In between his world travels, he was kind enough to answer some questions that I had for him. Check it out:

Would you break down a week of your training schedule in terms of how you keep your body and mind prepared for the rigors of free running?

I have no schedule. I get out when I’m free and motivated to train. I don’t try to force anything or create routines, as I get bored quickly and lose motivation. I do however do yoga when I get a chance. No favorite types of workout. Sometimes I really like gymnastics centres, so I’ll go for months enjoying it. And other times, I don’t, and prefer to train outside for months instead. Whatever gets me pumped. There’s no aims or pattern really, other than trying to be spontaneous and react like a kid to the environment around me by exploring constantly.

You and Damien Walters have been putting out some really fun videos showing creative calisthenics and lots of super inventive motion. Can you give us some background into your relationship as training partners and what it means to you as an athlete?

Thanks! We first met maybe 10 years ago, when I was a breakdancer and wanted to try some gymnastics. Then, I got into freerunning and showed him some tricks and he could do them all first try. Then I showed him some videos and he learnt every trick out there so quickly. He’s always been a creative guy anyway, so was great to train with him and bounce ideas off each other. He really has incredible spatial awareness!

I’m always impressed by your upper body strength and how you weave b-boy skills into your freerunning. Where do you draw your inspiration to keep pushing yourself?

Thanks! My inspiration comes from some videos and athletes, but mostly from within. We are all unique. It’s nice to remember that and not try to repeat other people’s style or creative moves, and just explore the possibilities.

I feel the best way to serve Parkour is to try to be as unique as possible, so it widens the horizons of what we do and what people see us doing.

Spirituality is definitely a big factor in being able to observe myself and others objectively, in order to further my career and spread this art positively.

I had been a vegetarian for 10 years and I heard that you have recently transitioned to a vegan diet. I am wondering if you could tell us a bit about that experience and any insights to how it has impacted your fitness? 

Yea, it was a huge awakening for me. I always thought I was a kind, compassionate guy, cared about animals, loved cats and dogs, etc. It was a big wake-up call when I realized some simple daily choices were KILLING other beings. Once I discovered we can be not just as healthy, but in fact healthier without interfering, kidnaping, and killing the innocent creatures we share this planet with, there wasn’t a doubt in my head: I had to stop taking part in this holocaust.

Sounds grim, but I assure you, I’m not saying this for shock factor. I’m just telling you how it truly is.

With 3 past appearances under your belt, you’re a solid veteran of American Ninja Warrior. Are you planning on going for it again this year?

I’m not going for it this year. The camaraderie amongst the athletes is amazing and I’ve met loads of inspiring people and made friends, but I just don’t like the way it is more about being a good TV show then finding the best athletes.

We recently completed this interview, and I’m sure you’ll find his reflections on parkour as some of the most elegant on the planet. He knows his stuff and has been putting out some awesome tutorials. If you’re looking for help take your training to the next level – just keep an eye on whatever Rafe is talking about!

Q: Tell me a little bit about yourself. I know you are the co-founder of Parkour Visions and from what I can gather from Facebook, you have an interest in anthropology. What else would you like the readers to know about you?

A:  Yes, I co-founded Parkour Visions with Tyson Cecka, and I was an Anthropology major in college and have been interested in the subject since I was a kid. I started reading old anthropology textbooks and ethnographies in my early teens and I continue to follow development in behavioral genetics, cognitive science, neuroscience, and human evolution closely. However most of the best information on human nature comes out of other fields at this point.

The study of human behavior and evolution definitely contributes greatly to my teaching of parkour.
 My approach to parkour is also informed by  studying martial arts throughout childhood, including brazilian jiu jitsu, Muay thai, Aikido and Tang Soo Do, and coaching gymnastics and CrossFit as a young adult.

I also grew up in the hippie community at the end of a dirt road with acres of forest all around and the freedom to explore them as much as I wanted. That experience plays a huge part in my parkour practice.

Q: As a coach for many years now, what are the biggest fitness deficiencies that you see parkour-newcomers demonstrate? What sort of strength and conditioning advice do give for the student who is just starting at your gym?

