When I first got the urge to get in better shape, I searched to see what was available nearby. The first thing that caught my eye was parkour, because it encourages free movement, running, jumping, and generally being a kid again, playing out in the woods. At the time, parkour gyms were less prevalent than they are now, but there was one in my town, and offering adult classes. I contacted them, and they said the prereq for doing parkour was to show I could do: 50 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, and 50 pull-ups at one go. So that was right out (hint, I still can't do that). Instead, I joined Irish dance, and had a wonderful time getting in better cardio shape and kicking my shins black and blue.
Unfortunately, when I graduated and moved to the east coast, I was unable to find another Irish dance team that I really liked. I mooched around feeling sorry for myself for a while, then I stumbled onto this website called NerdFitness, which attempts to break down exercise and being healthy into gaming and "nerd" concepts. The posts were awesome, bridging the nerd/jock gap, the community was hugely supportive, and I was frankly sick of doing more and more cardio workouts with less and less result, so I gave it a try. When I first tried the
beginner's bodyweight workout, I could barely do two sets of a few squats, lunges, knee push-ups, dumbbell rows and planks. Nevertheless, I persisted, and was very proud when I was able to do a third set, and then started adding weights.
In September of 2015, I managed to fracture my ankle while ungracefully walking down stairs. For two months, I could not work out at all, and then pushed to get into physical therapy (pt), get walking, and try to better than before. I've always brushed off my bruises and running into walls as just clumsiness, but pt taught me that it was poor flexibility and strength that made me clumsy. Here I was, 35 years old, and injured walking down
stairs because I was too out of shape to avoid damaging myself. If I'm aiming to live past 100, this is not a sustainable plan.
Although strength training at home through an online forum is great, it's not the same as getting in-person training and social time, so once again, I looked around to see what was available. This time, I found a parkour place not too far away that had
zero pre-reqs: come in and try it out. I stalled for a bit, looking for someone to go with on the scary first endeavor, but once I finally went... I was hooked. Since so very many things can go wrong in parkour, the focus of training is safety first. First you learn how to fail out of a move, then you learn the move. Can't do the move yet? Here are the steps to work up to it. Everyone get in line, do the variation you can do safely. Go.
I've been doing parkour now for a little over a year. When I started, I was doing one hour, every other week, and barely able to do a lot of the moves. Now, I'm doing 3 hours, every weekend, and holding my own on quite a few of the moves. Still lots of room for improvement, but I've come a long way.
| Move | February '16 | May '17 |
| Precision jumps | - | Tweaking form |
| Cat hang | A few seconds | Working on cat hang pull-ups |
| Cat leap | - | Tweaking form |
| Quadrupedal movement (QM) | A few seconds | 30 seconds, balancing a bar on my back |
| Easy vault | 2.5' vault box | 3' vault box |
| Safety/speed vault | 2.5' box, climb over | 3' vault box, working on speed vault |
| Kong vault | - | Standing jump onto a 2.5' box |
| Parkour rolls | Working on form | Still working on form |
| Kip-up | - | Can kip-up into back bridge |
| Handstands | Against a wall | Hold for a few seconds, free-standing |
| Running laps | Less than 1 | 2 laps without stopping |
One of the classes that I take there is like a full-body pt course - we do flexibility and mobility work, and if something doesn't work right, the teacher explains why it hurts, what's probably going on in your body, and how to do exercises at home to fix it. In winter of 2016, I learned I have a partially torn rotator cuff. Between regular pt and the stuff we do at parkour, it is not an issue, and I'm still doing crazy-fun things that, two years ago, I wouldn't even consider doing. There are still some aches and pains of getting older, but I can touch my toes, run laps, do back bridges, fall and roll in any direction, climb up and jump down from 6' boxes, hop over railings, and just generally have fun with my environment. 100 years old, here I come.
A QM (quadrupedal movement) is any method of moving on all 4s. Proper form (back flat, knees off the ground) is rather strenuous to do, especially back and forth many times in a row.
A QM (quadrupedal movement) is any method of moving on all 4s. Proper form (back flat, knees off the ground) is rather strenuous to do, especially back and forth many times in a row.
