Describing Parkour isn’t simple. Like CrossFit, Parkour has developed within a global community, absorbing characteristics from its participants—tra¬ceurs—and evolving as they do. It might most easily be considered a combination of sprinting and gymnastics (sound familiar?). In short, a traceur finds new and better ways to move through his or her environment, be it urban or otherwise. It can be a quest for efficiency, technicality or a dynamic balance of the two. Regard¬less, the result is an activity that both demands and develops, to varying degrees, a breadth of physical abilities: endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, speed, power, coordination, balance, agility and accuracy.

The above notwithstanding, I’m not suggesting Parkour be con¬sidered a complete solution to fitness training. For that, it has its inherent limitations—the high-level leg and hip strength and power development that seem only achievable through weightlifting, for example. Instead, it may more accurately be considered an application of that complete fitness—a sport through which an athlete can rather thoroughly express his or her physical competence.

Confirmed Parkour and CrossFit stud Jesse Woody took the time to straighten out Parkour a little more for us. Jesse works with the Woodberry Forest School’s physical fitness, outdoor education and ropes courses in Madison, Virginia, and is also an administrator of American Parkour’s website. He is currently working to develop a fitness model incorporating Parkour and CrossFit “that can be applied to creative and effective move¬ment outside the gym.”


There seems to be a great deal of ambiguity, variation and even contradiction among Parkour’s definitions. For ex¬ample, some seem to believe there is no room for stunts or tricks, where others clearly incorporate these things. Is this simply a matter of the sport evolving, or is it actually factionalizing?

The problem basically stems from Parkour being created in France by individuals who never planned on it becoming some¬thing other than a personal pursuit. When David Belle adapted the philosophies of movement and mindset from his father, Raymond Belle, he saw Parkour as an opportunity to create something powerful and useful of his own. It seems his group of friends grew, and as they trained they began to make some videos of the amazing abilities they were acquir¬ing. Eventually these made it to the internet and spread amongst the usual channels. Many of these David Belle vid¬eos feature him and the other French traceurs performing amazing Park¬our along with gymnastics and acrobatics skills (which are activities they also pur¬sued). Since many of the early viewers were English-speaking, the small amount of available dialogue was lost, and they only had the move¬ment to go by. When they saw a few seconds of Parkour, then a shot of a back flip, they assumed they were one and the same. The problem is these videos were never meant to be a defini¬tive guide as to what Parkour is and isn’t; instead they were a representation of the various skills the French traceurs pos¬sessed.

Fast-forward to today, and the worldwide Parkour scene has ex¬ploded. Unfortunately the originators of the sport waited until a bit late to make their opinion known, so it was like a whis¬per in the middle of a screaming crowd! The basis of Parkour is useful and effective movement through any environment with only your body to propel you over, under and through any ob¬stacle in your path. When David Belle finally decided to make a definitive statement a year ago, he outlined the progression of the idea, which began with French soldiers in Vietnam at¬tempting to create a method of movement that could save their lives or the lives of others when they needed to escape or reach. When his father returned from active duty, he passed many of the ideals on to David, who combined them with his athletic background to redefine his everyday environment.

Now, while this excludes flips and other acrobatics from pure Parkour, this in no way suggests that flips, spins, etc. are in some way bad. I think that most of the people involved in the sport carry a certain affinity for gymnastics and tricking, and they often train these skills as much as their Parkour. The benefits are obvious to those in the CrossFit community, as even the most basic gymnastics skills offer huge benefits in bal¬ance, coordination, agility and accuracy. To top it off, they’re just plain fun! All this really means in the end is that the mindset is the essential dif¬ference in a run that includes Parkour-like move¬ments with acrobatics and a pure Parkour run. Both can be fun, both can be great methods of training one’s body to be more reactive, powerful and agile, but they are two different things.

