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Welcome to the parkour blog of my training, and conditioning.

Each time I go out to train I plan to basically, write up what I did, and any thoughts I have about the way I train, or indeed parkour in general. And by doing so, I hope it will give you guys an outline of a benificial training routine, and some reliable methods of conditioning. Also I will try to take atleast one picture every time and post to the parkour blog them along with videos, whenever I take them. ENTRY 4 - 13th September

I've been thinking alot about parkour recently because I havn't been out training due to holidays and being at my dads. I've been thinking about the sudden transition between freerunning and parkour that I have made.

I thought my parkour was getting really good. When I first started I didn't do any and it was all flips. But only recently have I really started to do parkour. I mean I knew parkour was all about fluid movement, but it is as if it didn't register in my head.

Training parkour, is training combinations of fluid movements. Not doing a cat pass precision on its own, or an arm jump on its own. Parkour is all about moving fluidly, how can you do this just by doing one move.

I supose by practising moves on there own builds a basic ability, and strength that you need to succeed in pk. So I might say it was a good thing I started that way. In order to say that what you practise is parkour; you really need to show that you can do parkour and move through the environment efficiently.

This leads back to the old cliche, parkour is te art of moving form point a to b as quickly and efficiently as possible. ENTRY 3 - 14th August

Today, I met with the guys in a childrens play park. The first thing I did was precisions on stumps, for a while. Concentrating on landing on the balls of my feet. After I got bored of that, we went and did bar training, pull ups, turns, and lache precisions. After about 20 mins of that, i started to get blisters and had to stop. I haven't worked on fluidity for ages now, so I thought I'd do that. I practised kongs and speed passes over a fence and I was doing the combination lazy turn vaults, to 180 cats to side vaulting on two pieces of the fence that were at about a 120 degree angle.

My friend sooty then started conditioning, ie press-ups, pull ups and stretches. So I thought I should do some movement conditioning. There was a kiddy climbing wall with a hole in the middle of it. I stood on the bottom of the hole with my hands on top. Then dropped down, catching myself with my hands where my feet were, then popping back up, over and over again.

Sooty came up with the idea of going to another park close by to do more conditioning. There there was a rail with a higher wall opposite. First we did climb ups for about 5 mins, then we were considering precisioning from the wall onto the rail. Craig managed to do it and stick it but I couldn't bring myself to do it. A good way of conditioning through movement we found was arm jumping from the rail to the wall, climbing up, Jumping off over the rail onto the grass and pk rolling. My rolls needed a lot of work. I had done it on concrete last time we were out and it really hurt my shoulder. After doing the roll about 10 times and getting tips from sooty and Craig, I managed to get a really decent roll and it wasn't hurting at all.

So a basic recap...

  • 10 Minuets of precisions
  • 20 Minuets of bar training
  • 1 Hour of fluid movement, and conditioning through movement
  • 1 Hour of get ups, and conditioning through movement
ENTRY 2 - 4th August

Today I met up with the guys at a place with two high walls, our aim was to cat leap, cat 180 back then climb up and vault over. My friend and I had recently learned new technique for 180 cat leaps. To pull up with your arms and push of with your second foot as high as you can get it. This is a really efficient way of gaining maximum air time, and therefore distance in your 180 cats. We were there for about an hour practising them, as well as conditioning get ups.

Then we went to the church we were at a few days ago I think I mentioned it in the last blog post. There we did more conditioning of cat leaps, get ups and 180 cats for about two or three hours. I managed to do a 180 cat up from a window ledge to the top of a roof. I am beginning to think we do too much cats and 180 cats.

After that we went to a dense area underground to practise real parkour – fluid movement. This took us about an hour until our hands were really messed up, the walls there were really rough. We found so many combinations of movements, and just by changing one way of conquering a obstacle, it challenges your muscles, eyes and mind in a different way.

The last thing we did was cat pass precisions, on a set of steps so we could aim further and higher as we improved. We also practised silent jumping from the steps onto the wall. Bending your knees as much as you can as soon as you land. Silent jumping is also a way of practising cushioning impact.

So a basic recap...

  • Three hours of cat grabs and get ups
  • One hour of fluid movement training
  • One hour of cat pass precisions and low impact jumping
ENTRY 1 - 1st August

I haven't been properly parkouring for a while now. My goal for today was to get back into the routine of conditioning through movement. I now am really getting the hang of practising real parkour instead of the old morphed way I used to train.

I met up with the guys at a local school, where they have a fantastic wooden spiral, which is perfect for practising precisions and catleaps. First we stretched for about 2 minuets then we went on a simple balance mission from one end of the spiral to the top and back again.

Once we had finished our warm up I decided I wanted to work on my get ups, I have never really had my technique good enough, and I have been meaning to work on them for ages. For about 20 mins I was cat leaping from one level of the spiral to another, and climbing up. The cat leap was really hard because the wood was damp and wood at its best is not grippy. I had to put almost all the weight on my arms and that was tiring. With each cat leap, I would wait in the cat leap position, think about the technique of the climb up the climb up. I felt this really helped me concentrate on each individual key point.

The key stages used to help my climb up were, kicking away from the wall, and pulling up. Tensing my back and legs. Use the time when you are in the air from the kick to jump your hands to chest level, then push up and straighten your arms (this really tires your triceps) . Then it is easy to vault over or get your feet up. I kept doing this over and over again, and until it made my triceps really ache. By the time I finished even though my arms were tired I felt the get ups were getting easier because my technique had improved so much.

I knew I needed to rest my arms, so I felt now would be a perfect time to practise my precisions. It is not until recently that I have discovered the correct technique for precisions – landing on the balls of your feet instead of the middle. When you land on the balls of your feet it is easier to balance and control the energy you put into the jump. Also it is key to bend your knees when you land because it brings your centre of gravity lower and it is easier to balance, not to mention it absorbs impact.

The grounds keeper then came and kicked us off. We didn't fight or argue because we understand their worry. They feel that if we injure ourselves on their property we can sue them, and that it is likely we will injure ourselves. And not to mention it is private property, and we shouldn't be there to begin with.

We then started walking to a church in the middle of town. On the way we stopped of at a child's playground where there were two high walls, a low one and a window sill which were perfect for cat to 180 cats. We session there for about half an hour and managed to see whole routes through these walls, one of them being. Taking of the low wall cat leaping onto the window sill 180 cating up onto the higher one's climbing up dropping down and cat leaping onto the other climbing back up and precisioning back onto the smaller wall. That took me about ten seconds before I got tired.

Once we had reached the church we practised pop climb ups on a wall with an overhanging ledge that was at least 3 metres high. I found it really fun because my technique had improved so much. We timed each other and the best was 2.3 seconds by me!

This made me think about how we differ from people who do not practise parkour, if they needed to get on the other side of that wall, people who don't practise parkour would look for another way round. Us traceurs can null the obstacle within a matter of seconds.

When we were finished there we went to a fantastic spot in an underground carpark. I practsied precise fluid movement intensly for the whole time we were there. And felt very please with myself, because the chain of movement I sort of day dream about at the beggining I did towards the end. Performing fluid movement is so fun and im going to do more of it, because really - that is parkour!

Hope you enjoyed the first entry of the parkour blog of training. More parkour blog entrys to come soon. :)

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