Safe Parkour Training To Avoid Injury
If you have been training in the art of Parkour (l’art du déplacement) for any duration of time, you would possibly have already learnt the hard way, that injuries can greatly reduce your performance and ability to practice.
You may or may not already know this, but the art of Parkour dictates continuous development in both the speed at which you can run and your general body strength. These are the needs for all those that take part in the art and wish to progress to greater heights. It is injuries that are our most dreaded enemy and picking one up, even the most minute of niggles, can result in a lprolonged lay off and it can take a great deal of time to get back to the same level of performance.
As a practician of Parkour for lots of years, I have suffered several unnecessary injuries, ranging from lacerated ligaments to twisting of the back and rolled ankles. What I will exhibit today is how you can best prepare yourself, to avoid picking up these silly injuries.
A Normal Practitioner Will…
Put on the first pair of shoes they can see, stick on a teeshirt and some trousers. They head out of the door and start running, mounting and jumping around to their hearts content.
Initially, we will look at the footwear.
Whilst you can use running trainers for Parkour, they are not altogether appropriate to all of the things that you need them to handle.
There are manufacturers that specialize in Parkour Shoes that will meet all of your needs while providing protection. The sole of these shoes give more cushioning to help ingest the impact that would otherwise be absorbed by the body. This helps with landing from elevation, which makes up a heavy ratio of a Parkour session.
The soles also have increased grip, which means landing on slippy surfaces such as rails, bars and walls is significantly improved. FiveTen, a leading manufacturer in Parkour Shoes, have designed a unique ‘toe warp’ sole that is designed to protect both the shoe and the users toes when scaling walls. This ensures reduce wear and tare on the footwear, which means you get more for your dollar.
Arch support is also a key element and the insoles inside Parkour Shoes offer a more elevated arch to avoid collapsed foot arches. The toe box is also more extensive in these shoes, which means there is less chance of you feeling crammed in and your toes pressing together which may cause blisters.
Pre Training
Parkour is a risky discipline, but you can shrink that risk by performing warm-ups. Almost every sport in the world requires some sort of warm up routine, and Parkour is no different.
You simply need to elevate your heart rate and carefully move your limbs around to warm up the mucle group. Followed by a relaxed stretching of the primary muscle groups, the arms, the legs, the neck and the back.
A warm-up routine doesn’t need to be boring or something that you don’t look forward to doing. Think of games you used to play when you were younger and try to incorporate them into a light parkour session. Walking races with your pals are great and you look so funny to your pals you will no doubt be warmed up in no time! Perhaps you can come up with better ideas I am sure!
The Techniques
Each motion you take is very important and in order to avoid getting injured your technique must be perfect. We need to concentrate on how we land from any height.
Landing from any height can be problematic to the body, in particular on hard and wet surfaces. We need a balance of the correct clothing, a warm up and proper technique.
The 1st 2 points have been covered above. Here is where we take a look at the actual training/practice element.
We practice in parkour to improve on 2 things. Strength and Stamina. These are the 1st things we should develop before we can consider other aspects, such as flexibility.
Strength in the Muscles and Stamina in the Muscles, is what we need to concentrate on first and foremost. From this core ability comes, agility, the right mentality and confidence.
Progression in parkour is paramount to these fundamentals and they must not be overlooked.
How to Train:
1. Landing with great technique should be the main focus. Ask your training pal to film you doing them and watch them afterwards. This training aid alone will save you hours of failure.
2. Do not push yourself to the point of failure. There are some sports where this is encouraged, such as Bodybuilding etc. We need to keep healthy and look after our body so that we can handle all challenges that come our way.
3. Train on soft terrain such as grass. Local parks are great for this and you even have obstacles in place, benches, bins, trees etc. Sand is another ideal terrain on which to practice, if you’re lucky enough to live close to the sea!
4. Always perform a COOL-DOWN after your training session that which a stretch of the worked muscles.
If you follow these simple steps you will be well on your way to an injury free Parkour or Freerunning session each and everytime you practice. Please take what you can from this guide and add into your own routine, I know you will reap the benefits.