use it or you lose it.

I once worked with a 99-year-old woman who, after some training, could balance on one leg for over a minute!

Start working on your balance today, and make it a lifelong habit.

Focus on Power

A high horsepower car ramps from 0-60 miles per hour much faster than a less powerful car. In the same way, a skilled parkour athlete can speed through an obstacle course much faster than an untrained beginner. Power is fundamental to parkour, and without it you wouldn’t be able to clear massive gaps or stride between distant foot placements.

That’s why the best parkour athletes continually work to improve their power generation. They work on sprinting, jumping, and the ability to move with explosiveness.

One sad fact of aging is that your ability to generate power gradually declines over time. The older you get, the longer it may take to hustle across a busy street or get up from the floor. And, the longer it takes to complete these tasks, the greater the obstacle they become.

Hence, one final aspect to successful aging is that you need to make an effort to stay powerful. Without counteracting it, it’s natural to lose muscle mass as you age. The good news is that you can still build muscle through every decade of your life. The more you work to maintain or even improve your speed with everyday skills, the healthier you remain.

Although the tug of time may be pulling on you, don’t slow down!

Conclusion

The role of parkour as it relates healthy aging has yet to be fully explored, but the opportunity is immense. If you want a glimpse of the future, watch the documentary To Be and To Last.

Life presents countless obstacles, and the older you get the more they seem to pile up. Incorporating a few parkour concepts into your routine might not be a fountain of youth, but it’ll at least help you live fully.

—–

By the way, do you know of other 60, 70, and 80 year olds who are redefining what healthy aging looks like? Post a link below or share your stories with me on Twitter @benmusholt. The world needs more images of older adults staying active!

Ryan Ford and I published Parkour Strength Training at the beginning of 2016 to ignite a conversation about what it takes to be lifelong practitioner of our sport. Drawing on Ryan’s coaching career, the book discussed the strength, mobility, and joint preparation needed to keep an athlete injury-free.

Yet, besides that writing, there is little published on injury prevention for our community. Finding academic information about parkour injuries, rates, risk factors, or how they occurred is a practice in futility. A study came out of Brazil in 2014, but only 91 individuals were sampled. The conclusions were that age and the duration of a training session were the main variables associated with injuries. It also concluded that more studies were required to develop a more comprehensive prevention strategy.

To that end, perhaps you heard about the survey conducted by Dr. Lafe Harris and myself this past summer. The questionnaire was issued IRB approval and we had a turnout of over 1700 consenting respondents.

From height and weight, number of years training, sex, and prior fitness level, we collected a massive amount of information. Cleaning and organizing the data has taken some time, but we are now in the process of submitting it for academic review. Because the results are still unpublished, we are limited in how much we can disclose at this point.

Nonetheless, we are eager get the results out to everyone as soon as possible. The bullet points below offer a quick summary of our findings. Understand that this is a superficial overview, with more details to follow upon publication.

Survey Summary

• The vast majority of respondents were men, under the age of 35.
• Almost 4/5 of them had an injury that kept them from training parkour in the past year.
• Most injuries resolved in less than 2 weeks, with a much smaller fraction causing impairment that lasted over 6 weeks.
• The injuries were more likely to be sustained while outside or training alone, than indoors or with a group.
• The ankle, knee, and foot were the body regions most frequently injured.
• Sprains/strains and contusion/bruises accounted for the majority of recorded injuries.
• A sprain/strain/tear of the ankle (including the Achilles) was the most common reported injury by individual response count.
• The foot, wrist, and ankle were the 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd most common regions to experience a fracture.
• The knee was the most commonly reported bruised/contused body part.
• Landing was the most frequently recorded cause of injuries, followed by falling, and impact with an obstacle.
• Over 1/3 of respondents said that they have experienced a non-traumatic injury, such as a tendonitis or similar syndrome.
• The knee was the most common joint to suffer from a non-acute injury.

Points to Remember

Whether you are a solo practitioner or the coach of many athletes, a few take-homes should jump out:

1. The environment and setting where you practice is important. Training outside or alone presents more risks than indoors or with a group.
2. Landing, falling, and passing obstacles with grace are essential skills. High loads and harsh impacts don’t make for a happy body
3. Parkour athletes need better methods to protect their ankles and Achilles from injury.
4. Like every sport, parkour has its own collection of cumulative and overuse injuries. Prehab work must be part any strength and conditioning program, especially for your knees.

