(For me) New kind of training

In the next time I will try to test a new king of training way. While jogging I start accelerating and maybe doing a few parkour moves, and then I have to keep in motion and must't stop.
I think it will be pretty hard, as the wish to stop after a small but hard run must be very huge. Well, I will try it out!

Michail

Jogging

I usually don't like jogging around, because it so too boring and too monoton. But if you want to come forward and cover a great distance, in order to come to the next spot, it is a perfect method.

But you must consider, that the faster you are the less spots you will see around you. So sometimes it is really nice to walk and looking aroung, where I can do something.

Yoga/Streching for more agility

hey, I have just begann to strech myself more. I do it before and after the training, but on the days without parkour I like to strech my legs, too.

I had a cramp in my lower right leg, when I was swimming some months ago. Well, so my doc said, that my muscles are too short, as I wasn't training some time, because of my injuries. He told me to stretch, and I did. It just felt well...

Check it out!

Michail

4 Reasons why trying parkour can ruin your self esteem - funny

http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-reasons-why-trying-parkour-can-ruin-your-self-esteem/

Training since injury - great; flow; creativity; body control

Well, I didn't write a pretty long time. I just haven't been training since the "My pain and injury"-article. Summarized I have some problems on my right arm and my left leg, as I have unfortunately landed in April 2011.

So on Tuesday I finally went jogging and decided to do a little parkour by the way. I was astonished, when I find myself training for about 15 minutes on some rails, because I felt the creativity, flow and body control just like before. I didn't expect to have so much fun training parkour again.

Unfortunately the problems are still there, perhaps only in a mental kind, you know, only in my head. But what should I do?

Eventually I decided to beginn slowly doing parkour again. I take part in a pupil's triathlon on 13 July, so I am jogging, whilst I do parkour on places I like or those which are new for me and my body.

I hope the problems will go away, as I am just 18. We will see.

Michael

A 3 minutes talk

In some days I have to give freely a small talk in English on a topic of my choise. I decided to speak about parkour, as I write a blog about it and have read quite a lot material about it. So there occurs a very interesting and important question: what exactly I should talk about? It has to be compact! And here it is:

Now I would like to tell you something about a special hobby I have. Maybe you have seen people doing risky jumps from rooftop to rooftop or doing crazy flips from something high. Well, I am talking about parkour, but at this point we have to distinguish between parkour and free-running. The last is a discipline where the show is everything, you jump around and the show how nice and how many different movements you can do.

In parkour the speed and flow are more essential. Here you have to come from point A to point B and overcome all obstacles in your way fast, fluently and efficient, it mustn't cost you much energy.

The training plays a very important role in this sport. On the one hand, there is a physical training, like workout, it is for pushing your limits further. On the other hand, there is a mind training, like evolving discipline and getting to know your body. And only hard training in both areas, brings you safety while practising parkour.

If you like, write some ideas, what would you say in such a short period of time.

Michail

My pain and injury

hi,

I like seeing that my blog has got some visitors.

I haven't written for some time, perhaps because I haven't trained for 4 or 5 weeks, as my left knee was hurting. Then I watched some videos about parkour and the desire to move returned immediately. I just wanted to move! (You must know, that there has been pain in my right elbow for about 1,5 years.) So there has evolved a certain process in my life:

I start doing parkour and then I would do it for some weeks, then it would become to painful and at least I would do again a big break within some weeks or even months.

Eventually I decided to bring regularity in my training again, in other words I conclude to train twice a week. Not to much so my pain shouldn't get to big.

First training after many weeks on tuesday was such a great thing, I just enjoyed the nice weather and went to some favourite spots, so I felt awesome, since a long time, again. Nevertheless, my pain returned, and I was a bit depressed.

However, the second training, yesterday, I decided to visit a new spot, so I cycled there. The weather was nice again. I started stretching, and whilst it I wanted to do a speed vault on a rail. This was really thin, and not thinking about it further, I just did it. And then - BAM - I missed with my left hand the rail and have miserable landed on my left leg....

Now I am sitting in front of the PC again, can't train, nothing to do, as I can't do the things I have planed....

Now, however, I am thinking about what has happened there. I believe there are two issues.

