Weight training and Parkour

Lots of people believe that weight training and Parkour do not mix that when you train with weights you bulk up, adding more weight which will make drops harder on your joints, and take distance and height away from jumps. Of course when you do any kind of resistance training your muscles will inevitably become more pronounced, however with the right kind of training you can make a fantastic friend of weight training. You can not only become stronger, making things such as climbing, much easier, but also becoming more powerful making your jumps and vaults easier. You also don’t have to worry about bulking up with the correct training method you can actually reduce your size and get stronger. Either that or you can make sure that all that muscle you gain is doing something so it doesn’t matter that you put on a bit.

The first rule of weight training is to set your goals. Do you want to become stronger or more powerful (in actual fact you can do both)? Do you want to increase your cardiovascular fitness or is your main goal pure brute strength? Do you want to up your endurance? In this article I’ll tell you a few plain and simple facts which can help you make fantastic gains in your Parkour through weight training.

First of all you have to understand that resistance is resistance, it doesn’t matter if you’re doing a handstand push up or a barbell shoulder press. I’ll admit that devices such as Ketllebells are different however this is because of the placement of the weight; it is outside of the hand and in some cases its lower so you are pushing through a longer range of motion. Anywho as I said you can mix and match bodyweight and weights, so if you’re fed up of bench presses try push ups etc.

The key to effective weight training is proper tension and not over working a muscle, over working is what bodybuilders do, this is what causes the sarcoplasmic hypertrophy seen on those preening posing body builders. What we want is a minimum amount of reps per set (5) and if you want to gain mass lots of sets (I advise against this in Parkour). The idea is to use a weight that will allow you to complete 5 reps per set but not hit failure, instead come within about 2 reps of failure. The reason we don’t want to hit failure is because instead of the muscle fibres getting strengthened and the numbers of them increase and the muscle becoming denser, the body will just pump more blood to the muscle stretching it and making more space. This means that although your muscle gets bigger it doesn’t get much stronger.

Earlier on I spoke about proper tension, basically what this means is being able to tense the muscle as hard as you possibly can, using all of its potential to lift the weight and therefore increase your potential. The way you do this is by engaging your entire body, first start by trying to tense your bicep and letting the rest of your body and arm go limp…cant do it well can you. Now do it but clench your fists hard. Better? Now do the same but contract your lats (the big muscle on your back that joins to the arm at the armpit). Better? Now do the same and squeeze your buttocks…better? Finally do the same but dig you feet into the ground and contract your abs, you should now be tensing your whole body (including the other arm). This is whole body tension, and it’s what’s going to be your primary asset in your weight training. Apply this to every exercise you do. First of all by not just using the tension to get the weight up but when its up keep the muscle tense, and instead of performing a negative (lowering the weight slowly) use the tension to pull the weight back down to your body (or depending on the exercise push it back).

Next we’re going to briefly talk about muscle strain; lots of people when they feel an exercise is easier just add weight….WTF!!! There isn’t any point in this until you know you can’t possibly make an exercise any harder. E.g. I perform weighted pistols (a one legged squat where your “resting” leg is held out in front of your body) whilst holding a kettlebell in front of me. Now a kettlebell doesn’t increase in weight, if you want to do that you either buy the handles that hold plate weights, or buy a new one, I am however skint and cannot do either. So instead of just adding to the weight, I perform isometric tension before during and after the rep. This means that when I am at the bottom of the motion I visualise pushing my foot down through the floor, and I tense and tense, but don’t move. I then begin the movement, and halfway through the rep stop, and hold it, then at the top of the motion I hold it and tense the leg and my body HARD. Just as a little pointer with this you will make strength gains throughout the range of motion when the tensed muscle is stretched out rather than when in a contracted or half contracted position.

The key to brute strength is to exercise when you’re fresh, not tired. Basically when you perform a set your muscle shouldn’t be tired from an exercise before.

If you apply all these techniques you will get stronger in the right way.

However for parkour you’ll want to a combination of strength, power, endurance, and cardiovascular strength. I can tell you now that if you perform the isodynamic style of lifting I have spoken about above, you’ll get all but cardiovascular. One other thing you can do to increase you jumps etc is to strengthen your hip thrust. Do this by using exercises such as the snatch, kettlebell swing etc. Any exercise that requires you to throw your hips forward violently is perfect.

Cardio gains can be made in a number of ways, but weights can do this for you as well, performing multiple reps on hard fast exercises, and getting your heart rate up. One thing I do is to perform all my exercises back to back, and by switching between upper and lower body exercises I allow my muscles adequate rest to make strength gains. Switching between upper and lower also keeps the heart pumping blood hard all around the body rather than just to the upper/lower body. This means not only adds the cardio benefit but burns a lot more calories and is good to lose weight.

Remember that as with your parkour training you should always warm up and stretch the muscles and afterwards cool down and stretch. I find after weight training the best time to train flexibility. Start off light and ease into your new regime, and remember to leave adequate time to recover, in the beginning you may want to take up to 2 days recovery. Remember to keep experimenting with different regimes and exercises, and keep your body guessing, now look forward and enjoy the benefits that your training will give you.

By Johnny Neal
A.K.A.
Dizzy Jim
Johnny Chan

Contact: dizzyjim123@msn.com