Parkour Armor

Posted by misterparkour on April 5, 2009

The following is a fantastic article written by Thomas Arnaudies from France. Appropriately titled “Armor,” Thomas equates building the physical condition necessary for Parkour to putting on armor. Composed of both internal and external components, the physical and mental armor of a Tracer is essential to protect against injuries and to allow one to safely progress in his/her Parkour training and physical capabilities.

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Armor

The term ‘Armor’ in Parkour refers to your level of protection against the injuries and your physical capacity to bear the constraints and the forces that the discipline exerts on your body. The idea is to taken from thinking of yourself as a warrior; a good warrior needs a solid armor if it must survive in battle. Likewise, we need a solid and complete armor to protect us when we do Parkour.

Just like the knights of the past time, our armor is composed of many parts and it is important that we take the time to construct each of these parts so that our armor is strong and does not fail us when we need it. I like to think that there exists two different types of armor: the Internal Armor and the External Armor.

A Summary of What is the Internal Armor

The most important part of a warrior’s armor is the helmet that protects the head because it protects the most important part of the warrior; the head. Our spirit is the key of all we do in Parkour because if we do not construct ourselves a strong spirit, the remainder of our defenses never will be as strong as they could be. This includes all our organs (our heart, our respiratory system etc) as well as our bones, that need to be preserved and developed with a good system of progressive training.

A Summary of What is the External Armor

This covers most of the body; the neck, the shoulders, the biceps, triceps, the elbow joints, the wrists, the hands, the fingers, the trunk, the back, the abdomen, the hips, the quadriceps, the knee joints, the tibias, the ankles, the connective tissue etc… I also classify the skin as a part of the external armor. It is important that we condition our skin to become callous and resistant to scratches and abrasions. Creating strong skin on the hands is particularly important as they are fragile due to a lack of use when compared to our primate’s equivalents.

Constructing Your Armor

The Internal armor

The Spirit

A strong spirit is essential in Parkour and furnishes the foundation of the remainder of the armor. Our capacity to move us is dependent on the capacity of our spirit to will our bodies to move. Most of the people do not have any problem moving, we do it every day and we do not even have to think about it – we have only have to wish that our body budges and for that the spirit launches a reaction chain that realizes it. The strength, however, is something that we must learn by ourselves. Only with time and experience will the spirit be able to learn what the body is able to do and with practice it will allow the body to do it without interfering with doubts or apprehensions. We begin, essentially, practicing Parkour as a dog with a leash – with the time, the owner (our brain) learns to have confidence in the dog (our body), and gives more and more liberty on the leash. My opinion is that our ultimate goal is to liberate our body and to leave it to roam freely where it wishes without unnecessary interferences of our spirit

The Organs and the Respiratory System

Without capable and completely functional internal defenses our external defenses will always be weak. Preserving our hearts and a strong and healthy internal system is necessitated by a healthy food intake without excess. The decisions that you make at the dinner table will directly affect the longevity of the systems that you need to function. The better Tracers treat their bodies as athletes, and the more respect they have in nourishing it properly with the necessary fuel, the better the systems to function in the optimum way.

The Bones

Once more, the bones need a solid and healthy food intake to remain in good health. Calcium is well known to be an excellent vitamin source to help your bones remain solid. One can find this in milk and many other daily products. Try to drink milk has low fat content every day to help maintain your bones strong and in good health. The other important manner to preserve solid bones and to increase their densities is to increase gradually what one asks for them. Start with small easy jumps and very gently, after a time period, increase the level of impact so that your bones become accustomed to managing the jumps and stress. Solid bones are important for the Tracers; it is necessary to understand that the difference between breaking a bone and only to hurting it is dependent on its solidity.

The External armor

The Muscles

Our muscles allow us to move us with grace, speed and power. Their maintenance and development is vital to increase our level in Parkour. Being given the nature of our activity, we use all the muscles of our body therefore we must reinforce each of them so that they become strong. Fortunately, the simple practice of Parkour through passing different obstacles constructs the necessary muscles to do that action. But for the Tracer wanting to push their limits and progress towards their full potential, time and effort must be used on the muscular development. Daily reinforcement of this is an integral part of the life of a Tracer. While developing your physical condition, your technical abilities will develop a lot more quickly. It is necessary to pay attention to not overtraining the muscles; a sufficient rest (of more than 48H) is required for a muscle repairs itself after intensive training. Learn this balance between training harshly and rest. It is something that takes time and practice but to find this balance is essential.

The Joints

Our joints link up the different parties of our armor; this is the reason why they are as much as important as the remainder. The principal joints on which one will have to work on; your elbows, shoulders, hips, knees and ankles. You solicit a lot from them when practice which is the reason why they must be solid. The secret to have solid joints is once again to have a good diet, to increase gradually the intensity and the past time to improve them. Supplements such as of cod liver oil, glucosamine and vitamins should also be considered to preserve your joints in good form, especially as you get older.

The Skin

The simple truth is that the Parkour is a discipline of lasting, especially for your hands. During the first months of your training it is almost sure that you will have cuts, scratches and that you will lose blood at the level of your hands. That is normal and you can criticize your ancestors for it. Because of the change of method of life of the humans during the last few thousand years, the average man no longer has need to climb to the trees, to launch lances and to construct his shelter; this is the reason why our hands became fragile with time. The Parkour is as an awakening for your hands; it dives them in what they were formerly used to doing. If you look at the primate hands, you will see that they are as leather, completely conditioned to move itself in the trees and ready for the hard thing that monkeys have to do. By comparison our hands are weak and soft because this is all that is physically required of working people today. As such, if you want to practice the Parkour, you must demand more of your body then is demanded in traditional desk work. The best manner to reinforce your hands is to climb in the trees and to move you in the branches, training yourself to pass obstacles while using your hands, and to crawl on the ground on your hands and feet. That will take time but finally your hands will reinforce themselves and become accustom to be used in this manner. You will know when they are ready when you rarely cut yourself and after moving in trees for hours will not leave you more exhausted and callous hands.

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This article was written in French and was originally posted on Parkour.net. We have done our best to accurately translate the paper into English. If you would like to read the original French version of this article please click here.