As we dig deeper into the data, new insights are bound surface. Slicing the sample according to age, gender, and experience, should provide a deeper level of understanding.

One theme that stood out was that many people said parkour actually helped them avoid injuries. That is a pretty cool, don’t you think?

Dr. Harris and I are interested to hear your thoughts about this topic. What additional research questions would you like to see addressed? Are our findings congruent with your own experience?

Finally, if you would like to be notified once the official results are published, please add your name to the email list here.

From beginner moves like the step and lazy vaults, to the more advanced kong and dash vaults, there are many variations. The commonality is that vaulting takes confidence, coordination, and a basic foundation of bodyweight strength. In this post, you will learn two static holds to help build the whole body strength for better vaulting.

Why are static holds important?

If vaulting is a dynamic movement, why should you bother with training static positions? That’s a good question, and the answer involves two parts. Before providing the answer, I want you to take a look at the two images below.

The first picture is of a kong vault. The second picture shows a dash vault. Notice how Nathan’s body appears in each image. His arms are engaged, pre and post impact. Likewise, his trunk is compressed into two distinct shapes. In the kong vault, he is balled up in a tuck position. In the dash vault, his legs are extended into an “L” position.

That brings us to why training static holds is important for parkour vaults. Here we go.

1. Static holds build the strength for the transitional, arm-loaded phase of a vault.

2. Static holds build familiarity with the body shapes essential for vaulting.

With that in mind, can you to take stab at which static positions are most relevant to this article? Remember your arms support you, and we want to demonstrate both a tuck and an L shape.

Any guesses?

The two positions I’m talking about of course are the tuck planche and the L-sit.

Let’s go over how to train the tuck planche first.

Training tips for the tuck planche

Before trying this exercise, know that your wrists need a fair amount of conditioning to tolerate the range of motion. Thus, it is a smart idea to begin your training with your hands in a neutral position, such as on a set of parallettes or full parallel bars. If you have a set of ground rail trainers, you can use those too.

Another option is to try it with your fingers curled over the edge of an obstacle. A park bench or set of bleachers will work great. Doing the holds with your palms flat and fingers extended requires a high degree of wrist flexibility. Letting your fingers flex takes some of the pressure off. In the picture above, I only show it on top of an obstacle as a comparison to the actual kong vault.

So, how do you work up to a tuck planche?

One of the easiest ways to build strength and familiarity with the skill is to first train a frog stand. If you’ve ever done yoga, you may also know the position as the crow pose. The idea is to balance on your hands, with your knees resting on the meaty part of your arm above your elbow.

Get on the ground in a low crouch. Put your hands in front of you, with your fingers pointed forward. Being slightly externally rotated is okay too. Shift your weight into your palms, and then gently place one knee at a time above each elbow. See if you can stay perched in this position for at least five seconds.

After you are confident balancing in a frog stand, the next step is to take your knees off your elbows. Sucking your knees under your body requires much more compressive, abdominal strength than having them rest on your arms. Those of you new to this type of bodyweight training may need to find a few ways to scale into the unsupported position.

Letting your feet rest on small block behind you is a one method for a bit of support. From there, see if you can obtain the position with only one foot touching down. After enough training you’ll be able to lift your feet completely off the block. Stay active through your trunk, sucking your knees into your chest as tight as possible.

A few other cues are that you are aiming for straight arms and a flat back. A common error is to balance on bent arms, with your elbows flared outward. Try to push the ground with as much power as you can, while aiming your elbows directly behind you. In terms of achieving a flat back, have someone spot you or take a video to assess your alignment.

Make it your goal to hold a solid 10-second tuck planche. That is plenty strong for the parkour purposes. Although gymnasts and other athletes may work toward more advanced variations, it’s not needed for vaulting.

Training tips for the L-sit

Like the tuck planche, a solid L-sit requires a high amount of upper body strength and flexibility, especially at the wrists. Starting off on a set of parallel bars or the edge of an obstacle can be useful before doing it on flat ground. The other benefit of beginning from an elevated position is that it allows your legs to dangle below horizontal. Holding your legs off the floor and parallel with the ground, takes significant hip, core, and shoulder strength.

Now, scaling into a respectable L-sit is a different process than the tuck planche. The idea is to incrementally increase the amount of weight extended in front of you.

