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