Slackline: how to improve your balance for Parkour

Posted: 15th March 2012 by Dan Dinu in Parkour Techniques, Physical Conditioning
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One of the most important aspect in sports, especially Parkour, is the sense of balance. While you can, of course, train balance on it’s own during your conditioning sessions, it’s not really fun. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t alternatives to the plain old balancing on static rails. You can learn how to improve your balance in a fun and exciting way, using a slackline.

Slacklining is a very appreciated sport that has sprung up into attention recently. It involves an nylon elastic band stretched out between two anchors (usually trees) that is traversed from one side to the other without falling. Kind of sounds like normal balancing? Well it really isn’t. Because the strip is elastic, it behaves erratically and the slightest mistake can lead to a spiraling loss of balance. So, the slackline will require, not only balancing skills, but also coordination in order to get safely to the other side. Read the rest of this entry »

Interview: Aral Roca Gómez

Posted: 27th February 2012 by Dan Dinu in Interviews
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I had the opportunity to talk to one of the best Parkour practitioners in Spain, Aral. He has great skills that you can check on his Youtube channel.

Here is a short bio and interview I managed to get out from our disscusion

Name: Aral Roca Gómez
Age: 21
City: Barcelona

Hello Aral, thanks for accepting to have this interview. Can you introduce yourself to the readers?

Hola a todos! My name is Aral and I live in Bacelona, Spain. I study IT Engineering at the university and I practice Parkour in my free time. Probably a lot of you know me from my most recent clips, Summer 2010 – Inspiration of life and Love My City (Barcelona). Read the rest of this entry »

Parkour shoes

Posted: 15th February 2012 by Dan Dinu in Physical Conditioning
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parkour shoesTraining shoes for PK and Freeruning is a very popular subject lately, given the fact that a lot of companies started developing and selling these so-called Parkour shoes for enthusiasts.

The most popular shoe chosen by traceurs is, by far, the Kalenji running shoe. It is lightweight with good cushioning and has a good grip, much needed for that extra traction and wall impact.

The myth of good shoes

But are Parkour shoes hampering our natural senses and instincts? There are many voices that seem to confirm. Most people stomp around in shoes all day, and are in fact walking in an unnatural way. A study titled “Shod Versus Unshod: The Emergence of Forefoot Pathology in Modern Humans?” shows you walk wrong. According to the same study the cushioning and stabilization methods of shoes are making our feet lose their natural ability to absorb shock and shrink our ankle stabilizing muscles.

And if you think about it, it is not far from the truth. Sporting shoes, tied to our ankles and feet 12 hours a day will change the way your legs behave and react to impact.

Think about what are the main features you look for in a Parkour shoe for training. First is cushioning, because you need some thing to absorb the tremendous shock with. Second you want a shoe that will keep you foot tight, so it does not slip or slide inside the shoe. These are the main factors that lead to performance degradation. In time, your feet will start to depend more and more on the support of the shoes and will lose their natural strength. Read the rest of this entry »

How routine can improve your Parkour

Posted: 7th February 2012 by Dan Dinu in Physical Conditioning
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There is a lot of debate on the training routines every traceur uses in their trainings. One says that, another says that other thing. But in reality, any routine is better than no routine, and I will proceed to explain you why.

Your body has a great a great ability to adapt, yet that adaptability will break your training if you are constantly challenging it with  new, and sometimes opposite routines. I’m talking about eating habits, training postures, and conditioning hours per week.

Being constantly en garde to try and compensate, your body will become confused by the fact that you’re sleeping less in weekends and not eating so much during your exams or project deadlines. This not only will kill your productivity but also physical abilities. Read the rest of this entry »

Documentary: Parkour Pilgrimage

Posted: 9th December 2011 by Dan Dinu in Parkour Philosophy
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A Parkour documentary that shows the struggles of traceurs while searching for meaning in their trainings. It is about the journey a couple of practitioners take to Lisses, the city where Parkour started, to discover what this discipline is and to follow the footsteps of the Yamakasi.

The maker is TK17, a traceur who broke both his legs and is still training today, is a great inspiration to many Parkour purists. This parkour documentary is one of his first projects and it is now up on Youtube for everyone to see.

Enjoy it all!

Police alerted by ‘Parkour’ on roof of The Virginian

Posted: 7th December 2011 by Dan Dinu in News
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It appears Parkour is getting more and more face-time in the media as an illegal activity. Two people were counseled by Vienna Police last week after they were found doing “Parkour,” a freestyle running sport, on the roof of The Virginian restaurant.

A citizen reported the pair around 8:40 p.m. Nov. 27 after they were spotted on the roof of the restaurant, located at 169 Glyndon Street SE.

Officers in Virginia, U.S. responded and found one adult on the ground and a juvenile still on the roof of the Vienna-based restaurant, the Virginian.