Begin by placing your hands on the floor next to your hips, with your fingers pointed forward, and perhaps slightly outward. Remember, you can start by using parallettes or ground rail trainers to deload your wrists. Stack your hands as close beneath your shoulders as possible. The farther out to the side they are, the more challenging the movement will be.

Before extending your legs into the L position, you first need to master a tuck sit. That means you need to pull both knees to your chest, while lifting your butt off the ground. Notice how this position demands two simultaneous actions. You are actively pushing the ground through your arms, while also curling your legs into a tight ball. Again, aim to completely straighten your arms and pull your elbows in to your ribs.

Once you can hold a tuck sit with some confidence, begin uncurling into a more open shape. Try extending one leg. See if you can hold it out there while the other knee stays tucked to your chest. From there, work your way to extending both legs into the full L position.

An important cue is that you should be actively shoving your hands behind you. Simply pushing down into the floor isn’t enough. Thrusting your hands backward into the ground—or the bars—helps lift your legs to horizontal. Without that strong posterior shoulder drive, you will have a hard time keeping your feet off the floor.

Aim for a goal of 10 seconds. As I mentioned with the planche, there are more advanced progressions that you can work toward, but they aren’t essential for parkour. A high-quality 10-second L-sit will do magic for your vaulting game.

In summary

Movement mastery takes effort and patience. Building confidence with parkour vaults is no different. In your pursuit of better performance, be open to incorporating different strategies into your training. See what it’s like to start using tuck planches and L-sits to improve your vaulting.

For those of you who want a deeper look into the exercises that can help you excel at obstacle-based movement, pick up a copy of Parkour Strength Training. The book is a laden with resources to help you dominate vaults, climb-ups, and other parkour essentials.

That is huge news!

From its debut on French televisions 20 years ago, to becoming a taxpayer-funded PE class, the sport has gained immense respect.

If we are lucky, more school districts will begin to embrace the positive benefits of formal parkour instruction.

Unfortunately, with modern school districts so cash-strapped, that means that for parkour to be brought in, something has to be let go.

As Mark Toorock, the founder of American Parkour, demonstrated with his achievement in DC, replacing gymnastics with parkour makes great sense.

For the record, I want you to know that is not a statement I make lightly.

I started training gymnastics in elementary school, and I went on to compete in high school. Gymnastics is near to my heart.

Yet, having practiced parkour since 2010, I am confident that the time has come to make the break with gymnastics.

Parkour builds movement generalists, not specialists

Early sport specialization is not good for children. Kids that are pushed to specialize before puberty have higher injury rates, burnout, and miss the joy of exploring the full spectrum of their movement potential.

Gymnastics is the epitome of specialization

Its movements must be performed on regulated obstacles, like parallel bars, 4-inch wide balance beams, and spring-loaded vault boards.

Ask a gymnast to demonstrate his or her routine outside of a gymnasium, and you will be met with bewilderment. It cannot be done.

Parkour, on the other hand, centers on overall movement competence. Proper jumping, landing, sprinting, and climbing mechanics, are core competencies in a parkour class. Those skills allow a child to easily transition to other sports over a lifetime. They also engrain the movement patterns to help avoid injury.

Safety and real world usefulness

Why do we waste time teaching kids things that aren’t helpful in the real world? We teach trigonometry, instead of how to stay out of debt. We teach state capitals, instead of solutions to modern problems.

The same applies to gymnastics.

I value the proprioception and kinesthetic awareness that gymnastics gave me as a child. There was a definite benefit there. Luckily, parkour develops the same thing.

More importantly, it teaches movement solutions that have a real world application.

Take the case of a parkour roll versus a gymnastics roll.

It is inevitable that we all fall down. It seems like I to do it more than most people. In fact, I had two major falls over the past year when running with my dog.

How do you think I recovered?

The concrete sidewalks in my neighborhood aren’t forgiving. Doing a gymnastics roll across my head and neck would have been a disaster. Both times, I tucked a shoulder, did a parkour roll, and popped up to my feet without getting hurt.

That is just one example.

As the research comes in, it is becoming clear that parkour skills have other important benefits. For example, the forefoot landing taught in parkour yields less loading and more joint protection than other landing strategies.

If we are going to take the time and effort to provide physical education to our children, don’t you think it makes sense to teach them the most useful skills?

Accessibility, not elitism

Parkour is a sport of the streets, and for the streets. It costs nothing to start balancing on rails or vaulting the benches of your local park. After mastering the basics, you are free to pursue your abilities to whatever level your passion takes you.