A: Most students who come for their first class are quite weak; it’s uncommon for people to be able to do a single pull-up. They’re also usually very limited in mobility, particularly in ankle dorsiflexion, every aspect of hip range of motion , and every aspect of thoracic extension and shoulder range of motion. The biggest limiting factors for novice traceurs are the strength to pull themselves up and over a wall and the proper mobility and stability to land well and absorb impact.

The basics to get a student up to speed are simple: do low impact parkour focusing on good mechanics complemented by basic calisthenics, squat, push up and pull up working to improve motor patterning and mobility as well as strength. The secret to a really successful program is understanding how deep the basics go and how to scale and develop them appropriately. Most people think they can do a push up but are actually far from doing it correctly and in such a way that it will optimally develop strength and complement their movement practice.

Q: When I visited your gym a few months ago I was impressed by a large area dedicated to weight training with a few power racks, a Roman chair and many kettlebells. Aside from dead lifts and squats, what are a few “must-do” weighted exercises that you encourage your athletes to perform?

A:  I actually don’t think there are any must-do strength and conditioning exercises in parkour that apply to everybody. The only must-do for parkour is parkour. There is a certain mindset from the fitness community that has crossed over into parkour – the lionization of exercise for exercise sake with very little attention paid to the goal of the exercise what it is supposed to train you for. Parkour is conditioning for parkour,  if you’re doing something else to help your parkour it must be more effective for developing towards a specific goal.

Given the set of weaknesses we mentioned earlier, almost everyone we work with needs to squat, hip hinge (deadlifts and similar exercises), do push ups, rows, and pull ups, and that is probably a good list for most novice athletes.  But we need to remember why we are training those exercises. It is too easy for the exercise to become the goal and for people to lose sight of what they are actually trying to change its also too easy to fall into the exercise ADHD mindset and try to do every good exercise. There are 100’s of exercises that are are potentially useful when applied intelligently towards someone’s goals, but any given athlete only really needs to be working on a handful.

In addition to the exercises listed above, with intermediate athletes we start adding in split squats and romanian deadlifts if they have mobility weaknesses 

With advanced athletes we do complex weight training plyometrics and add work on dips, muscle ups, gymnastics levers, planches and handstand presses depending on their goals. 

Finally glute ham raises, back extension, sled drags, farmers walks, and glute bridges, single leg squats, and various mobilizations and prehab movements all make appearances based on a given athlete’s needs.

Q: Can you give some key advice for people who are looking to improve their standing broad jump? 

Start by training the standing broad jump in an intelligent way. I see lots of traceurs advocating doing 100 reps of precisions and the like. A better idea is to train 5 to 10 sets of 3 jumps with full rest between sets, focused on jumping as far as possible on every jump. If you are getting less than 95 percent of your best jump for 2 reps in a row, stop. 

The next question is what is the limiting factor on your jump? Film your jump; are you consistently co-ordinating your arm movement with your hips? Are arms fully extended behind the body at the peak hip depth? Are they fully flexed overhead at full hip extension? Is your angle at take-off consistently 45 degrees? If not, then work on technique.

Next look at the movement signature. How fast are you dropping down through the eccentric? If it is slow, focus on squats and depth jumps to build up your ability to load eccentrically and produce a stronger reflexive contraction. Next, look at positioning at the bottom of  the eccentric; is your back rounding, are your knees collapsing inwards? If so, work on deadlifts, glute activation, and lateral stability; to improve your ability to hold neutral positions during the amortization phase (the transition between the downwards and upwards part of the jump). Finally, look at how deep you can get in your setup and how much hip extension you get at the end of the jump. To improve that, work on split squats to open up your hip extension and strengthen your glutes and work on your squat mobility. This will also help you get distance at the end of the jump by improving your compression.

Vince Cossette is an example of an athlete who loads quickly, holds good position and has great depth and hip extension. Particularly pay attention to how deeply he loads and how far into hyperextension his hips go.


Q: We all know that using a weight vest is a great way to add resistance to classic body-weight exercises. What do you think of actually training while wearing one, i.e. running obstacles with a vest?

A: I have not experimented much with the use of a weight vest in parkour skill training. I would be worried about negative skill transfer and developing competing motor programs for any full on course work or more complex skills like kongs, cats, hurdles, speed vaults etc. I would use it solely for training simple jumps and only when the skill is mastered. If your standing broad jump does not have a consistent take off angle, you have no business trying to do it while dealing with the extra problem of a weight vest.