1. I didn't stretch my legs! That was a awkward mistake! So I only can advise all traceurs always to stretch first! There will be still enough time for parkour, don't worry.
2. As not training for a long period of time, I think I lost the right feeling about my limits, what I can do and what is very, very tough for my body. I hope you can understand, what I mean. Many traceurs did a lot of risky things as starting with this sport. You know, today you go around, see the spot and remember that you did something crazy there. And you just can't believe, that you have done that crazy jump 2 years ago here. However, while training longer, you recognize your limits or you just see what could go wrong there. My failure was the strong desire to move, without thinking about other things, what could go wrong or where I could get hurt. Now, thinking back, this jump was so crazy, because this damned rail was only about some centimeters wide. And it was quite obviously that after such a long time without training I wasn't in my best condition...

Well, I hope I will learn something from that, hopefully you, too.

Michail

Confirmation

I think we all need confirmation in main areas of our lives. It is important in order to know that you are not just loosing your time by doing that things.

Confirmation is possible by

• persons
• teammates (compliments, how great I can do sth.)
• parents
• friends
• spectators (while your practicing parkour)
• reporters (e. g. interviews)
•  my body
• fatigue (A powerless feeling means I have given everything in training.)
• stiffness (the same)
• Solution: Variety; In other words, different exercises/training sessions mean different strains on my muscles. Thus my muscles aren't ready for that as I am not training them over and over again (because of variety!). The result is fatigue/stiffness and confirmation.
• goals
• These are often unconscious, for example, while training you have managed to do a king kong.
• But you can set conscious goals, too. (100 pull-ups)

By the way, if I am in a good physical condition, I don't feel confirmed or happy, what I actually should be. A probable solution would be to set a goal, like 3 months without injuries or exaggerations.

Big parts of parkour

Inertia

"Every body remains in a state of rest or uniform motion (constant velocity) unless it is acted upon by an external unbalanced force. This means that in the absence of a non-zero net force, the center of mass of a body either remains at rest, or moves at a constant speed in a straight line." Isaac Newton, First Law of Newton's laws of motion.

You can can apply this issue on parkour, too. I believe that my training and one of anybody else proceeds in fact inertially. In other words we tend to train

• on the same spots (e. g. playgrounds or trees)
• the same things (e. g. strength training or favourite technique like dash vault) and
• in the same way (e. g. in a team or alone)

You can call it 'habit'. Nevertheless, in order to become an experienced traceur in all areas of parkour, you must break your habits, open your mind to other possiblities of training and try to involve them in your sessions!

Remind the Newton's words:  "...unless it is acted upon by an external unbalanced force", so it is not easy!

Thanks for reading

Michail

Balance session on the dark side

Yesterday, I tried out to balance a quite long time in the evening. As having accomplished a one-hour-balance-training two days ago, I felt pretty comfortable on the rail.

Nevertheless it was a completely different feeling as compared with balancing in the daytime. Furthermore I have noticed, that when I went to the bright areas of the rail, my tempo got faster. To the contrary when my own shadow covered the rail, I felt very unsecure on it. As a whole I think it was a much bigger effort as compared with saturday.

Michail
PS: A mysterious white-black cat was observing me on the two above-mentioned days. Perhaps she liked watching me balancing :-)

Motivation

Here come some ideas, how to raise the motivation for doing parkour. Motivation means, I am interested in something or doing a kind of stuff. (Wikipedia: Motivation is the driving force which causes us to achieve goals.) Thus the motivation takes place a long or short time before an event occurs.

In other words there are two main topics on that:

1. the time before the training
2. while practicing parkour

to 1)
Motivation with the help of media (often Internet, then TV and at last books or magazines) is one of my favorite.

Watching videos of very experienced people on YouTube, whom I can look up to or even of some amateurs, where I often recognize my real skills and don't understimate them, is a real source of delight, I must admit.

Sometimes a documentary or a article makes me feel comfortable with the thought to be one of that fantastic movement, too.

I have almost forgotten the music. I believe the music is one of the strongest motivation sources. Nevertheless I haven't trained (except only balance-training) with it yet, as I think it can distract me from the stuff in parkour, which requires my whole concentration, in order to prevent injuries. Nevertheless a nice earworm isn't bad from time to time.

to 2) (while practicing parkour)
In other words, how your training proceeds.

Training in the group or alone can be both very inspiring. In the group you just have more fun and alone there is that great atmosphere, where you are alone and no one else, nobody except you and the obstacle...You know that stuff, don't you.

There are two types of keep doing a exercise a certain time. Firstly, I say to myself, to do balancing for example one hour long. That means I determine a certain time, which I want to stay training.
The second, is to determine a certain number of repetitions. For instance, 100 set-ups. So I will stay motivated until I have finished my targeted objectives!