That is not the case with gymnastics. Sure, kids can be taught a few fundamentals with a bare bones set-up. However, if they want to explore the sport further, you better get ready to open your pocketbook.

Gymnastics is expensive!

It might not be up there with golf or polo, but to pursue it at an elite level will eat into your disposable income. Consider the infrastructure that goes into a gymnastics gym. The spring floor, the tumbling track, the bars — all of it consumes a ton of square footage. The equipment itself is not cheap either. Gym owners have to price their services accordingly.

That situation is the antithesis of parkour.

Login to Facebook or do a Google search. If you live in a medium-sized city, the chances are high that there is a coach who is leading an outdoor parkour class somewhere near you.

Like jogging, it is immediately accessible to able-bodied citizens.

By the way, did you hear that the USA women’s Olympic gymnastics team uniforms cost $1200 a piece? How crazy is that?

Bottom line, there are a variety of reasons why parkour should replace gymnastics in our school systems. In our quest to develop healthy athletes and well-rounded children, we should use the best training tools available. Right now, parkour is top of the list.

If you are a fellow convert, do what you can to help bring parkour to your community. Be an advocate. Speak out about its benefits. Support those organizations that are making a change.

Thanks for reading. Please leave a comment about you or your child’s experience with either parkour or gymnastics. It is time we brought this discussion to a wider audience.

If you enjoyed this post, please sign-up for my email list. I put together a free workbook of simple and fun workouts for your enjoyment.

In recent years, the number of parkour gyms across the world has increased dramatically. The USA has the highest number of gyms of any country, but other areas are experiencing growth as well. To be included in the list below, a facility has to be primarily focused on parkour and have permanent structures for obstacle negotiation. Exclusion criteria include any parkour space that operates within a gymnastics gym or other training facility. “Ninja warrior” gyms and other movement art facilities that target multiple types of athletics were a gray area for categorization.

If you know of any gyms not mentioned on this list, please identify them in the comments below. The English language was a limiting factor for the online research; thus, there may be certain regions that are under represented.

Please note that some gyms have multiple locations within a state, but do not have unique URLs for the different facilities. Hence, they were only reported once.

USA

California

APEX Movement NorCal

Athletic Playground

Bay Area Movement

The Cave

Flying Frog Academy

Freedom in Motion

The Haven

Nexus of Guardian Art

Tempest Freerunning Academy (3 locations)

