Parkour

Ryan Ford explains five basic parkour-inspired exercises you can do in the urban jungle.

Parkour is an art of movement in which you train the body and mind to overcome everyday obstacles with speed and efficiency.

In everyday life, we constantly encounter walls, rails and benches. While most people avoid these obstacles, seeing them as nothing more than a barrier or an inconvenience, parkour practitioners—known as “traceurs”—and children see… Continue Reading

When I last left you (CrossFit Journal, Issue 51), I had gathered all of the foundation movements into a compendium, outlining some of the most common errors and some effective training to overcome those stumbling blocks. That was all well and good during the warmer months, but now it's February, and the cold, ice, wind, and/or the lack of useful daylight are all conspiring to inhibit regular Parkour training… Continue Reading

Mechanics, consistency, and intensity are the three pieces of a complete foundation for a safe learning progression in any new endeavor. Many of the elements inherent in the gradual and progressive creation of elite general physical preparedness apply equally to the pursuit of more specific skills and goals, including parkour, the ability to navigate your environment functionally, confidently, and safely in a variety of situations.

This month, I have… Continue Reading

With these last two moves, my series of articles on parkour basics is in its final stretch. From this point out, I will focus on showing some manageable progressions for scaling these movements for the general population and showing how to incorporate many of these principles in your everyday training. While I’ve tried to group the previous movements into some semblance of order by similarity, these… Continue Reading

My last article described some of the techniques you can use to move up and over vertical objects you might encounter during a run. Now it's time to learn ways to make the most of these obstacles by incorporating objects at height into your run. The turn vault and cat leap are two climbing-based movements that use (and thus develop) the absorptive strength and explosive power of your upper body.

… Continue Reading

Parkour is inherently vertical. For most of the rest of the population, the only vertical movement involves elevators or stairs, but for the traceur, every vertical surface is an opportunity to choose a different path. There are numerous techniques for scaling the vertical objects that lie throughout the urban environment (and innumerable techniques for surmounting those found in nature). Learning the… Continue Reading

My last two articles dealt with the basics of vaulting technique; now it is time to take the body awareness gained from vaulting practice and apply it to developing jumping power, accuracy, coordination, and, above all, balance. Jumps are essential to parkour, as well as everyday life, because they are often the fastest, most efficient way to get from one point to another, especially when moving between surfaces or objects… Continue Reading

After covering the basic two-handed, speed, and lazy vaults in last month’s article, I will finish up the basics of ground-level vaulting technique here by exploring the monkey, dash, and reverse vaults. These three movements ride the cusp of practical technique. All three can be useful in the right situation, but most people seem to have a tendency to apply them for their flair more than anything… Continue Reading