I hope you enjoyed reading and you will keep motivated in parkour now.

Bye

Michail

Lower body conditioning video

Here is my first training video. Enjoy watching:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9HqFOOF1n0

In the video I have mentioned the "battery effect". That means, I do any exercise as long as possible, until I can't anymore. Then I take I small break, maybe few seconds, and start doing the exercise again. So I can use the last power reserves in my body, in order to reach the best results.

This "battery effect" can be used in almost all workouts!

1500 m - balance training

Today, my knee doesn't feel alright, so I decided to do a special training session on this sunny saturday midday! To this one I was inspired by Blane.

Here is the statistics:

Total distance walked: about 1500 meters / 1,5 km.
Time needed: about 1 hour
I fell 7 times down from the rail.
And I had 1 break after 750 meters.
Distance walked before first fall: 300 meters.
Distance walked before second fall: 660 meters.

After that session, when I was focusing under the bar, the marked areas where "swimming" in my eyes. Terrifying! lol.

Michail

Training influences

Every parkour session is different from another one. Sometimes the feeling of the flow is great, another time you have a feeling of being an unexperienced amateur....

Here I have listed some influences and I believe the differences in parkour depend on this listing:

• Internal influence:
• After a meal or before a one (I think, after I have eaten, my training is going more calm)
• Psychic/physical condition

• External influence
• Wheather
• rain
• snow
• sleet
• sunshine
• after rain time
• ice
• different temperatures (cold/hot)
• Clothes/shoes
• Location
• gym
• outside
• Workout on a hill or on an even ground
• Daytime
• night
• day
• dawn/dusk

Of course, these influences depend on each other. For example, if it is a rainy day, you will usually feel disappointed. Another one: If it is cold and your clothes are not keeping you warm, then it will, naturally influence your training.

Nevertheless, I can use these information, in order to make my training harder or easier

For example, to make an exercise harder, I can perform it on a hill.
Or if I feel safe balancing on a rail at 12 o'clock in the daytime, then in the dark time of a day it will be for sure another experience!

Thank you for reading!

Michail

Training regularity

Today I had a curios dream:

It was a chat with Blane (his blog) on a parkour event. Then he says that it`s like a life of a maori. They don't just eat 3 times in a week, they take their meals every day. If they are sated, they don't eat.

Parkour training is similar. If you're tired, why should you train further. Just make a break, and when the "hunger" for more parkour comes again - train! That's not alright to eat much, and the next days staying hungry.


The same applies on parkour. So train regularly and don't exaggerate it.

Michail

Training methods: balance

That one counts to one of my favourite types of training. Sometimes I make one day only balance stuff. And after doing it an hour, I feel quite comfortable standing, jumping or just picking in my nose on a rail.

Balance of legs
I conceive it quite pleasant, when I feel myself sure on my own feet.

Balance of arms
That is a combinition between the strength and a feeling for the balance. Unfortunately, I haven't been training with my arms a long time now.
So I can't tell more on this topic.

Quadropedal
It is a great sense of body motion, because I have to coordinate my feet and my arms (4 points of contact with the floor). Moreover my main body part has to move in the right direction with my other limbs in order not to fall over.
Important when going forward: Limbs have to move diagonally. Right leg and left arm and afterwards left leg and right arm start to move.... That is for not falling over.

Balance in whole
The sense of the body's control is great.

Training methods: spot, strength training and a mix of them

I have recently realised that I like a certain technique only a relatively short time. For instance, wall run. One day I was doing it I was really satisfied of the flow I had. Next training the feeling was not as great as last time. And after a week, I couldn’t remember that felling any way.

Human psyche is in fact very complicated. If we want to have something, we are really fond of it first. After we get that special something, it loses its value at once. In my opinion this kind of logic should keep us permanently motivated. So if we get something certain, we shouldn’t lose the aim in life. Sounds good, he?

However, I hint at the variety in the parkour training and in the life as a whole. Variety has become a very important factor in my training, in other words I try to avoid monotonous workouts. The body and mind want always something new to experience. That’s in order to keep motivated to train parkour regularly and a long period. 

So I decided to list here some training methods that I am aware of:

1. Spot training
2. Strength training
3. A mix of first and second
4. Balance training
5. Imitation
6. Playing tag
7. Hell Night
8. Cross fit

First three points are written below. The other ones I will publish with a topic "Training methods: _____" the next days.

