Constant Training

   So when I started training, I knew nothing about fitness regimes or rep schemes. I just went out every day and hammered it. The skills I learned were based on whatever occurred to me at the time. As I got better, I started reading all the fitness advice for this and that. I incorporated a lot of different ideas, threw some ideas away, and certainly failed quite alot. One practical concept that seems to have stuck through all of that is the grease the groove method which I first heard from Pavel. Handstands and bent arm handstand presses benefited quite a lot from this method.The idea is simply to do whatever skill/strength movement you're working on throughout the day at a low enough intensity so that you don't get burned out. Training throughout the day gives you a high volume without fatigue so you're 'greasing the neurological groove', treading the neurological pathway over and over again. I was able to go for longer a lot quicker I think than I would if had a very strict program where I did 3 sets of whatever at a very specific time of day.
     So it works great for performance and building strength but the real brilliance with this way of training is that it prevents you from compartmentalizing your movement into that special time block 3 times a week. I've been stuck there myself where I felt good enough to do something but was waiting so that I could stick to my structured game plan. One can still make progress this way but, personally, it made me a bit psychologically weird about training. Anytime that you feel like you can't do something when you want to movement-wise, barring injury, there's something wrong with your way of thinking. We're not competitive athletes, we don't have to get bogged down with advanced russian periodization protocols, we're not robots. We change our training with the seasons and the environment we place ourselves in.
    Even though I don't believe in super structured training at the moment sometimes we might prepare for certain trips in locations that we can't be in all the time which is why it's important to understand all the exercise science stuff. The point is not to let it rule you or prevent you from moving more than you should.
    

Parkour Podcast. EP 1. A Conversation with Victor LoForte

    
     Victor LoForte is a good friend and has been training parkour for about 9 years without any major injuries. After all this time he's still going strong. In our conversation we covered:

• How he got started
• How his training has changed over time
• The variety and depth of training possible with some of the most basic parkour movements
• The importance of exploring the environment over just making videos and doing short runs.
• How to plug into your environment
• How running can be a diagnostic tool
• The importance of running, swimming, climbing in our parkour practice
• How the modern way of living has become disconnected from our human history.

Podcasting

I like to talk about training and the thought processes involved with what we do. I've had some of the most thought provoking conversations with others that have changed my life and way of thinking. I think it's about time someone provide an intelligent and inspiring format for this so stay tuned. I'll post some here and on youtube at first. I'm going to be interviewing people in my local area. We have a thriving community but nobody really knows much about it. I hope to inspire other communities to start up a podcast and reveal their training variations so we can all grow together.

Training Log 02/06/15

Lately I've been training with my new kettlebell, learning new stuff daily. The turkish getup and some cleans from the bottom of the swing. It's really fun and much different from my usual training. I'm not used to manipulating large heavy objects around. I'm also looking forward to some of the potential conditioning benefits. i want to see how it carries over to my running. Other than that, it's standard parkour fare, climbups, precisions, wallruns, bar stuff. Trying to regain some of my tumbling skills. The frontflip on flat ground has eluded me for years now. I can do it well every once in a while, but not consistently. Having been inspired by Pavel lately, I'm doing more of a grease the groove kind of approach where I train skills/strength frequently but throughout the day. I long for longer unbroken sessions though. The weekend calls to me. My record for chinups with my 45 lb kettlebell is 3 so far. That's up from 1 in just a few days. Talk about neurological strength. My goal is 10 or more so I'm hopeful.

Parkour Holes: run, swim, climb

     So the terms "movement" and "movers" have taken the stage lately and people have really started to cross over into other disciplines to become more complete movers. My thoughts on this phenomenon are mixed only because from my perspective that's what parkour already is. People talk about movement and it seems so obvious to me that navigation of your environment is the most basic expression of this. My journey started with running and basic breakfalls. Over the years I layered on new skills that helped me to navigate most obstacles in the urban and natural environment. Most of my training would not look much like any of the parkour videos coming out today, nor would they be as exciting and dynamic. Perhaps that's another big reason I haven't filmed in awhile. Given what I've said, people should still be able to train any way that they want, these are just the holes from my perspective. And maybe it will inspire some pk practitioners who are just tired of mindlessly doing cast backflips off of stuff.

Holes:

• Running. When I first started years ago, it was understood in the pk community that running was the basis of everything we did. People recommended being able to run a mile or two before beginning parkour. Now there are all sorts of resources on form and training that people can read about. It has become a trend to only sprint to get the most power and leg strength but people often miss the beauty of going on a long run and taking the time to enjoy/interact with your environment in a unique way. Trail running is the best because one often has to vault, change directions and interact with nature. Running long distances also increases the scope of one's training, taking it beyond short furious jackie chan bursts. Also the better your cardiovascular endurance, the longer you can train. We all know those guys who come out to a jam, lay out their biggest tricks, then finish the day early because they're too tired. Don't be that guy, endure.
• Swimming. Another basic thing that gets completely ignored. Yes swimming is parkour. No, swimming is not just the freestyle stroke or back stroke or butterfly or whatever. There are so many ways to train your body and mind in the water beyond the traditional methods designed for a sports competition. Just like gymnastics, swimming has been taken apart, analyzed, reduced, and compartmentalized into something that no longer looks and feels natural. If we look to monkeys for our cues on dry land movement, we should look to seals for our underwater explorations. Literally dive down below the surface of a lake and swim as far down as you can. Grab a giant rock and sprint across the bottom, now swim the 30-40 feet back up without panicking. One has to learn apnea ( breath holding), ear equalization, overcome fear of the unknown, deal with cold water, learn different swimming techniques for acsending and descending. The difficulties can be layered on with depth, distance, and variety. If you have never swam a mile in feiyues, then you haven't used your feiyues. We don't just want to be competent in the water, we want to be comfortable, at home. Think about how comfortable your favorite urban training spot is to you. You know a billion routes to navigate the area, you are capable there. Now imagine having that with water. If your only experience with water is throwing back fulls off a diving board into a chlorinated pool, get some friends who are interested, read about freediving, go to the nearest lake, river, or swimming pool and start slow. Pay attention to the basics. Learn how to float indefinitely. Learn how to tread water for an hour without stopping. Get your breath holds past 2:00 minutes. Swimming is a brilliant complement to all of the impact in parkour. Most of all just explore swimming in a non traditional way. I've already witnessed and learned 2 or 3 swimming movements that just don't exist anywhere else and are super useful. Come up with something new. Innovate in this area.
• Climbing. Bouldering, buildering and tree climbing to be exact. I think some of us older folks still do this. When you get tired of kong pres and muscle ups, solving a buildering route can open up your training repertoire. You'll find yourself in awkward positions that you never thought you'd be using to get across, over, through etc. You'll find an actual use for a one arm pull up as unilateral strength is key in climbing. Rock climbing has become a pretty established discipline and buildering is a natural offshoot but don't forget about the trees. Trees can offer some of the most diverse climbing challenges out there. And how often do you get to climb sixty or seventy feet without anyone bothering you or telling you "you're not supposed to be up there." Or worse, "trees aren't for climbing." Then what the fuck are they for?!
• Exploration of the natural environment. I know this is highly location dependent but if you live anywhere near nature, find it and explore it. Everything we do in parkour can be found in nature in much more variety and complexity. If you go into nature, you have to do parkour to get everywhere. One of the best things about being in nature is you can pick a direction and go for miles without stopping, without worrying about being hit by a car, or told to leave for trespassing. There's much more to being out in nature than the training opportunities but if you've never practiced outside of the urban environment that's enough of a reason to get out there. There is no uniformity in nature so mountains, lakes, rivers, forests or even the beach near the ocean(if you're lucky) all offer their own unique challenges. Weather is another aspect, the variations are endless.

• Endurance. This does not mean I think one should neglect strength training at all. I've been harping on endurance throughout this whole post so far but I want to talk about it in terms of one's conditioning and skill training. It's not enough to do the short powerful burst runs. When you do a parkour run that is longer than 50 feet, you're in the realm of cardiovascular and muscular endurance. Once you have the strength for a particular skill, get it down to the point where you can do it again and again without fatigue, anywhere from 10 reps and up. The reps can be determined by what you think you'll need wherever you're training. In the areas that I like to train in, there are boulders the size of houses strewn along a river for long stretches so it takes a lot of climbing up and dropping down over and over again. So I have to prepare for it by doing higher rep conditioning. Some say you can just go train in those places to gain that level of endurance  but if you're like me, you're working and can't always just get outside to train in your favorite spots. If you're more acrobatically inclined, building your endurance can open up some possibilities. I remember one time playing a game of "stick" with some super strong gymnasts. Though they could do higher level skills, I would challenge them by doing the most basic flips but over and over again in sequence until finally sticking the landing. The gymnasts would be too tired to do a front tuck to roundoff to 5 back-handsprings with two consecutive back tucks at the end. I can't imagine why. 

Holes that have been filled already.
The parkour community has done a good job of talking about safety, weight training, calisthenics, and refining our most basic techniques. Levels for climb ups have been one the best fixes we've seen so far. I think that as we continue to grow our art, we'll find more holes to cover up. There are more than I have mentioned so far but this post is getting too long.

Finding balance.

Phew it's been awhile. So some updates.
I moved somewhere else that was equally as far away and my wife got another job so she often takes the car so I still bike to work, a 24 mile round trip. Some days I get the car so that's nice.I got a kettlebell recently, and have finally started running again on a regular basis.

Some things I've learned in the last 5 months or so:

Endurance, both cardiovascular and muscular are important to anyone who wants to do parkour outside of a gym, which I wish was everybody. Once you learn a basic skill, drill it to the point where you could do it 20-30 times consecutively without dying. I've often focused only on short fast routes contained within whatever space I find myself in but when i go out in seemingly endless nature, the limits of a route are determined by my ability to keep going.

There is such a thing as being strong enough, and I haven't yet reached that point yet. This fits in with the endurance idea, there is an end goal, maintenance level of strength that need not be surpassed because my technical challenges will not require it. A surplus of strength is good but I've become obsessed which has put me off balance.

Stretching is way more important than I thought. especially for what I do with tricking, tumbling, and stupid cycling. I ride a bike quite a lot and it has seriously messed up my hip flexors to the point where I've realized I have to spend a ridiculous amount of time getting them back to  a healthy length. I've been reading kit lauglin's work along with other people's stretching routines. I'm starting to see it as a more of a lifestyle requirement than merely a thing you do for rehab. We should strive to be cat like with out flexibility and strength.

Kettlebells are incredibly fun. Parkour alone leaves out a lot of object manipulation which can be addictive. This is why I've always loved hacky sack and juggling. It's nice to do strength training in an ever changing way. There are many techniques to progressively load the body with the kettlebell just as there is with pure bodyweight training.

Everything is a skill and should be practiced as such. I have a pretty routine day so I get my training on a regular basis. That said, I still practice everything somewhat equally, so I  will try and stretch just as often as I run, tumble, or strength train but it is spread out throughout the day. This tends to make life less stressful and rote. I don't wait to train something if I feel like doing it now. This makes it hard to measure my volume, but I'm getting quite instinctive about it so I can tell if I'm neglecting handstand work or climbing, just by feel.

I need to write more. I have ideas all the time for writing but my busy work schedule and training time put a damper on my ambitions. I've learned so much more in the last few months that I need to share. More is coming.