A good example would be this: many people in the general public would rather see a slim and cut fitness model greased up on the cover of a maga¬zine than a CrossFitter lying in a pool of sweat af¬ter Fran. Along the same lines, many people would rather see videos with added flair and unnecessary movement rather than view media that’s based on a functional mindset within the realm of Parkour. To each his own, but we can’t call HIT Crossfit, even if it might look similar…


I can’t help but immediately connect Parkour with skateboarding, bike freestyle and trials in terms of environment, style and movement. Do you see a lot of crossover among athletes of these sports, or does it seem that Parkour ap¬peals to an entirely different type of person?

There is quite a bit of crossover. I used to be an avid skate¬boarder and inline skater before dislocating my shoulder mid-grind at the skate-park (without insurance, to top it off). I think the idea of redefining the urban environment through body control is an easily accepted idea for those people who are al¬ready involved in similar pursuits. Parkour also tends to appeal to those that are of the “skateboarding age” who don’t have the means or the desire to acquire all the equipment involved. The sport is often seen, unfortunately, as a non-committed replace¬ment for some of the other urban sports that are available.


Parkour, like CrossFit, seems to be very community-driven. Do you consider it a distinctive culture or lifestyle?

While Parkour definitely has a certain lexicon and method that is somewhat individual to the sport, it seems to encompass such a wide group of different practitioners that it doesn’t have its own individual lifestyle and culture, rather, it is an amalgam of the lifestyles and cultures of the many varied participants. One aspect that seems to have an affect on this is the lack of equipment necessary for taking part in the sport. Without a lot of gear being required, there is far less to identify with in a material or visual way. But overall, when you have a sport com¬posed of everybody from computer geeks to jocks to skate¬boarders, etc. there is never some set lifestyle aspect that you can point to and say “That is what makes a traceur.”

One of the aspects of the sport that sets it apart is the men¬tality of respect for property in your practice as a broad-scale attitude. It’s amazing to me the respectful methods of training that a lot of the younger teenage kids practice; checking the sturdiness of surfaces before attempting techniques, throwing trash away and staying away from private property. When I was involved in skateboarding at the same age I was in a completely different boat, but I think that everybody who practices the sport knows the consequences of destroying the areas that you practice and attempts to keep these spots hassle free as much as possible.


Parkour abruptly shifted from being thoroughly obscure to widely known, appearing even in tele¬vision commercials for Nike and Toyota. To what do you attribute this sud¬den exposure, and how is it being greeted by the Parkour community? Are you concerned about the possibility of Parkour en¬tering the mainstream?

Quite a bit of this exposure was due to the traceurs themselves realizing they had a marketable skill and capitalizing on it in the best way possible. The Parkour community has greeted this develop¬ment like many other communities greet increased exposure, with a mix of acceptance and knee-jerk reactions about vari¬ous people “selling out.” It’s true that there have been a few people involved in Parkour who have sold a negative image for the sake of making some money, but it’s not the nature of all business, and I think there are plenty of people who just want the opportunity to make a living doing something they love. I personally am very excited about new people learning about Parkour, as I think it could be a beneficial and liberat¬ing art form for everybody who gives it an honest try. My main concern is who might choose to take advantage of the media opportunities, as it takes very little negative attention to paint the entire movement in the wrong way.


What does a typical run consist of in terms of duration and content? Are runs performed in intervals/sections, or al¬ways as a whole?

It can vary according to the environment and the situation that you find yourself in. When I go out around my town to just run, my paths can range anywhere from a few moves to 30 minutes of constant motion, depending on what the environment and my mentality dictates. You will usually attempt to find new and more fluid ways to make your way through varied obstacles, so it’s best to find an area that has more to offer than just one type of object. I always try to transition as smoothly as possible from one type of movement to the next, so I like to be able to go from a vault, to a gap, to a wall-run, etc., finding new and effective ways to overcome the same obsta¬cles as I end up approach¬ing them in a somewhat different way each time.

