Off The Wall Workouts

Ever wish you could run up the wall of a building, run across the roof, jump to the next roof, and just roll onto the ground?  Don't lie, I know you have (I know I certainly have!).  The Washington Post recently posted an article on a 40 year old man who has taken up parkour after watching the opening sequence in Casino Royale. 

It got me wondering how one would even begin to learn a sport like this so I did some research and I'm going to let you know exactly how you can get started.

First let's start with a little background.  Parkour started in France and the word translates to "moving like you have a death wish".  Ironically it was started by criminals who didn't have a death wish and were fleeing police officers.  Louis Parkour (still wanted to this day for never using a coupon) was the first to escape successfully and decided to turn it into an international sport because he had to flee France and had nothing better to do.

Now that you know how the sport started, let's get to the meat of this blog: how the heck do I get started?  Ideally, you want to be in great physical shape.  You don't need to be Michael Phelps by any means, but you also don't want to be Rosie O'Donnell.  Some exercises you can do to help you get started are rock climbing and running.  These will not only get the right muscles in shape but parkour is pretty much just doing the two simultaneously and adding a few gymnastics moves in the mix.  You can also check out the American Parkour site for workouts to help you get started.

Now you're thinking "OK, I'm in shape. Can I start jumping off buildings yet?"  I'm not going to tell you what to do, but I'd hold off on that.  Next logical step would be to try out some easy moves in a place where you won't get hurt when you mess up.  Here's a video from The Office to show you some pretty good starting moves:



If you've tried the moves in that video but don't feel ready to go out and actually try some moves yourself (which you shouldn't), try some basic moves in a place where you can find padding to break your fall.  If you can't think of one, you can get a rock climbing crash pad and use it instead.  I also recommend having a spotter to make sure you land on the pad.

That's pretty much all you need to get started.  Once you feel comfortable with the moves you've learned you can try watching others to learn new moves or make some up yourself.  You can slowly increase the difficulty of the moves you try until you're good enough to impress Louis Parkour himself.