• Spot training
• I train on some spots in the city which offer a pretty high number of opportunities to practice different techniques.
• Pros:
• That’s interesting, because I can choose the technique I want to train, then I go to that special spot, where I can train until dropping with exhaustion.
• These spot provide some obstacles which allow me to train the technique seen on YouTube.
• If the spot is big enough, there is an opportunity to play tag. (Later to this topic).
• Last thing to mention, is the FUN-factor. You are not just jogging around, but you have real obstacles to overcome.
• Cons:
• I am not developing the stamina I would like to have. There are usually 3-4 good jumps, where I use the explosive power. But I don’t train my endurance, I have recognized.

• Strength training
• Strength training is very important for the balance of the muscles. I explain it on the following example. If you want to train your six pack, it is advisable to charge your back, too. Otherwise it will come to an imbalance of your front and back muscles. That isn’t healthy!
  I believe the repetition of the parkour techniques, is the best training of the muscles you need for parkour! Logically! If you train parkour you will become better in parkour.

• Pros:
• Nevertheless strength training helps to build up those muscles, which aren’t used whilst parkour. As a result, the balance of the muscles is alright and some injuries are prevented. Strength is an important part of parkour. Without it only the fewest techniques would work.
• Furthermore the muscle building can be seen as the preparation for particular jumps. Again, in order to prevent injuries.
• Cons:
• Admittedly the repetitions are not always the greatest fun.
• There is a danger of exaggerating the workouts. What follows is the hurt of knees.

• A mix of strength and spot training
• In short: I just run a circle in my area, where you can find some spots. While I am running, I stop every now and again and have some fun on a spot. When I am jogging from one place with obstacles to another, I stop sometimes on my way and do some exercises. Consequently, I never stop to make a break.
With that type I train now.
• Pros:
• I develop my stamina well. That's the biggest + of a non-stop training.
• A quiet better feeling of parkour occurs. Just, you know, running from A to B, without breaks.
• All advantages of first to types of training:
• interesting
• real obstacles to overcome
• prevention of injuries through strength training (long-term effect)
  
• Cons:
• There is still a possibility of exaggeration with the strength training.
• The injury risk is going up. As you are pretty tired, after some time. So be careful!

If have something to add to that scheme please comment and I'll write it down and mention your name of course.

Skills/Experience in the relation with the time

Parkour has become a very popular sport, all over the world now. Thus more and more videos on YouTube or other Videosites are posted. Of course, there are sometimes some 9-year-old boys who are jumping around like some small children on a playground. That's because they are maybe small children, however. Nevertheless you can see some high-experienced traceurs, and I thought, it's ok, they have probably trained very hard and there they are.

Later I have watched some great videos from people I know and I was astonished how many great things they could do! I began to ask myself, whether I was too lazy or I did not do enough. I started to wonder, whether my workouts weren't successful enough. And at least I was disappointed, that some guys I know, who weren't training much more than me, are so much better than me!
One day I thought about that riddle, and I have compared parkour with a RPG-game. I realised some resemblances:

At the beginning of a game you can usually choose any char. For example, Alien Shooter (great game). You can choose between a woman and a man. They both have their characteristics. She is faster, he has more life-points. But none of them is better.

Then, while you're playing, you get experience points and so you can improve the skills of your char. But you have to mess up some monsters for the points!

Now, back to the real life, I realised that I am a character like in a game, that you can't choose, unforunately. But all human beings in the world have different attributes, some are cleverer, some are stronger. Asians are better in gym-games, Blacks are better in sprints...(Sadly, some people have better genes than another, some are even disabled, but that's not the point.)

Everyone, every single person has time. Time is for every single human being the same thing. Time isn't good or bad, but it is there and it's a very important thing! No one has really more time than the other! (except of disabled people. Worse luck!)

Yet, I can invest the time in whatever I want. I can study, then I will become cleverer. Or I can train, then I  will become more stronger! Back to parkour: I can train more monkeys or more balance, then I will become better in it....The point is that nobody has identic workouts or train identically parkour.Period.
Now, I can interpret awesome videos in a different light :

• Maybe he has actually trained more than me.
• He is probably in other areas worse than me.
• He mastered a certain technique, without preparing his body for this enoug (=> long-term or delayed damages)
• He had more courage to do something (again, only because he has owned this trait earlier in his life, he has invested time in order to get more courage)
• Well, or his bodily frame or genes are better than mine (still that isn't crucial in most cases).