The juvenile could not get down, so Fairfax County Fire and Rescue responded with a ladder to assist the juvenile in safely getting down from the roof. The juvenile’s mother responded to retrieve him. Police are still assessing any damage to the building.

It begs to wonder, what were they doing on top of a building if they had no idea how to get down. There should be a test that prevents anyone failing it from taking up Parkour. Seriously! Read the rest of this entry »

Muscle memory in Parkour

Posted: 10th October 2011 by Dan Dinu in Parkour Techniques
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Anyone who has lifted weights, on and off, for several years is familiar with the concept of “muscle memory”. Muscle memory is best observed when a person begins lifting weights after a prolonged lay off. It is much easier for them to return to their previous levels of size and strength than it was to get there the first time. Once you understand the process behind muscle memory, you will be able to improve your Parkour training much faster and understand better the way you learn.

What is muscle memory?

Is the inherent ability of the body to turn movement into reflex. You can witness this in a situation where your body just reacts. When you drop a fork and instantly reach out to grab it, or when something is flying over and you automatically duck. That is muscle memory.

As a person develops from a toddler to a fully grown person, they go through a learning process that is called “basic motor skills”. After that, the process refines itself and imprints the most used activities in your brain so you don’t have to consciously activate them.

At first, the imprint is vague and can be discarded if it’s not practiced often. It has been estimated that the brain requires 1500 repetitions to permanently ingrain a certain movement in your muscle memory.

What does that mean? It means that, at this point, there will be a clear, distinct imprint in your nervous system. So clear, in fact that when you go to perform a task, your body will only refer to the spine, not the brain.  Read the rest of this entry »

Exploring the urban enviroment

Posted: 7th September 2011 by Dan Dinu in Parkour Philosophy
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How did you do today? Did you train yet? If you did, where did you go? If I’m right, you most probably went to one of the regular places with your friends (or alone) and ran through your Parkour routine. If you’re new, you have a lot to learn, no matter how many times you go to that single place. You meet other people, learn new movements, so everything is alright.

But what happens when you keep doing it for a few months, for a year? Well, you get bored. This is when you training starts to become a necessity, not a choice. You should never train. When you look at your training grounds as a defined, static thing; only a wall and a rail, that is when you lose your perception of how Parkour training should be… fun and fulfilling. Read the rest of this entry »

Proper hydration when training

Posted: 19th June 2011 by Dan Dinu in Physical Conditioning
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Proper hydration is vital for everyone, not just the physically active. Water is so important because it is your body’s main chemical component, making up, on average, 60 to 70% of your body weight.

Drinking a large amount at once will result in negative effects if you do a lot of exercise immediately afterwards. Not drinking enough water will also result in negative effects (dehydration).

How to drink properly when training

You can either drink water often, in small amounts, or drink more but take a break from exercise for a short time afterwards. If neither of these are an option in a particular situation you just have to decide which problem you would prefer, damaging your internal systems by exercising after drinking a lot, or cooking your brain through dehydration. Neither are particularly great options, but I prefer to err on the side of drinking more water rather than less since a lack of water will probably kill you faster.

I’ve read somewhere (don’t remember where exactly) that it’s best to regularly sip some water from the bottle when you are not even thirsty rather than drink a lot when you are thirsty then not drink anymore. When you are thirsty, you have already lost at least 2 % of your body’s water.

Even mild dehydration can drain your energy and make you tired. Research has found that even a 2% drop in the water content of the body results in fatigue and tiredness whilst a decrease of 10% (severe dehydration) or more can be fatal if not treated immediately. Read the rest of this entry »

Bad habits that prevent perfect form

Posted: 11th May 2011 by Dan Dinu in Parkour Techniques
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Training is all good when you know what you are doing and you condition your body to sustain the shock in your ankles, knees and joints. But if you’re not careful you will develop bad training habits. And this is why you should also train perfect form.

Why train in perfect form?

Mainly, because it teaches you the automation of doing things right. What may feel easy and comfortable for you today, might – on the long term – make you develop some bad training habits. And while your body will be able to sustain and correct the impact to a certain degree, this will not come without a price. You can develop a lot of bad postures and movement restrictions over time.

So, let’s see a short list of some of the most common training mistakes that traceurs make when they train.

The top bad training habits

Landing precisions with the tips of you feet outwards – This will make the outer leg muscles develop better, while your inner thigh muscles will remain largely untrained. It will be extremely hard to counterbalance this deficit later. So, you should always try and land with your tips straight.

Landing precisions with the feet wide apart – While this may help you better balance yourself in certain situations, this is bad form because you put a lot of strain on your knees and do not dissipate the impact throughout all the leg muscles. Always land with your legs together; perfect form would be to land with the balls of your feet touching each other. Read the rest of this entry »

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