Parkour and the human physiolgy.

Ok so some of you will have read what I wrote on Parkour and weight training, and I will first of all assure you that it's all true. Scientifically that is the best strength training method. However, I don't know about everyone, but I got into Parkour not only to better myself physically, but to bring my self to a more intune state with my environment. Going back to our roots as primates, jumping around trees, climbing without fear. Taking the beauty of movement from the natural environtment and learning to use it in the concrete jungles we have built. However when our ancestors were moving, they didn't train for it, no their movement trained them. When Georges Herbert travelled to Africa and took inspiration from the tribal hunters there, that displayed such a physical prowess; how many times did he record them doing Olympic snatches? NONE!

Chimpanzees, Gibbons, Panthers, Tigers, any animal other than man that you care to mention, takes its training from everyday life, so why on earth don't we? Well the first and most simple answer might be that we have created a different culture for ourselves, an unnatural, sit down culture. This simply however is not true, no matter how advanced we may consider ourselves our culture is no different from that of a Tiger, or an Ape/Monkey (monkeys have tails). How many times do you turn on a nature program and the predators are sitting around, grooming, shagging, sleeping in the midday? MILLIONS!!! And this coming from a lover of documentaries. It is in our nature that we as living beings will in everyday life want to rest, want to eat, etc. We've just made it easier for ourselves, instead of hunting, we go to the local Super-Market. The most vicous predatoir that most of us will ever encounter is a mugger, and that's not too often (thank God). But altogether there isn't that much that has changed since we were king of the swingers.

Again I repeat my question: any animal other than man that you care to mention, takes its training from everyday life, so why on earth don't we?

Well quite simply it's our physical evolution, look at the human body in comparison with our two subjects, a Chimp, and a Panther.


The Chimp walks on all 4 appendiges, distributing it's body weight over them, and moving in a way that stresses the muscles, making them work harder to move the body around. This combined with how much time is spent climbing helps them develop incredible upper body strength.


Now the Panther, again we see a distribution of weight, the Panther is naturally inclined to support around 300lb's of muscle and bone over 4 legs. That's 75lb a leg, take into account that when running the Panther uses only 2 legs at a time, that's 150lb's a leg being propelled through the air. Of course the panther may perform this more efficiently do to its joint alignment. Remember that the Chimp is in effect a process of evolution. Also consider that the chimp is looking to walk upright.

And that is the important thing in Parkour, training and the human physiology, we have evolved to move in a certain way, the human has evolved to walk upright as our diagram illustrates:


Our musculature has evolved to move this way:



So what we as a race have to realise is that our bodies have not evolved to move like a monkey, or a cat. Our bodies are developed to move in an entirely new way, like a human. The most apparent thing about the human anatomy is that our legs support our weight entirely. If you look at the picture of the Panther and examin how you are sitting (or at least how we are meant to sit) we can see an enourmous difference in how our bodies should be treated. The big cat sits over forwards, ready, supporting his weight on his front legs.we primarily sit on our bums, slouched back (even though we should be upright). What we have to examin about our bodies is how we can manipulate these weaknesses brought on by a mind dominated body, (a body where the evolution has developed to provide the creature with a more mental development as apposed to a better physical development) in order to opptimise the physical side of our abilities. This in my mind comes from acting more instinctively in our movements, and as Sebatien Foucan says "finding our own way".

So what aboiut our physical training? Ok we've established that animals have a significant advantage when compared to us in developing their strength, not to mention that they are geneticallly more inclined to it. For example (going back a while) a t-rex (I said it was a while) in puberty put on around 20KG of muscle a day!!!! i know this is an extreme example but you can see it in humans as well.

We class people into 3 catagories, Ectomorphs (thin people), Mesomorphs (Athletic people), Endomorphs (Those people who say they've got big bones..well sometimes it's a little true). In puberty a Mesomorph will put on more muscle than an Ectomorph, thats nature.

Right getting back on track. What do animals do? well after watching and examining for a LONG time, and studying physiology I think I have a pretty good answer.

Let me take you through some biology. firstly we have two types of muscle fibre, type 1 and type 2. Type 1 is slow twitch, good at endurance but not very fast. Type 2 is fast twitch, powerful, not so enduring, however endurance is increased with it. We need type 2, that's what most animals develope. How though? Okay alongside these 2 muscle types we have 3 energy systems. Creatine Phosphate, which runs anaerobically (without oxygen) this will be used for about the first 10 seconds of a high intensity activity. The Lactate system, which can last from about 20 seconds to 2 hours. This is again an anaerobic system, however it develops more of a mix, but, BUT!!!! It's the energy system Bodybuilders train into, which is why you hear them all going FEEL THE BURN!!! They like Lactic acid. For type 2 muscle we really dont like this.

So we want to train in the first 10 second before we start using the lactate system. which i might add is exactly what a monkey will do!!!! Will an animal move around when they're tired? NOOOOO!!!! They jump about a bit, feel the lactic acid coming and go, f@%k this I'm going for a nap. Sound familiar? Yup this is pretty much just what you'll read in any book by Pavel or some such people who say low reps are best. BUT instead of pausing in moves we should just tense the muscles harder, use their whole potential in every move to maximise effort!!!

Reps in my mind don't matter, the minute you feel any kind of tiredness coming on stop, either that or just keep going until your a few before failure, either way don't go to failure.

Yes everybody the monkey was the original grease the groover, doing something often and being fresh when you do it.

SO SHOULD WE HAVE A TRAINING REGIME FOR PARKOUR!!!!

Up to you really isn't it. all I will say is that whatever you do, whether it's going for a dayly walk and using Parkour, and doing it all often. Or whether you decide to go to a gym, train your strength and CV (Cardio, YES YOU NEED IT), it's your decision. But whatevedr you do remember you're a human, so move as such, and for gods sake, be proud of it.

J