Training to train and the role of classical conditioning

Training to Train

    My perspective on training is split into to somewhat contradictory ways of thinking. One way is the path I went down when I started parkour. I just jumped into it and did what I could with whatever abilities I had. A lot of running and shoulder rolls for me in the beginning. I later learned all the different kinds of vaults, precision jumping, climbing,  and acrobatic stuff. It all had it's natural progression. Sometimes I went beyond my natural capacity and got hurt but for the most part I could reign it in. Then I found conditioning, fitness websites, rep schemes, and mobilitywod. The second way of thinking emerged with other people's take on athletic ability and how to get stronger. This second way  has given me a lot of grief, a lot of cognitive dissonance. This new way of thinking has subverted my understanding of parkour as a training method in itself. I found myself asking what I could do with weight training, calisthenics, and other physical training programs to help me do parkour better. I'd have debates in my head about whether or not I should do calf raises (the answer is no, at least in my case). What I've come to realize is that parkour is the training method itself. Duh, it's so obvious now. Why would I do weighted squats when I could do progressively higher drops and jumps (with an obvious physical limit)? Why would I even mess around with weighted pull ups when I could do tons of climbing and campusing and gradually build up that unilateral strength in a way that actually directly helps me get better at something. I've been debating with myself about the purpose of training to train for a while but it all came together for me when I saw this video on Rafe Kelley's  blog: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kgO5uiINaU.

Human See What Monkey Do and Do It 

    I've used monkeys for inspiration for the past few years to train parkour the way I do. I've only seen them in person at the zoo in Sacramento and one near Stockton. Some of my observations of monkeys and apes in captivity:

    A lot of the smaller monkeys like the cotton top tamarin do the same route over and over again. They have a preset way of going about their surroundings. I liked to think of this as training routes over and over again to perfect them. When you know an area really well, you can integrate improvised movements into the runs you already have making for beautiful, efficient,  and varied movement.

     I once saw a bonobo hang onto the top of his massive cage over 20 feet in the air from one arm, finger tips only, for 20 minutes without moving much or switching arms. This has lead me to try and hang for at least 30 minutes from a bar or on a tree, switching positions, hanging from the legs etc. just to get that reliable base. I've also seen gibbons hang for ridiculously long periods of time.

    Finally, watching warrior of the monkey gods a few years ago has since inspired me to think about jumping as a another default activity instead of something we go out "to do" for a short period of time, then recover and repeat.

    Anyway, seeing this most recent monkey video re-sparked some of those old ideas in me which have since been squashed by the more rigid "optimal" training methodologies. Why are these monkeys so strong and capable? It's because they move that way every day. Not only that, movement is how they do everything. If they need something, they climb up or jump down or do whatever they have to do to get what they want. They don't push buttons and wait for someone to deliver stuff to them, or sit on the couch all day watching movies, or (write blogs about movement). The deepest revelation here is what I've come to realize over time with all the "expert" recommendations people give. Training programs and dietary suggestions are for "normal" people who do basically nothing else physically. Everything from serving sizes to high intensity interval training, it's all about getting as much as you can with the least amount of work. That way you can get on with your normal sedentary lifestyle. There is something to be said about this and I won't knock training programs that offer this to people but all that information confused the hell out of me, making me think that I needed to do all of these things to get better at basic movement skills when all I needed to do was work on parkour/climbing/tumbling etc. specifically.

     This is just the SAID principle slapping me in the face again, trying to wake me up and pull me out of the massive wave of info out there. Just move like the monkey and the other animals do, stop looking for the magic bullet to cure everything and make you stupidly strong. Get to work.

The Role of Classical Conditioning Approaches.

Rehabilitation

     If you're short on time, resources, and need to regain basic capability, calisthenics may be the way to bring you back up to speed. I've had kids who could not lift their legs to their chest from a hanging position so they couldn't climb anything and needed to do some rehabilitative work. In fact, most of the "parkour"  I've taught has been about getting people to recover from their lack of physicality. Any exercises that we use have to be geared toward specific parkour movements and can be dropped once the movement has been attained. For example, if a student has zero pushing strength and they're working toward doing cat passes (kongs, I'm a fan of the cat version), I may have them work on push ups on an inclined surface and work toward being able to kong over a low object. At that point, I'd drop the exercise so that the specific kong work can take over unless there are other things this person is using the exercise for. Push ups do have a lot of general carry over. Once you have basic capability though, you can hang from something, c or you an scramble up a wall, you can drop all the superfluous exercises. You cut it off before you end up training to train.

Limiting Circumstances and Injury

     Sometimes you may be in a position where you cannot get outside and explore your environment. Even in this case a conventional conditioning approach might require you to pretend. You wanna work on your climbing and all you have is a pull up bar in your bedroom door?  Just think of pull ups as a form of legless symmetrical climbing. You could even lock off at the top position and reach with the opposite hand to the ceiling. Then hang on for as long as you can until you fall to your feet. Another example would be forgoing sets of squats for jumps over the couch. Forget "3 sets of whatever 3 times a week", just spend a lot of time with the skill. It's almost impossible not to train some skill or another unless you're locked in a box so it's rarely necessary to fall back on classical approaches. In the case of injury, regular conditioning takes the role of rehab.

Preference

Some people might just like doing push ups and pull ups. I used to get really confused about calisthenics guys like the bar-barians because even though I was impressed with their showreels, I'd find myself wondering, "So what's all that for?" The answer has to do with aesthetics and the appeal of getting strong in certain positions. If you think a planche is cool and you want to learn it, then work on the planche, nothing wrong with that. As long as you realize that you're doing the skill for that reason. Yes there will be carryover in strength to a cat pass or some other parkour skill. But you'd actually have to train that skill to get an understanding of it. This is why guys that can squat a million pounds don't necessarily have the sensitivity to do a quiet landing from a 5 foot drop, it's all about specificity.

Diagnostics Tool

Knowing your broad jump, how much weight you can deadlift, how much weight you can do a pull up with are all helpful tools for checking out specific aspects of your physical ability. They are objective measures that can help you to see where you're at.

Summary

So all I'm doing here is harping on the SAID principle, specific adaptations to imposed demand. Classical conditioning approaches with rep schemes and staples like bodyweight squats are useful to a point but, beyond that, can take away from other time that would be better spent just working on parkour/movement skills alone.