Q: Do you subscribe to any particular programming schedule or philosophy in your weight training? 

A: My biggest influence right now is Sparta Performance Science. For our higher level athletes we do weight training and plyometric complexes progressing both in weight and density like Sparta advocates. So my training for instance looks like this:
 3x 7 Split squats, 6 bounds x2 progressing in autoregulated fashion by either doing it in less time, 4 minutes per set to 3:30-3:00-2:30 or by adding weight.

 I weight train 2 x week when I can, for about 45 minutes. The rest of my training time is devoted to sprinting, jumping, practicing parkour skill and mobility and recovery.

Q: Are you currently focused on improving your skill in any movement in particular? What is it and why the emphasis?

My last real focused training cycle was in preparation for the Origins Parkour NAPC competition. I worked extensively on diving kongs and kong to precisions. I got up to an 8 foot kong to precision and 10 foot double kong in the gym. My next goal is to nail down my approach run ups and my long jumps and strides

Q: Who in the sports or fitness world has had the greatest impact on your thoughts about athletic performance?

A: Most recently I have been inspired by and influenced by the aforementioned Sparta Performance Science for strength and conditioning, Ido Portal for mobility, movement complexity, and training method, Kelly Starret for mobility and understanding of movement, Bo Schexnayder for understanding jumping and a local track coach Mike Cunliffe on understanding sprinting technique. In the past I have gotten a lot of value out of Steven Low, Mark Rippetoe and Vladimir Zatsiorsky.

Q: Ryan Ford and APEX Movement have promoted the 5-rep climb-up as an epic measure of power and efficiency. Do you have a favorite performance test for your athletes?

A: My experience with tests is that the major value of a test is taking the time to really look at a movement in depth and learning to look for the various elements of movement quality. Then you take that back to observing athletes do parkour and you find you can see the same things by just watching them train that is the best performance test. I can watch someone step vault and learn a lot about their mobility, stabilization, strength and coordination. A handstand or swing tells me a lot about someone’s shoulders, etc. 

The big test we are using recently is just the standing broad jump to look at different elements of force production the rate of eccentric force production stability during amortization and ability to dig deep and drive fully through the hips that I mentioned earlier.

Q: I love the video you did for Prana, demonstrating parkour in a forest setting, and I’ve also heard that you’re an epic tree-climber. Would you expand your thoughts on training in nature versus the urban environment? 

The short version is
:

• Nature is what we evolved to move through.
• Being in nature makes up happy.
• Natural environments are usually easier on the body.
• Natural environments offer a more complex environment, which develops more intelligent, sensitive, and transferable movement capacities.
• It’s the forgotten aspect of parkour and it needs to be rediscovered.

Parkour is brilliant because it is a meme that has conditioned our brains to be triggered to play in the urban environment in new and powerful ways, which is a  wonderful and empowering thing. I think though that that association between parkour and urban has become too strong and people are missing an element of the practice that can be intensely rewarding, that really is innately more rewarding. So, like the title of my video, I believe that doing parkour in nature is literally returning to the source of the movement. 

The Yamakasi say that the body of L’art du deplacment (the other term for parkour) was born in Evry (which is urban) but the spirit was born in Sarcelles (a forested area). However, that aspect is forgotten by most of the community.

I personally like training in natural environments better and I would guess that actually most people would if exposed to it. We watch videos of people jumping between buildings and vaulting concrete walls and so that’s what we think parkour is.

To me, parkour is rooted in the movement play that is innate in all of us and that children especially will express given a chance. We want to climb, jump and run for a reason; those skills were vital to our survival as a species through the vast majority of our evolution. We are built with psychological triggers to engage those play capacities when given a chance, and natural environments are more potent triggers because thats what we evolved to respond to.

Being in nature in general is just good for us it engages our attention in distinct way that is restorative; for instance, when we are tired a walk in the woods has been found to be as good for the brain as a nap. Parkour in nature offers us the psychological benefits of being in nature plus the benefits of parkour. That’s the recipe for happiness for me.