Urban Jungle Gym

Colorado

APEX Movement Boulder

APEX Movement Colorado Springs

APEX Movement Denver

APEX Movement Fort Collins

Move to Inspire

Path Movement

Urban Acrobatics

Connecticut

Adaptive Movement

GCA Parkour and Freerunning

Florida

Intensity Parkour

Miami Freerunning Academy

Urban Ninja

Georgia

KSG Parkour

Level Up Parkour Academy

Ninja Quest 

Illinois

Flipside Academy

Maine

Maine Warrior Gym

Maryland

Alternate Routes

Primal Fitness

Urban Evolution Baltimore

Massachusetts

AMP Academy

HUB Parkour Training Center

Michigan

Freedom Academy

Minnesota

Fight for Flight Academy

Missouri

Triumph Freerunning

Montana

Unparalleled Movement

Nevada

Hardkore Parkour Las Vegas

New Jersey

Movement Lab

Pinnacle Parkour – Cherry Hill

Pinnacle Parkour – Princeton

Pinnacle Parkour – Washington Township

New Mexico 

Zero Point Parkour

New York

Brooklyn Zoo

Innate Movement Parkour

North Carolina

Enso Movement

Ohio

Movement Lab Ohio

Parkour Horizons

Oregon

Abstract in Motion

Forge Parkour

Parkour Infinity

Revolution Parkour Beaverton

Revolution Parkour Gresham

Revolution Parkour Tualatin

Pennsylvania

Harder Faster Stronger

Main Line Parkour

Steel City Parkour

Texas

BAM Academy

Fugitive Fitness

Primal Parkour

Urban Movement

Utah

Utah Parkour

Virginia

Urban Evolution Alexandria

Urban Evolution Manassas

Washington

Parkour Visions

Wisconsin

CoMo

CANADA

ADD Academy of Quebec

The Breathe Parkour Space

The Monkey Vault

Origins Parkour

The Spot Parkour and Movement Training Center

ENGLAND

3Run Evolution Academy

The Chainstore Gym

Paramount Parkour

The Parkour Project

ITALY

Krapannone

Shine Parkour Gym

GERMANY

Die Halle Parkour Creation Center

Move Artistic

AUSTRALIA

The Trace Facility

BRAZIL

Tracer Parkour

DENMARK

BGI Akademie

FINLAND

Parkour Akatemia

MEXICO

Crosskour

NEW ZEALAND

Flow Academy

NETHERLANDS

Jump Freerun

PHILIPPINES

Ninja Academy

PORTUGAL

Spot Real

SPAIN

Universo Parkour

SWEDEN

Air Wipp Academy

TURKEY

Acro Academy

(updated 2/4/2016)

As some of you may know, I got to hang out there for a few days earlier this summer, when I was working on a photo shoot with APEX founder Ryan Ford. He and I are wrapping up a parkour strength training book, due to be out this Fall. In the evenings and other downtimes between shooting, we would rest and regroup at the gym. And, man, it is awe-inspiring.

Occupying an enormous 10,000 square feet space, the gym is built with a dedicated trampoline area, foam pit, air trick floor, and the biggest, most complex obstacle set-up I’ve ever seen. From a low-to-the-ground, beginner-friendly bar structure, to elevated catwalks and freestanding wood monoliths, the place is a movement wonderland. It’s so big that a pole dance/fitness studio sublets space in the rear of the building.

Besides having a full warped wall for all you American Ninja Warrior fans, there is also an impressive weight room to keep you in top athletic shape. Two squat racks, and plenty of other strength and conditioning paraphernalia are obviously getting put to good use by the APEX pros. Not up-to-date on the competitive parkour scene? Do a search for Dylan Baker, Brandon Douglass, and Dante Grazioli—they are on fire right now.

Another impressive aspect of the gym is that it has become a must-visit destination for globe-trotting practitioners. During my visit I met a handful of athletes who had left home and transplanted themselves in Boulder just to be closer to the APEX headquarters. People want to be close to the source of any major movement, and right now Boulder is where it’s at.

In that vein, Ryan and crew recently launched a cool live-work arrangement for out-of-town athletes. Based on the uchi-deshi model from Japan, eager students get to crash at the gym and train there in exchange for helping out with work tasks. When they released the program, Ryan thought that they might only get a handful of applicants. They were quickly bombarded with thousands of requests.

APEX Movement was one of the first parkour gyms in the world—#3 if you’re keeping track—and the standard it sets is second to none. Aside from the Boulder gym, the APEX empire includes three more facilities in Colorado, and one in Northern California. More gyms are in the works, and if you have an entrepreneurial mindset you might consider opening your own: They are currently looking for additional licensees.

Bottom line: If you’re interested in seeing what a world-class parkour facility looks like, you have to visit Boulder. The legacy that is being built there is setting the tone for the future progression of our sport. Go now.

As parkour athletes, we pursue our craft in the elements, rain or shine. Progress demands flexibility, perseverance, and a willingness to get a little wet, dirty, and cold.

Just as exposure to a wide variety of obstacles strengthens your movement repertoire, exposure to a wide variety of temperatures, and other environmental features hones you into a tougher athlete.

Fair weather practitioners miss out on the opportunity to harden themselves into better humans. Steel hardens steel. Avoiding exposure to what some might consider inclement weather betrays your efforts to build yourself into badass.

If you catch yourself wanting to skip a training session because the temperature is dropping or precipitation is expected, flip it around and consider it a chance to take things to the next level. Be smart about how you interact with the environment, but don’t shy away from challenge.

Aside from getting outdoors regardless of the weather, you should also explore training at different times of the day. Early morning sessions have a different feel than midday efforts. Late night soirees compound complexity with poor lighting and greater fatigue.

What other elements might you play with? What about changing up your wardrobe? What happens to your ability to move if you aren’t in sweatpants? What about when you are wearing less-than-ideal footwear? Can you still perform the basics without getting tripped up?

You’re not going to have your best performance when your routine is scrambled, but that’s the point. Training under duress forces improvisation, and ultimately makes you better.

It’s said that the best photographers can take amazing photographs with simple point and shoot cameras. Expensive gear and ideal conditions aren’t necessary. They make do, letting their skills speak for themselves.

Likewise, a pro athlete in a tuxedo and dress shoes could still wow you with power moves. The animal beneath the clothing doesn’t care about attire.

