Why do I do parkour?

Today after conducting a really fun parkour session at the park I returned with a mindset to do some

training at home. I couldn't train at the park with others as I was busy instructing and helping them. I returned home, took a short break, had something to drink and started to warm up outside my house and I heard a voice from behind "Why do you do parkour?"

I quickly turned back to find out who it was. It was my mom standing a few feet behind me with a confused face. With the same confused face, she then threw a few more questions at me. "Why do you always do it? You train in the mornings, evenings and sometimes at night also. Whenever you get time, you do it, no matter where you are. What makes it so special and why are you so obsessed with it?"

I was surprised by those questions because I have been doing parkour for more than 7 years now and no one has ever asked me such questions. But I was in the middle of my training and I didn't want to answer her questions then because I knew it would definitely take a long time to make her understand, which I didn't want to do during my training. So, in a sarcastic way, I replied to her, “Since I have been doing it for more than 7 years, it's hard to remember why I started doing it”. She gave me a weird look and turned away and continued with her work.  

               

After training for two hours, I went to her and said, “Now I remember. Sit, let me explain”. The following is how our conversation went after that.

Me: “What was your question again?”

Mom: “Why do you do parkour? What is so special about it?”

Me: “To me, parkour is just a natural thing to do. We're meant to be moving around and exploring the environment, exploring our bodies. So instead of going to a gym and lifting weights, I prefer moving around, climbing and jumping on things. It makes me feel free when compared to a regimented training. There's also a lot of mental challenges involved in Parkour. It's not just about whether my body is able to do it and whether I can focus and concentrate while trying to jump from one place to another but it's about a jump with something slightly different, like the landing area or landing a bit farther than my usual jumps or feeling tired while attempting that jump etc. All those things make it harder and there's always a mental battle going on during the training. I might just stand for 10 - 20 mins looking at the obstacle thinking about how to jump, what to do when I’m mid-air, when and how to land, what the possibilities of getting hurt are, how to make sure not to get hurt and how to land a jump safely. Something about having that mental battle feels really good, when I'm there fighting with my own mind where one part of me says, “I want to do this” and another says “I can't do it”, it helps me to get mentally strong and improves my confidence. I keep encouraging myself that I can do it and not to give up because of fear.

There is a whole range of benefits in parkour. Physically, it's good for me not just because I'm active and moving but it also does a lot of things that other sports or exercises don't.  Parkour helps me use all my muscles and joints at the same time and helps keep my entire body strong, mobile and flexible.

It also makes me think about what I'm doing. There are always different movement patterns. Sometimes, I need to experiment and create a new movement for a particular wall that I need to climb over and that has me thinking ‘what if my right leg goes here first?’, ‘how do I jump?’, ‘how and where should I place my hand?’, ‘which leg do I place down?’, ‘how can I get my feet through so that I don't have to push only with my shoulders or lead with my hips?’ and all those sorts of little things. And then there is a mental side of Parkour where I get to be playful, explore and be creative since there are no set rules. I can do whatever I want, go where I want, find my own challenges and solve them by myself. I like to jump a lot whereas some people like to swing, some like to climb and it's all part of this exploration.

Parkour is so special because it's totally different to each individual and there's no competition. When I train alone, it's just the environment and me and I always find some way to win my mental battles and complete a jump properly. But I also like to train with my friends because it's fun. When I train in a group, we all share ideas, encourage each other, and it's really good to help others and make them do something they are afraid to do. When I train with kids, it's more like playing together. Training doesn't need to be structured and that's what makes it special.

The reason why I would be doing parkour for a long time is the variety within it. It's not a strictly set discipline. I can do all sorts of things and always find new and different challenges. Sometimes it's strength, sometimes its speed and there's always the creativity aspect, which means that I can always come up with new and different movements"

After explaining to my mom for more than 10 mins, she said "Okay" and left the place. I'm not sure whether she understood what I said but she was showing interest, listening to everything and I'm happy that she asked me those questions and gave me an opportunity to analyse and explain why it is so special to me.

So now it's your turn to tell me why you do parkour! Go on :)

Parkourpaiyan

This is not parkour

I’m sure there are hundreds of blogs that define parkour.  I’m just trying to explain what it is to someone who finds it interesting and wants to learn this art.

First, let me explain what it is not.

7 years ago one of my friends showed me a video of a guy doing different kinds of flips, huge jumps from one building to another and dropping from great heights. As a nonpractitioner, I saw parkour as a sport where you run, jump, flip, climb, balance on higher surfaces and do things that people, especially our moms, tell us not to do.  I was so attracted to that and even before the video got over, I decided to learn it. It took me almost a year to understand that parkour is not just about jumping around and doing dangerous stunts.

So what is it not?

•    Parkour is not a ‘Dare devil stunt’. 

•    It’s not a competitive sport.

•    It’s not an activity that damages public property, done by reckless youths.

What is parkour?

Parkour is a discipline that will develop physical and mental strength, agility, spatial awareness, and balance. There is no set of rules, no strict path to follow, no age limit, no gender and no need of special types of equipment to practice. It can be practiced anywhere and at any time.  It does require a great deal of dedication, a good understanding of your body and it's needs.

This art was revealed to the world during the early 90's by a group of guys from France who called themselves ‘ The Yamakasi’. They started practicing this art in the streets of Lisses to become physically and mentally strong, test and push their limit every day and to get from one point to another in the fastest and most efficient way using their own body. To move comfortably in their environment without getting injured, they developed many movements.