I have found that the softer surfaces in natural environments also  allow me to practice more and more intensely without breaking down my body.

My last big argument in favor of Natural environments is that they are inherently more complex than urban environments, and complexity in movement is what parkour is all about. It’s what being a good mover is all about.  The city is very uniform in shapes you encounter in the degree of grip, dampness, penetration into the substrate. In the woods, even the visual field is far more complex.  That complexity is good for your nervous system.

Q: How does MovNat intersect with the training that we already do as parkour athletes?

A: I was fairly deeply involved in MovNat at the beginning of the MovNat project. I was the first certified MovNat coach in 2008, but I parted ways with Erwan soon after.  However, I continued to believe in the need for a model of fitness based on our innate nature. I wrote down my general synthesis of my thoughts about an evolutionary approach to human movement on the Evolve Athletics Blog. 

I chose to focus on parkour because I believed that fundamentally moving your own body through space was the most basic task of any model of fitness and having a deep understanding of it would inform all other elements. I believed it was necessary to specialize in understanding one area first to really reach a level of mastery in teaching and I believed that the parkour community offered an amazing window into our innate play drive, our creativity, and many interesting thinkers to learn from. 

To me a complete physical culture would include not just overcoming obstacles but controlling the body in the air and on the ground, moving and manipulating objects, dealing with combat situations and dancing and it would understand the need for humans to move in nature and would place a high value on this.

In that sense MovNat is more complete then parkour and I would like to see more practitioners take up that broader scope. Right now I am in middle of expanding our method at Parkour Visions to include dealing with moving objects and combatives, and getting people out in nature more. That has always been my goal. We are evolving towards offering our own model of an evolutionary approach to movement and fitness.

It always comes down to your goals but I think many people who enjoy parkour could benefit from expanding their movement horizons to include combative movements, strength and conditioning dance and of course acro which most traceurs already do.

Q: Given the huge popularity of obstacle course races, like the Spartan Race, Tough Mudder, and Alpha Warrior, do you see this as an opportunity for parkour training to reach a wider audience?

A: Yes, the show Ninja Warrior always brings in a crowd to our gym and we get people prepping for Tough Mudder and Spartan Race regularly too. The mindset of the two groups are rather different though. Traceurs do not generally enjoy running for long distances and philosophically favor the development of explosive strength capacities which is at odds with high levels of aerobic training, so the transfer between the two communities is often less than perfect. I am not sure what to do to bring them closer.

Q: Parkour Visions was founded in 2007 and last year you underwent a large expansion of your gym space. Do you have any cool news about upcoming Parkour Visions projects or other personal developments?

A: We made it a goal this year to not do another expansion, but we have lots of other fun developments. We are splitting up our summit event into a Summer Competition and Jam, on the 18-21st of July.  We are calling this event the Classic, and already have a bunch of top traceurs committed, including our first Mexican athletes, Daer Sanchez and Danee Marmolejo, as well as Brian Orosco, Jesse la flair, Paul Darnell, Brandon Douglas, Jake Smith, Amos Rendao, Joey Adrian, Max Henry, Elet Hall, Paul Whitecotton and more.

We will also be co-hosting a pure teaching parkour summit with APEX Movement in Denver this October. That is just in the beginning phases of development though, so keep tuned to our blog and YouTube channels to hear more about that. 

And we will soon be announcing the official details on some three-day nature training seminars this summer.

I caught up with Thomas last weekend, and had a chance to learn more about his background and parkour training.

Here is a transcript of our conversation:

Tell me a bit about your background and how you got into parkour?

My twin brother and I grew up in Greenville, Texas and we come from a regular sports background of soccer and track. One day we were searching around on the Internet, and we came across a David Belle video. I thought it was super cool seeing him run across buildings and climb up things like Spiderman, and thought “Man, I got to try this!”

The first thing we did was to get on top of our roof and jump off like idiots!

After that we started training and took all of the discipline that we had learned from soccer and implemented it into our parkour. We were doing two-a-day sessions and trying to learn moves from the videos that we watched.

We would press pause, then play, trying to figure out what his (David B.) hands were doing, and then go outside and practice. We were 16 at that time, when our bodies were starting to develop with strength, so it made it easy to transfer the techniques.