Bottom line, you’re missing out if you don’t embrace every opportunity to train. Injuries aside, don’t let elements beyond your control keep you from becoming a better athlete.

Weather, time of day, clothing—let nothing hold you back.

Overall, your training has been going really good, but you’re looking for a way to spice things up.

Enter the realm of “short-form” versus “long-form” training missions.

Although the terms short-form and long-form are arbitrary, they reflect an interesting distinction.

The idea is this: If your routine basically looks the same and lasts about the same duration every trip out the door, than you aren’t experiencing the full spectrum of parkour.

Getting in a rut is easy. You know the obstacles and features at your local park. You can run over and drill a flow that you’ve been working on without too much thought. You know the best places to train your climb-ups, precisions, and work on your upper body conditioning. You’ve got the spot dialed.

I understand, and often succumb to the ease of a well-known routine. Heck, there is this killer spot just a block from my house, why would I bother searching out another place to train!

Okay, so the situation described above encompasses what I would refer to as a short-form training session. You hit up 1 or 2 spots for about 30 to 60 minute of total training time. You drill some techniques and also fit in a bit of conditioning. Although it didn’t last a long time, your body feels good. You burned off some steam, and were able to see some progress in your skills.

Nothing wrong with that.

Short little missions definitely get the job done when you have a packed schedule. They are convenient after a full day of work and will certainly fulfill your need for a daily movement fix.

However, if you can carve out a bit more time, something magical starts to happen once you take your training above 2 hours.

At the most superficial level, when you explore your city via a long-form mission you’ll encounter unique obstacles and interesting challenges. A quick session in your local park can’t touch the exposure to newfound features that you’ll enjoy on a longer walkabout. Aside from the thrill of finding new training spots, there is a simple pleasure in learning about the different streets, buildings, public areas, and hidden gems that you might not have found before. It is a very grounding experience, joyous really, to connect with the place you live in this manner.

Next up, on longer training sessions you’ll notice that endurance becomes a new dimension to conquer. Do you have the fortitude to keep pushing your body when it has been on the go for two or more hours? Tired, fatigued, and possibly cramping up, here is where you learn your true strength. Can you muster the nerve to keep pushing yourself, drilling jumps, climbs, and vaults, when your body is screaming to throw in the towel and head home?

If you’ve ventured far and public transport isn’t readily accessible, the need to pace yourself becomes crucial. Rather than end up a mess, dead tired, and unable carry yourself home, you must be smart about energy expenditure. Carrying water and extra calories makes a lot of sense if you’ll be somewhere without a convenience store. Be strategic. Think about it like a mini adventure, with the goal of venturing out for a few hours, but still making it home in one piece.

Personally, I like to run from one spot to another. I enjoy firing up my cardio-respiratory engine, feeling my chest heave, and working to master my breathing.

Running between different training spots on a longer mission isn’t necessary, but it does add to the sense of accomplishment. Non-stop, moderate-intensity motion forces you to dig deep and tap reserves that aren’t challenged in our daily life.

How far you venture, and whether you walk or jog are fun variables to tinker. Could you make it an all day expedition, covering 10 or more miles? What would a parkour marathon look like?

To give you an idea of distances and duration, these two screen captures (via the Map My Run app) illustrate the differences between a short and long form session. For the short mission, I was out and about for under 55 minutes and hit up 2 different spots in that time. The distance covered was negligible, less than 2 miles, but given the obstacle-based conditioning, it was still a solid little workout.

Compare that to the longer mission: In nearly 2.5 hours my training partner and I covered 4.7 miles. Although not a huge distance, it provided enough variety to hit-up about 5 or 6 distinct spots. With that amount of unique terrain, we encountered enough obstacles to almost exhaust our full parkour vocabularies.

And, to be honest, even after 2.5 hours of training, we could have kept on going were it not for other commitments that day. What’s more, all of that movement actually leaves you in a heightened state. Your brain is truly awake and ready to conquer other challenges.

What would it feel like to crush 5 hours of training? How much ground would you cover?

Only one way to find out! See you outside.

While it’s a cool feeling to walk away from your first double kong, parkour gains need not always focus on going full beast mode. In fact, incremental improvements with basic skills is a much more important a goal.

The Japanese term “kaizen” relates to this phenomenon of continuous improvements achieved through small changes.