The duration and content of the run tends to dictate the style as well, as a lon¬ger run over smaller, more-complicated obstacles will tend to be smoother and more fluid, while a shorter path or one where you are trying to overcome as much ground as possible in as few moves as pos¬sible will tend to be more explosive and powerful.
This is where the creative aspect comes into the sport, by your choice of paths and the methods to overcome them. It is quite possible to practice in the same area for a good amount of time and still constantly find variations of movement as you choose more intricate paths or find more effective ways to overcome the same obstacles.

For the most part, the paths tend to be shorter in duration, though, with a bias towards quick, explosive movements per¬ formed over distances of about 50-150 yards. This is usually continued interval style for the duration of the training ses¬sion, with rests varying randomly, depending on your total ex¬ertion.


How do you approach new runs? Do you assess all your obstacles first, or do you make unprepared runs? Do you repeat the same runs and work on improving your times or techniques?

I do a bit of each, depending on the area or my goals for the training session. I think it’s very important to check your surfac¬es before training somewhere new, as you never know where there might be a loose brick or a shard of glass that could cause pretty serious injury. The town where I live is relatively small, though, so after training there for the past two years I have a keen sense of the nature of the different obstacles I encounter. I can also apply this sense to other areas with similar architec¬ture, which is a useful skill if you ever have to use your Parkour in a practical sense. I find that when I first train in an area I tend to apply certain techniques to assess the area. I will usually start out with a slower run, making an inventory of the rails that I feel that are loose, the edges of walls that may have lin¬gering moisture that could cause a fall, and the land¬ings that might be unstable or oddly angled. Once I make a mental in¬ventory of these aspects of the en¬vironment I repeat a similar path try¬ing to find a way to adapt to these features and string together a smooth combination of movements.

You’ll often find a certain segment of a run to be partic¬ularly challenging, and in this case it’s often a good idea to go back and improve your skill in whatever move or obstacle is giving you trouble. I find that my climb-ups after the Saut De Bras (arm jump or cat leap, where you jump a gap to land with your hands grasping the top of a wall and your feet pasted against the wall itself) to be a point that could use some work, so I’ll often repeat the move for 20 minutes straight trying to refine the technique and work the necessary muscles for effective application of power.


Do you train for Parkour using methods other than Park¬our, or does the practice of the sport itself provide all the conditioning and skill training necessary?

Though Parkour is an excellent training method, it’s often hard to work every possible movement combination for balanced strength and conditioning as you are limited by your avail¬able environment. One way this can be addressed is through the use of a purpose-built obstacle course (which is where the word Parkour comes from, parcours du combatants, or mili¬tary obstacle course training) which would work each major movement from a variety of different angles and positions. This would be similar to Coach Burgener’s “Patch.”

I currently use the Crossfit WOD along with a bodyweight-based training program of my own design as my general fitness method. I find that strength, power and metabolic conditioning are more easily addressed through a controlled functional fit¬ness program, which leaves your Parkour training for address¬ing weaknesses in technique and for general runs just for the fun of it! I do think that adding Parkour training to a good base of GPP would lead to some pretty impressive gains in agility, balance, coordination, accuracy, power, endurance and general body control.


Have you found that the Parkour training trans¬fers well to other sports?

I think that the skill transfer from Park¬our to other sports is similar to the trans¬fer from gymnastics training to other sports. I have found an increased ability to recover from falls at odd angles and avoid injury from my insistence on train¬ing rolls from every conceivable angle and obstacle first and foremost. I have been a rock climber for almost four years now, and I find that I am much more comfortable bouldering than I used to be as my confidence in my ability to adapt to any fall has grown ex¬ponentially. I think the skill transfer would be similar in sports such as football, where you are attempting to avoid other ath¬letes by adapting your body to their movements. The agility gained from Parkour training would be a definite plus in those situations, and the skill of rolling from any angle would help if you did happen to be upended.


The sport obviously offers a lot of risk for injuries, from mi¬nor to temporarily and permanently debilitating to fatal. Is Parkour dominated by young people, or is there actually potential for longevity?