Everything that has a value must be earned somehow. Becoming a good traceur has some value and I believe that this is a long-period process of training. There is no shortcut. The brain can learn the technique within some hours maybe faster or slower, but the body needs more time, I believe.

It's like building a snowman. You have to roll the little snowball first, which is becoming bigger and bigger with the time. It's an important fundament for the snowman. When you have started with parkour, your experience is not big. But with the time both the body and the mind are becoming stronger. This experience is an important foundation for your skills in parkour.

While training I have noticed that my body want to do some certain techniques. So I knew that it is ready for them.

Sometimes, if the character isn't brave enough, you can help it and give a start with your brain. But I believe the body knows better, when it's ready for something.

Summing up:
Time is a very important factor in the parkour training, and in your life as a whole. Nevertheless you shouldn't compare yourself with others in certain disciplines. Just have fun while training parkour. Almost everything you invest your time in, will pay off in the future, somehow.

There is no elevator to the success, you have to take the stairs! Getting better is a slow process, despite of that you're allowed to have fun while practicing parkour!

Sources/Links:
http://blane-parkour.blogspot.com/2007/04/dilution.html

Stiffness

A long time I have thought stiffness is a good sign that my training last day was successful and not useless. But after an interesting chat had opened my mind, I see that point different. I heard and I was told a great number of times to listen to my body. Thus I did that: If my arms were hurting, I did some leg-workout, or other way round. If I fell down and hurt myself great, I didn’t train next days at all. "If Ache, don't violate your body", I thought.
 
Nevertheless, I didn’t recognize that stiffness is an ache, too. I thought it were a good sign.
 
Stiffness occurs by workouts,

• which you are not used to
• which are too long for you
• or to powerful for you

That means, you have done more, than you could do or your body could bear – so you have gone beyond the borders of your own body. That’s not good, is it? Sure, you must go always beyond your borders in order to become better, but don't do it too much. I believe that stiffness is only the preliminary stage of something that is harder to bear – injury, for instance!
 
So let us return to the list of reasons for stiffness. If you try to avoid those things, they become some good principles of your training:
 

• Workout that you are not used to:

Try to create varied workouts, its good for your body and your mind, too, because training won’t be boring any more and you will looking forward to the next training. Creativity in this sport is very important!

("Logic will take you from A to B but imagination and creativity in this discipline, will take you wherever you want to go" by UrbanFreeFlow.com)

• Workouts those are too long:

All together, I believe that one 7-hours-workout each weekend, isn’t good. I try to keep my training regular, means I try to practise parkour more often, but so long until my body says “stop”. Again: listen to your body, that’s so important. It bears repeating.

• Workout is to powerful for you:

I try always to distinguish between exercises that my muscles, joints, gristles and bones can bear or not. There is no sense to exaggerate with the exercise, because it will hurt you, no matter whether you notice that or not, and it won’t make your muscles grow!

Furthermore I have recognized that the skills grow very slowly and you can’t become much stronger than you’re overnight. What I mean is if you learn some techniques fast, it doesn't mean that your body will be prepared for this improvement. You have to be patient, and create a layer after layer of your experience. It would be pretty boring, if you become a master of parkour in only some days!

(To quote Stephane Vigroux, "I think for many people it has to be more personal... everybody's moving... I'm really happy for them... but too quickly, too fast, too easy, too much show... too much.")

 

Conclusion:
A little stiffness is alright, but to violate your body again and again can’t be the regular sense of the training, won’t bring the anticipated results and will only induce long-term consequences.


Thanks for reading
 
Michail

Introduction

Hey,

So I'm online now )). OK, first of all I want to introduce myself:
Name: Michail
Age: 17 years
Hobbies: Parkour, badminton
Town: Nuremberg, Germany
Languages: English, German, Russian
 
I hope it will satisfy you for some time, at least until much more readers will come and pick up my stuff here.
 
You see I know some languages, but I decided to write in English, though it is the worst of them, nevertheless I aim to reach a bigger part of the world with my messages. And English is the best language for that. But you could write also in German or Russian to me.
 
In that blog I'll put all my thoughts about parkour and bodytraining in whole.
 
Eventually, I hope you will enjoy my postings,  and I would be really delighted, if you commented my articles here. No matter, what comments: suggestions, criticism or wishes. I will put the good comments to the top, so your effort won't be lost.
 
Thank you for reading my first article
 
See you on the next article!