Spring 2014 video!

We haven't posted much new info here, we were too busy training! But this new video is the result of this:
. Enjoy!

More videos!

For the restart of our Parkour club, here's a few more insane videos. First, the latest installment of the crazy strength and conditionning series to show you we're actually being quite gentle in our training. Then some totally impressive feats of strength showing how important flexibility is, some nice demonstration that you can train anywhere and everywhere and finally a minimalist and beautiful example of flow. Enjoy!

Our first PK video!

So, here it is: our first year PK video. Simple stuff, mostly a good illustration of what our training is about and what any of us can do after a few months of practice. There is still plenty of room for progress, but we already reached the most important objective: having fun!!

Winter cold training

Now that we're finally getting some snow and cold, we can go back out and train in the bright, cold air! To train outside in the winter, though you need to remember a few things:

1. Wear layers, so you can take them off as you warm up and put them back on as you cool down. Nothing worse than getting drenched in sweat and then freeze.


2. Drink water while you train; with the cold you don't feel it, but you get dehydrated quickly.


3. Take it easy on the endurance exercises, and warm up your joints thoroughly before any strength or flexibility exercise.


4. Finish up with a big cup of hot chocolate!

Winter couch training

I had planned to talk about appropriate outfits to fight the bitter cold of winter, but instead it has been uncommonly cold and gray, courtesy of global warming. To me, this makes it even harder to motivate to go and train, and so I end up watching Youtube videos to regain some inspiration.

Thankfully, there is actually quite a lot of useful videos to watch: American Parkour tutorials (under Playlists, check the Parkour guides), the Demon Drills and Hawaii Parkour's drill series. There's also this ridiculous compilation of strength exercises, a nice demo of exercises designed by Ido Portal (who also makes insane QM drills) and many many videos from other sources.

Then there's also the videos that just motivate you to go out even in the rain, and make you want to train more and have fun moving. Happy viewing and see you soon back outside!

Plyo Monkeys

Here's a quick link to Hawaii PK's new exercise video on Plyo Monkeys. The exercise is much harder than it looks when Ozzi does it, as usual (check also his push-up variations video in the Conditioning Videos section of the website).

We will definitely add this to our regular exercise diet!

Posture

An often ignored element of parkour training is to improve our general posture. Most of us lie somewhere close to the left side man on the picture, thanks to poor sitting habits and a desk & computer job. Without going to the excesses of the right side man (showing the equally bad military posture), we can stand (and sit) much better. Signs of a good posture are: 1) a straight spine; 2) forward-engaged hips; 3) shoulders rotated back. It should make you feel slightly taller, show off your muscular chest and perhaps seem a little constipated until you learn to relax into the posture.

To switch from lounging to straight posture, start with rotating your pelvis forward onto your hips. Your lower back will naturally straighten (and then arch back if you go too far). Then pull your head up, straightening your upper back, and finish with rotating your shoulders up, back and then down to open your chest. Take a deep breath, and try to relax without moving..

With a better posture, you can breathe better (your thorax is open, making it easier to fill your lungs with air), lower the amount of torsion on your spine (and associated back pain), maintain a strong torso when moving in parkour, and most importantly improve your looks!!