Shortly after that, we started filming ourselves doing parkour moves.

Our parents freaked out and said that it would ruin our soccer career and that we shouldn’t do it! We told them we’d stop, to get them not to worry.

That was in ’06. But we kept on training, and started putting videos out on YouTube and emailing tons of people our video, like TV producers. Then we got picked up to do a commercial and had to come clean with our parents, because they had to sign the contract since we weren’t 18 at the time.

They were pissed off at first, but then when they found out we were going to be in a commercial they were okay with it.

What other TV appearances have you had?

Well, we did all of the testing for American Ninja Warrior in Dallas, to make sure the course wasn’t too easy and not too hard. And then they wanted us to come to Vegas as well.

We also did an international commercial for Heelys, which was pretty fun. They have this new board that they wanted to promote, and it was a pretty sick commercial; with a really good director on it. It had a lot of slow motion.

That was in 2010.

What’s the story behind LearnMoreParkour.com?

After we started training, we started to get hit-up constantly with emails or through our YouTube channel, with people saying:

“Hey, you’re doing really cool stuff. Can you teach us how to do it?”

After answering tons of these type of emails, we just decided to make a website to dedicated to helping people how to do it.

The first product we launched was “Get Your Backflip Now.” It was the first time we had ever made a product, so it was pretty hectic.

Then we launched the “Crash Course into Parkour” shortly after that, and it went a lot smoother!

It was difficult to make a living from the commercials, so the courses helped us to be able to just work on training parkour.

Now, we just moved out to California after meeting a stunt coordinator. And it’s been really awesome.

Anyhow, the website is really a resource for people who are just starting parkour, and is aimed at people from age 13 to their early 20’s.  It’s really for people just starting off in their training.

For people who are experts or on the higher end – it’s not for those guys.

We’ve also done workshops and have started to teach classes over here – just small classes for now.

So, what’s life like in LA now that you’re out there?

Well, doing the stunt work has been great, but we realized that we like teaching parkour the most.

We’re going to mainly focus on training, teaching, and spreading parkour

Can you tell me about your parkour training over the course of a week?

I have it spread out so that this is how it goes: 3 to 4 days a week of training parkour and free running; and in between it’s conditioning. If I’m going really good with the training, sometimes it’ll be two workouts a day.  For instance, I’ll do conditioning in the morning and then will go work free running later on that day.

One of the things that I really focus on is what I learned from Ryan Ford of APEX Movement, which is called the Training Triangle.

The three sides are the Physical, the Technical, and the Mental.

If you take care of those three things, then you’re on your way to becoming an ultimate parkour athlete.

The Physical is the conditioning, including work on fast twitch and slow twitch muscles.

The Technical is working on the parkour movement and breaking down what you really have to do in a move.

The Mental component is to help address fear, with techniques like using gradual progressions. It’s also about learning to stay positive and not get down on yourself when training.

What sort of specific conditioning are you doing nowadays?

Right now I’m gearing up for Ninja Warrior, so I’ve got a big rope to climb and some box jumps in my backyard that I use a lot.

Aside from the rope climb and box jumps, I do a lot of quadrupedal movement and butt scoots.

The butt scoot is an awesome movement to strengthening your core, where you balance on your butt with your hands by your hips, then lift up and scoot forward across the ground. It looks kind of ridiculous but it’s an extremely good workout.

I also like to use a weight vest for pull-ups and push-ups, and I’d be using weights for squats but I just don’t have access to a squat rack right now.

Most of my training right now is with body weight, or with a weight vest, and also picking up sand bags.

What’s your favorite exercise?

Definitely a pull-up. It’s so basic, but there are all sorts of variations that you can do: narrow grip, wide grip, regular form, chin-up style/reverse grip, side grip, and then circular pull-ups.

The Bartendaz are a neat resource – they’re awesome, and have inspired me a lot.

Another thing that I like to focus on is explosive power. I’ve noticed that a lot of parkour people don’t really train it that much. They’ll train at a slow pace all day, but it’s really important to train with explosive movements too.

If I’m doing pull-ups, I’ll raise myself up as fast as I can, then lower down slow.