When you are always shooting to land a new skill or prove yourself on a monster obstacle, you are setting yourself up for burnout and potential injury. Striving for big performance bursts in a short period isn’t sustainable in any athletic discipline, and can (paradoxically) cause you to plateau sooner than necessary.

If you can implement kaizen into your training, your parkour career will last a lifetime. Disregard it, and, well, you do so at your own peril.

So, what does continuous improvement look like?

It means that you stay focused on the small details that make up your training.

What happens if you rotate your shoulders so your elbows don’t chicken-wing during your top out? Does how you point your toes during a muscle-up impact your ability to generate whole-body tension? What’s the best distance to take off for a dash vault? Will the position of your head at take-off alter your jumping ability?

By paying attention to nuances you begin to eliminate the habits and body mechanics that have been holding your back. Trial and error coupled with massive repetition cleaves away the faults that slow your progress.

Keep it up and continuous improvement is certain.

How do you know it’s working?

First, consider the subjective component. You feel more confident in your abilities. You have less fear with certain skills. You trust that your body can achieve what you aim to accomplish. Basically, you feel stronger and more competent. Maybe you even start to feel smoother, as if flowing over obstacles is becoming second nature.

Second, use objective measures to provide the hard data:

• Record yourself on video to observe for major faults in your technique. Does anything obvious scream for remedy? Sloppy posture? Heavy foot strikes? Watch, listen, and scan for biomechanics that need improvement.
• Use a stopwatch to time yourself for a given skill or specific run. Have you shaved a few seconds off your ability to ascend a given wall? Can you complete a set obstacle course in less time than last week?
• Pull out a measuring tape to quantify if your precision jumps are actually getting farther apart. Likewise, see if you are gaining height on the highest obstacle you can pop vault.
• Keep a small journal to record your best times, distances, heights, et cetera. Let Pearson’s Law be your new motto:

“That which is measured improves. That which is measured and reported improves exponentially.”

When you train methodically, continually improving your technique, and drilling better and better mechanics, you progress is guaranteed. Remember this concept whenever you are feeling stuck or discouraged.

Small changes accumulated over time yield big results. That’s the kaizen way.

1. It has everything. From vault boxes, to a foam pit, high bars, low bars, a spring floor, a climbing wall, and plenty of super-sturdy wall features, this place has it all. It would be impossible to get bored while training here. Tired of working on your climb-ups and pre’s? Head over to spring floor or the foam pit for some acrobatics.

I’m not sure what financial deities the owners (Rene Scavington and Ma Yuet) had to pray to in order to build it all, but they obviously did it right. Nothing was spared.

2. Dedicated strength and conditioning space!  Parkour athletes are like any other athletes. They need strong, powerful muscles to propel them through space. Origins Parkour sets the benchmark for other parkour facilities in this regard. Adjustable plyo boxes, olympic lifting platforms, power racks, and an entire dumbbell array, provide their athletes with all of the tools needed to prep their bodies for optimal function.

3. It’s light and spacious.  As someone with a 15+ year history in the health and fitness business, I’ve spent a fair amount of time in different gyms and athletic facilities. Some are good, and others… not so much. Dark, dirty, cramped, and musky. You don’t want any of that. Light, spacious, and clean – that’s where it’s at. It may seem funny that I even bring it up, but it’s a big deal. As an athlete, your nervous system needs to be cued to be alert and focused on the task at hand. Well-lit, cleanly spaces are ideal for allowing you to step-up your performance.

4. You can get lost in the nooks and crannies.  Coming from a background in climbing and bouldering, I often find myself thinking about parkour runs as different “problems”, much in the way that climber approaches a unique challenge on the rock. How could you move from here to there, incorporating a variety of different features? What sequence of tacs, precisions, cat leaps, and climb-ups would get you to the top of that wall? Origins has built a cool mini maze-like feature where you can spend plenty of time playing around with different challenges. It’s a happy place.

5. They have great art.  Parkour athletes are movement artists. Origins really pays homage to this aspect of the sport, and has done a killer job of outfitting the gym with inspiring murals. When you go someplace to train you should be in an environment that uplifts your spirits and promotes the creativity that will make your movement flow. Kudos to the artwork. It’s a great touch.

Those were the main observations that I walked away with after training at Origins for about an hour. I hope to make it back soon, and I’m eager to talk more with Rene and his head coach, Tom Coppola, about their approach to the athletic development of their students. I have yet to confirm a chance to talk with them in greater depth, but my fingers are crossed that I’ll have an interview to share soon.