Posted on December 17, 2007 in Lastest News
The latest fad that has become popular among intense fitness freaks on account of it extreme daredevil kind of training is the “Parkour”. Wikipedia has termed Parkour, “as the art of displacement.” It consists of series of maneuvers like running, crawling, climbing, and rolling in rapid progression.
What is Parkour?
Parkour is an extreme sport that involves turning the urban landscape or rural landscape into personal obstacle course. The practitioners say that it is a rewarding physical training that resembles the commando style of training. The main aim is to move from one place to another as resourcefully and swiftly as possible using the only abilities of the human body. The males are referred as traceurs and the female as traceuses.
Origin
The Parkour was developed by Raymond Belle a French soldier, the main objective behind was to develop ingenious methods of escape during war. This was passed on to his son David belle who further developed it. The today’s form evolved in year 1988, in Lisses in France. David a military firefighter combined the nuances of gymnastics and martial arts in this.
Philosophy
Most of the Parkour’s philosophy is imbibed in life. While Parkouring the challenges that comes in way also prepares one mentally and physically to fight with the hindrances of life. For a Parkour practitioner he or she takes this obstacle as a challenge and overcomes it just like they do while Parkouring. It also advocates the philosophy of freedom as it can be practiced by anyone irrespective of the place and time of the world. It has appeared as a cult in Europe and is becoming popular in the entire world on account of its uniqueness.
Basic Movements in Parkour and Techniques-
Being an extreme sport it is difficult to categorize. There are only few movements as every obstacle is overcome on the basis of individual physic, speed, angle and approach.
The body and mind is trained with the immediate instinct that is needed at that time to overcome the obstacle. It also depends absorption and rapid distribution of energy and body weight, high speed jumping, rolling and landing techniques. The impact on legs and spine has to be low. The basic movements in Parkour are landing, balance, cat leap, cat balance, underbar, jump through, dismount, pop vault, vault, reverse vault, turn vault, muscle up, roll, diving Kong, tic tac, lache, dash vault, drop, gap jump, precision jump, spring jump etc.
It is an inexpensive kind of sport that does not require expensive equipments, just a pair of good shoes and light casual clothing. One can burn enormous amount of calories in an hour than by conventional kind of workout. By practicing the right technique in correct way one can burn as good as 500 calories in an hour. The benefits are many as the entire body gets toned and worked out. The muscles get strengthened, with enhancement in flexibility and precision. The mental capability and physical dexterity is boosted in, with further development of confidence.
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July 16th, 2009 at 10:04 am
I’m about to begin training again. It nice to find some. Sometimes people, most certainly myself included, need to be reminded about the importance of working the legs. When I first began weight training I did exactly as you mention in your article. I concentrated on upper body and neglected my legs. Just as you state, I am paying the price now and I need to play “catch up”.