Same thing with if I’m doing jumping precisions – really working on exploding.

Are you doing any cross training?

I do a lot of the agility training that we used to do for soccer. I’ll set-up cones and will work on cutting in and out really quick.

It’s kind of like the training that you see football people doing. Set-up a square and run between the cones or on different angles, even backwards for footwork.

What sort of advice do you have regarding injury prevention?

Gradual progressions are key.

Also, listening to your body in terms of fatigue and not going for risky stuff when you are tired or late in your training session.

You should also be working on conditioning your joints, in preparation for shock absorption.

Finally, what can people do when training to improve their movement flow during parkour?

Having good flexibility and mobility are important.

I’ve also found that a background in dance helps with flow, for body control. What really helped us was some training we did with break-dancing.

In terms of everyday training, it’s just essential to work on breaking down the movements, then drilling the moves together in a pattern. Visualize the progression from one move to another, then drill the movements.

Of course, just filming yourself can really help. You’ll see where you got sloppy and what movements you need to work on.

What you wear can help, too. Baggier pants and looser fitting clothes don’t restrict motion as much.

Well it’s been great talking with you, is there one last thing you’d like to mention?

Yeah – we just released a new product called our “In-home Fitness Training”, which again is for beginners and focuses on the physical side, the conditioning. It’s to help people build up the strength needed to train for parkour.

It’s really not about technique, but rather strength, flexibility, mobility and things like that. It’s a 60-day program and was launched a while ago.

He’s a busy guy, working to finish his doctorate in physical therapy, but he was kind enough to answer some questions that I sent his way.

For those of you who don’t know, he is co-founder of the blog Eat. Move. Improve., which has 60,000 page views per month. He launched the website about three years ago, “focusing on educating people newer to fitness and bringing them up to competent fitness knowledge.”

Here is a transcript of the interview:

Are you close to completing your DPT  and what are your plans after graduation?

My expected graduation date from PT school is in May 2013. I’m hoping to work for at least 5 years full time and then decide where I want to go from there. I eventually want to put out some injury-type books, so that’s on the project list aside from the Overcoming Gravity 2^nd edition as well. That’s not including writing articles for EMI too. So there’s lots of things left to do still!

It has been a year since Overcoming Gravity came out and it looks to be a huge hit on Amazon. How many books are in print so far, and has the success led to any neat speaking engagements or other professional opportunities?

We’ve sold a couple thousand books so far. I wouldn’t exactly say it’s led to more opportunities. I was able to speak on bodyweight training at Parkour Vision’s Summit 2012, but I was planning to get out there to speak on bodyweight training for a couple of years now.

The main thing it has done thus far is allowed me to reach a wider audience to teach people interested in bodyweight exercises online. I have been getting some requests for seminars and other things of that nature, so that is a possibility in the future.

I think one of the hardest things for most beginners and intermediates to understand is the concept of programming. That’s the main reason why I wrote Overcoming Gravity. I wanted to teach those who are new or getting into bodyweight exercise how to construct a good routine and all of the factors that go into that process.

The book is massive and truly impressive in scope. How long did it take you to write and do you have plans for future versions or other titles?

It took me approximately 18 months to write the material for the book and have it published. In retrospect, I wish I wasn’t a student and had more money so I could have gotten it professionally edited before it was released.

Currently, I am in the process of starting to make edits for the 2^nd edition of the book which I hope to be much more friendly to absolute beginners, beginners, and intermediates alike. My general sentiment is that if you are fairly advanced you tend to have a good foundation of knowledge on how to train already. Thus, you are less likely to need help with programming.

Any specific advice for extending the info in Overcoming Gravity to parkour conditioning?

Upper body bodyweight exercise, especially strength training with bodyweight exercise, applies very heavily to Parkour.  Increasing the force output – strength – of the muscles in the upper body in closed chain movements applies directly to many parkour techniques. For example, many parkour techniques such as vaults like kongs, climb ups, and laches rely on your ability to move your body through decreased leverage positions and apply acceleration forces. The stronger you are and the better you can control these movements the bigger they will be and the smoother they will be.

