Where Can I Do Parkour? A Beginners Guide to Training For Parkour
So, where can I do parkour in London? Well, there’s no one location that you can take to learn parkour. It actually depends upon what your chosen discipline of parkour is as then there are different levels of parkour available. The various levels are parkour on a stick, high-intensity parkour that focuses purely on strength and speed, low-intensity parkour that means less speed but more stamina and high-intensity parkour where you focus more on using your muscles and improving technique. Each discipline requires a different type of parkour in order to be most effective.
Stick parkour is for those who have a natural ability in parkour, as they could do it easily without any special strength training. The most basic parkour technique is when you are standing on the balls of your feet, balancing on the toes of one foot and the forefoot on the other. You then extend your arms out and in and curl your upper body up so that the centre of gravity is behind your head. This gives your body great leverage, allowing you to punch your opponents and climb walls, throw off-balance shots and basically do anything you can to score!
High-intensity parkour is exactly what it sounds like – a high-intensity, or “super” parkour where you use a variety of leaps, rolls and somersaults in order to beat your opponents. Parkour is done in a controlled environment, where you are given complete control over the actions of your body whilst you are moving through the courses designed for parkour by a parkour coach. The aim of these courses is to test your strength and stamina in order to get you ready for competitive running and jumping. There are many routes to choose from and there is always a time limit before you must rest or the course is being re-opened for another round of jumpers. This helps you develop your skills much quicker than if you were using a traditional indoor running or walking course.
In order to build up your parkour skills, you need to get some parkour training plan and start developing your maximum outputs. A parkour training plan is simply a set of exercises designed to increase your parkour capability, whilst at the same time improving your fitness and agility. It will give you guidance on what types of parkour to focus on such as speed, power and endurance, and at the same time help you understand when to use certain techniques and how to execute them. For example, a good parkour training plan should ideally include intermediate runs, as these improve both your speed and power, allowing you to work on your balance and core control.
As an athlete, you need to train so you are able to meet your optimum performance potential and this means increasing your jump height and strength, while decreasing your overall body weight. In order to achieve these goals, it is recommended you start with calisthenics, which are basically high intensity parkour exercises. These are very effective at increasing your stamina as well as helping you to develop a high degree of body strength, so you are able to perform difficult tasks such as jumps. The only problem with calisthenics is that they are a bit tiring for an athlete in general so they require a lot of recovery time between sessions.
Another effective parkour training plan is skipping, which improves your overall stamina considerably. Skating also requires a high degree of physical strength as well as a great deal of stamina in order to complete a successful jump. Therefore, an athlete in the sport of parkour will need to increase his or her speed, strength and stamina in order to complete a high quality jumps. Jumping is much more useful for parkour training because it gives the athlete the ability to test his or her individual limits. If you want to do a lot of vertical jumps in your life then you should definitely consider taking up jumping.
Finally, high strength parkour is very useful as it allows you to strengthen your joints and muscles. This means that you have a better ability to absorb impacts, this means you can use them when you need to in order to defend yourself against opponents. An example of this would be when an opponent tries to pull you down or bump you, if you have a strong body and high intensity then you are able to absorb the impact better than if you are not fit, which is why many athletes take up parkour to build their muscle and joint strength. You can also improve your stamina by doing high intensity parkour as well as increasing your flexibility, balance and coordination, which are all beneficial qualities in any sport.
One thing that you should definitely try to master when learning how to do parkour is how to jump. There are a lot of different jumping exercises that you can do but if you are serious about competing then you need to learn parkour moves such as the classic jump and the rope jump. In addition to this you should always try to learn how to land on soft surfaces correctly as this will greatly increase the number of jumps you can perform without falling. Also, do not try to jump too high; try to keep your jumps below four feet to avoid hurting yourself during training.