A New Exercise for You: Parkour

I bet some of you are familiar with parkour already, but I imagine the most haven’t heard of it. I won’t lie – it’s extremely difficult, and requires a large commitment. So the question I’m sure many of you are asking is this – what is parkour? It’s actually slightly difficult to adequately describe. Parkour is mostly running or jogging, depending on pace. But what differentiates this from a jog is what you do while running. Parkour is a kind of urban acrobatics, combined with a kind of obstacle course. But instead of an actual course, you set the path as you run. And instead of going around obstacles, you go over them (assuming you can). And as you run and jump over these barriers, you do tricks too. It doesn’t sound that difficult, right?

It is! When you just run, you work out one set of muscles, primarily in your legs. When you do parkour however, you work out those same muscles, plus more in your core and arms. Hopping and jumping works all kinds of muscles in your legs. And if you’re using your arms to pull yourself up and balance yourself, you’re doing massive work for your arms and the rest of your upper body. Its bodybuilding and cardio together, plus it looks really, really, cool when you can do it! Like I said though, it’s very difficult. Unlike jogging or pushups, if you try to do this right off the bat you have a high chance of hurting yourself.

So what can you do to get ready, if this sounds like your thing? Start with stretches. Stretch everything. Of course, be sure to warm up a little before you start – stretching cold muscles actually decreases flexibility instead of increasing it. Next, go jogging for a while. It will increase you endurance, and work off pounds which will hinder your parkour. Once you’re finished with your run, do as many pushups and sit ups as possible. Once you’re done with this, do all of your stretches again, to make sure to help your flexibility. Do this every day you can – I try every day. If you have time in which you’re just sitting around, try doing some extra pushups and sit ups. A great time to do this is actually when you’re watching TV. In those commercial breaks, instead of having a snack, do a few exercises!

In closing though, I have to again warn you that parkour is difficult and can be dangerous. Know your limitations and listen to your body. If you start hurting, stop. Of course feeling some muscle burn is one thing, but if you think you’re getting injured you should immediately stop. You really need to know your limitations if you are to do parkour safely. If you have any doubts about whether you can make a leap or not, don’t try it. Only do moves you know you will succeed at. Even if you do something cool once, is it worth it if you hurt yourself and make parkour impossible?

If you’re interested in this, just search google for parkour or free running. It really is fantastically fun!