It’s no secret that optimal performance in any discipline or sport requires both a skill practice component and a strength and conditioning component. Parkour, like gymnastics and climbing, tends to have a very large skill component as there are many potential movements to master. However, you can improve the speed at which you improve by applying proper strength and conditioning training. Bodyweight strength training, especially for the upper body, tends to apply the best to parkour and freerunning.

I think that most people really underestimate how much strength and conditioning applies to various sports. However, I think that many of those educated on strength and conditioning tend to overestimate how much people need. I’ve been talking with Rafe Kelley, Ryan Ford, and many of the other PK/FR coaches, and there needs to be really a good mix of working a lot of skills versus strength training. It’s hard to find the right mix right now, but the gyms those two help run – Parkour Visions and APEX along with many others – will really help refine the methods within the coming 5-10 years.

What ways can athletes best improve their grip strength, with an eye to hanging bar and ring skills

The deadlift, in particular, is extremely good for building grip strength. One other movement to consider are farmers walk. Otherwise, if you are devoted bodyweight strength advocate, you will most likely be training with rings. Rings tends to build great grip strength.

Combine deadlifts, rings, and potentially farmers walks, with parkour skill training on bars and you have a great foundation of grip strength.

I think many people try too often to look for the “magic bullet.” For most types of training it’s best to keep things relatively simple, and then if you need to change something make very small changes.

I love the trunk compression move you suggest for core strength, where your hands are by your legs and you lift your feet.  Do you have any other favorite core strength skills you recommend for routine practice?

Generally speaking, the best core exercises are the ones that you can measurably progress with. L-sits, hanging leg raises, planks, and ab wheel are tough exercises that you can progress with fairly well. I typically don’t recommend anything like crunches or situps because they get too easy very quickly and there’s no progression with them.

I have a love-hate relationship with hollow rocks. They are good from a body line perspective on how to learn how to hold the body in a nice hollow/straight position which is required for many of the upper level bodyweight strength skills. However, they get too easy very quickly. I suggest them for beginners, then I like phasing them out once you have a good idea of where your body is in space and can maintain it through tougher exercises.

Finally, can you break down a week of your personal training routine, and the specific skill sets you are working on?

Currently, my routine is sporadic which sucks. I’ve been stuck in a period of overtraining for a protracted period of time (though I am slowly recovering!). Right now I’m working on fixing my sleep which one of the hardest things to do since I have tons of bad habits from high school and college. Many people forget that  training is just but one aspect of improvement. You need all of the big four to make good progress with training – Sleep, nutrition, training, and lack of stress.

At the moment I’ve taken up a bit of rock climbing 2-3x a week, and I mostly focus on maintaining my handstand and V-sit/manna.

If I was able to workout seriously I would be focusing on the main movements that allow me to maintain my progress which are for the pulling exercises the iron cross, one arm chin, and front lever. For the pushing exercises it is rings pushups into planche and rings dips. For the legs I try to get in deadlifts and sprinting.

Of course, if you mix in PK/FR work then you have to reduce the amount of strength and conditioning work you do. So it’s all a continuum depending on your sport(s).

Many, many thanks to Steve for contributing his answers to this interview. Count on me to be first in line to sign up for any upcoming seminars!

As if owning a gym and clothing line weren’t enough to keep him busy, he is also a sponsored athlete for Vivo Barefoot shoes and is a FitFluential Ambassador, helping to promote fitness through different social media channels.

I had the pleasure of attending a seminar led by Ryan at the 2012 Seattle Summit, where he talked about harnessing creativity to use your environment to its fullest extent.

A super humble guy, he was kind enough to exchange contact info so that we could talk after the event. Some time has passed, but I finally got the chance to catch up with him and talk about his take on parkour conditioning concepts.

Here’s a transcript of our recent phone interview:

I saw that you just got back from Europe. What were you doing over there?

Erica Madrid went over to the Red Bull event in Greece, so I was over there to support her and be around for that. That’s how the trip started off and then we spent a few weeks traveling around the islands of Greece, Italy, Croatia, and Bordeaux, where we got to train with the locals.

What did you notice as major differences with how people train over there versus what is going on in the U.S. or at APEX Movement?

It’s hard to say. When we were in Santorini there were people from all over the world, so I certainly couldn’t put them in one category. Some were more freerunning, some were more parkour, or had a background in tricking, breakdancing or whatever. Some were more into big jumps.