Parkour movements involve running, jumping, climbing, dropping, vaulting, rolling, balancing and quadrupedal movement. Apart from these movements, a major part of the training is spent in conditioning and strengthening of the body.  Conditioning and strength training serve as an Armor to the body and protect it from injuries even during falls. 

Parkour is an excellent opportunity to learn more about yourself by constantly challenging and pushing yourself beyond your own limits. It teaches you what your possibilities are and helps you realise what you want to achieve.

Parkour is a safe and careful training, months of repetition, slow progression in skill and strength, overcoming fear, and finding and pushing your real limits. People only see the result of many years of intense parkour training in a few minutes of a video and they totally fail to realize the years of effort they put in to make that one video.

One question that always arises in many people's minds after watching parkour videos or talking to practitioners is -

What are the benefits of doing parkour?

The personal benefits I enjoy by practicing this art are boundless. Apart from getting fit and healthy, it helped me meet a lot of people and the friendships formed can last a lifetime. It increased my level of confidence and gave me the vision to see the world in a different way.

It may look and sound easy, being good at parkour takes dedication, discipline, and practice. Traceurs and Traceuses (those who practice parkour) have worked hard for a number of years to perfect their fitness and technique. But this dedication never stops. Parkour is a constant work in progress.

It takes a while to understand what parkour has to teach, but with patience, a lot can be learnt.

Parkourpaiyan

Strength training Vs Cardio

Hi. I’m a parkour practitioner and trainer from Chennai. I have been helping people achieve their fitness goals through parkour training. A number of people join my classes to lose fat in a short period of time. Most of them express that they want to do ONLY cardio workouts and they respond with a big NO when I ask them to do strength training workouts.  One of the biggest misconceptions about cardio workout is that it keeps you in that 'Fat Burning Zone' and burns all the fat magically. It is true to a certain extent since typical cardio workouts like jogging and running utilise the energy system known as the aerobic energy. The source for the aerobic energy is Glucose which is stored as glycogen, Fatty acids which are stored as triglycerides in the muscle and Oxygen. When cardio workouts are performed, fat stored in the form of Fatty acids is used for energy.

So yeah, theoretically it makes perfect sense. But in application, we can see that cardio workouts are not as effective as they are believed to be. Especially, the low intensity cardio workouts like walking and jogging make low usage of energy, which means, in order to burn significant amount of calories, one has to do cardio workout for an hour or longer. People these days DO NOT have the time to do only cardio for more than one hour everyday. And doing cardio alone, without strengthening the muscles, will lead to injuries. I’ll talk about that in detail later.

Strength training, on the other hand, is very effective to burn calories. It allow us to burn calories at a faster rate, as it engages the larger and stronger, Type 2 muscles, which are much more energy-demanding than Type 1 muscle fibres that are used during cardio training. Intense strength training is so exhausting to the body that it will still burn calories even after the training is done. This state is known as EPOC.

E - Excess

P - Post exercise

O - Oxygen

C – Consumption

Studies have proven that the after-burn from the strength training burns 75kcal or 33% more than the cardio training in the immediate 24hrs after the workout. Burning 33% more calories might not seem like it makes much of a difference but in strength training, more calories are burnt in less time. Some studies say that the after-burn continues even 48hrs post-workout. And the best part is that, 80% of  calories that are burnt during strength training comes directly from the FAT.

People want to burn fat in order to stay strong, fit and in a good shape. By doing strength training, you’re not only burning fat in a short period but also building strong muscles. In order to build muscles and achieve the shape you've always wanted, your body has to send strong stimulus to the brain to activate the hormones involved in muscle building. Such stimulus is best provided from strength training and not so much from cardio training. In fact, cardio training generates so low a stimulus that your body doesn’t  even prioritize on keeping the Type 2 fibre. Meaning, as you lose weight and fat by doing cardio, you will also lose muscle mass at the same time. This type of weight loss will make you weak and prone to injuries.  With strength training, you will lose fat as a result of the after-burn effect and you will preserve or even build muscle along the way.

Strength training will definitely burn fat effectively but it is also important that you do the type of training that is best for it. It is not necessary that you have to lift weights in order to build strength and burn fat at the same time. The best type of exercises for fat burning are those which comprise of heavy compound movements which involve more muscle groups at the same time, such as, Pull-ups, Weighted Push-ups, Jump squats, Muscle-ups etc. The more the muscles are engaged, the more the calories are burnt. It also should focus on an intensity that will have you reaching muscular failure in 10 – 15 reps. This allows you to engage all the muscle fibers (Type 1, Type 2A and Type 2B), which will generate a greater metabolic demand, which, again, burns calories and improves muscle growth. Speaking from my experience, calisthenics training is one of the best to train multiple muscle groups simultaneously. You should also keep in mind the fact that the rest you give your body between the workouts should be minimum, so that you will push to your maximum effort and burn the maximum calories possible while pushing the muscles to its maximum limit.

I’m not trying to say that cardio workouts are not at all necessary. It does have its own benefits. It helps in building endurance and to have a healthy heart which will help you stay away from cardiac problems which most of the Indians are suffering from.

I personally don’t enjoy typical cardio workouts like running because I get bored after a certain point. My parkour training itself is a good high intensity cardio workout because it involves a lot of running, sprinting and jumping to move from one point to another.

If you're someone who wants to get into shape, build or maintain muscle mass and burn fat at the same time, I would suggest that you follow a proper strength training routine and a good diet plan.

Train hard and smart.

Parkourpaiyan.