In Colorado, we’ve really tried to promote all of those things because we do merge them together nowadays. We’ve never been about any one of them. We want to be well rounded through parkour, freerunning, gymnastics, and all that kind of stuff.

 I saw that you have three APEX Movement gyms in Colorado. Tell me more.

We have two of our own gyms, and then a third that is out of a gymnastics gym, so I like to say that we have two and a half.  And, were actually about to start our first out of state APEX Movement soon.

I was the founder of APEX, and now focus more on parent company stuff, like coaching certification and other projects.

How much training do you get to do on a weekly basis yourself?

It depends. I do at least an hour or two almost every day of the week. Sometimes it’s a lot more. When I’m not traveling and at the gym coaching or whatever, I’m always doing a little bit at least.

How much time would you say you devote between strength and conditioning versus skill development?

Probably around half and half. I try to limit my impacts. I actually heard some interesting stories about the early guys doing parkour how they way over-did-it and they’re now feeling it later on. I definitely don’t want that to be me.

Every jump you ever do adds-up. I try to limit the big jumps, and usually only do big stuff when filming, performing, or occasionally when out training on my own.

For the most part, it’s ground level stuff, low impact, and lots of strength and conditioning.

For someone trying to workout at home, what sorts of equipment might they consider for a gym space?

Well, one thing that I’ve been trying to do with Demon Drills is that I’ve always shot the videos outside, because I want to show people that you don’t necessarily have to have a gym to workout.  It’s a matter of taking parkour, and applying it to workout with everyday obstacles, like benches and walls.

So, that’s one thing that I’ve wanted to show, but at the same time I’m also an advocate of some weights for parkour. Basically 5 main lifts and some gymnastics style conditioning. As far as weights go, it’s some basic barbell stuff, like deadlifts, squats, press, and weighted dips and weighted pull-ups. And, if you do those 5 basic moves and gymnastics training you pretty much cover everything you need to for parkour.

What else do you do for cross training?

What I did through high school and college, was mostly team sports, soccer, track and football. And then, when I got into college and more into parkour, I started cross training more with bouldering and rock climbing. I do quite a bit of that.

With APEX Movement we try to blend everything together. We all train and dabble with tricking, gymnastics, slack lining and all kinds of stuff.

As the head coach and founder at APEX what sorts of injuries have you seen with people starting out with parkour?

Well, we haven’t had any injuries aside from cuts, bruises, strains and stuff like that.  I think the number one thing for parkour people to watch out for is overuse injuries. Especially with stuff like drops, if you use bad form – you might not really feel it. Cartilage in your knees doesn’t have nerves, but then in a couple of years your cartilage is cracked, torn, and gone.

That’s the biggest thing we try to get people aware of – that you always have to have good form, and basically install the mindset to think about staying healthy over the long run.

What do you have to say about injury prevention and prehab concepts?

There’s three main things for staying healthy with parkour. There’s good form, there’s good strength, and then good flexibility/mobility. It’s always important to pay attention to good form, stay strong, and stay flexible.

For good hip flexibility, I’m a fan of the caveman or “third world” squat, with feet flat on the ground, and a full squat.  It’s so important for good landings.  When you lack full flexibility at the hips and knees your landings can really injure you.

It doesn’t matter if you’re strong and have good form, if you don’t have the flexibility and mobility as well.

I try to get people to use a lacrosse ball and foam roller for mobility aside from basic stretching. I’m a big fan of the mobilitywod.com.

Any final cool news that you wanted to share?

Yeah, there are a couple of things that we’ve been working on pretty hard. We’re excited about the coaching certification. We did our first one in Philadelphia this summer.

We’ve also started to release our own workouts, which are posted on Facebook and will hopefully become more widespread. The idea is to list them blog-style, then provide hyperlinks to the Demon Drills videos.

With Movemental, I want to make it into a lifestyle brand, to promote the movement arts. I want to promote things like martial arts, tricking, parkour, and have all of us learn from each other and then collaborate to come up with new things. That’s what I want Movemental to represent, so we’ll be reaching out to those other communities.

Want more? Keep in touch with Ryan on Facebook.