Parkour is definitely dominated by young people, but I feel this is due mostly to the assumption that it has to involve repeti¬tive drops from respectable heights onto hard and unforgiving surfaces. The ability to overcome ground-level obstacles with fluidity and agility would be a benefit to anybody who pos¬sesses a decent base of physical fitness.

I think this is one of the downfalls of Parkour being such a free¬form community, as there isn’t a concrete progression in place for those who are new to the sport, and this leads to people involving themselves with moves that they aren’t ready for. Whenever I have the chance to train somebody, I try to stress the importance of learning the basics at ground level: the roll, the straight landing, the basic vaults, etc., before even moving to what would be considered small drops. I personally know that my body won’t be able to take repetitive impact from even body-height drops for long, so I make it a point compose the majority of my training out of lower-impact movements when possible. I think that the basic mindset of Parkour can be adapted as such and thus be beneficial to a much wider range of people than are currently involved in the sport.


How much thought is given to injury pre¬vention? What are some strategies?

So far the injury prevention strategy of the Parkour community has been the vague “Check all your surfaces, don’t do too many big drops” idea. Since I’m interested in health and fitness I’ve started to form some strategies for in¬jury prevention and therapy. I try to stress a thorough warm-up as much as possible, with general calisthenics leading into full-body movements and dynamic stretches. I tend to use quad¬rapedal movement, or walking on all fours, emulating animal styles, as a general warm-up tool, as it works your body in so many angles. Like I mentioned before, I try to keep impact to a minimum. This can be accomplished by avoiding unnecessary drops, as well as refining your landing and rolling technique as much as possible. I’ve seen kids that learn how to roll in their first month, and then never train it again by itself. I think it’s a skill that needs constant refinement that you can’t just leave at a normal level of understanding, but should instead strive for a level of virtuosity in. Of course, gaining and retaining a high level of GPP goes a long way in preventing injuries, and that’s what my goal with the Workout of the Day on APK is, to motivate a lot of these kids who tend to sit in front of the com¬puter all week and then go to a jam on the weekend and go all out without any actual training. That’s a recipe for injury, in my opinion. I try to create a workout that’s extremely challenging but that requires minimal equipment to negate any excuses they may be able to cook up!

As far as sustaining and dealing with injuries, I think people within the community are so tired of me pounding the RICE method into their heads that they automatically rest and ice everything just to make me shut up. It’s an interesting but ef¬fective reaction…


Is there a consistent community opinion of documenting Parkour? In other words, how does the Parkour community tend to react to videos of the sport? Do they embrace them or believe that it’s an expression of arrogance?

The production of videos has become a huge part of the Par¬kour community, in large part because it’s such an internet based movement. You tend to associate with people from all over the world that you might never get to meet in person, so the videos they produce become this visual aspect that you can relate them to. Traceurs have also realized the benefit of making videos to review your weak points. I find no better training tool than a video of myself, where I can see all the little areas that I need constant refinement in. Needless to say, some people would be better off training more and filming less, my¬self included!


Is there currently any Parkour competi¬tion, either formal or not? Is competition something you and/or the community supports?

No, competition is something that isn’t cur¬rently a part of the Parkour community. I think it’s a pretty widespread opinion that a competitive format would negate the essential mindset of Parkour, which is this mindful efficiency based on making it from your current position to your goal with as little extraneous thought and movement as possible in between. It’s bound to happen eventually though, as Parkour becomes more popular, so it’s just a matter of attempting to preserve the philosophy once it becomes an issue…


How does someone get started?

That’s the beauty part, all you need is a good pair of running shoes and an interesting environment and you’re set. I would suggest checking out some of the tutorials on the site to famil¬iarize yourself with some of the basic moves that are used in Parkour. Another good resource to check out are the descrip¬tions of what Parkour is and isn’t on APK. Once you get accus¬tomed with the movement and have started to learn about the mindset, just go outside, find an interesting or challenging set of obstacles and work on finding a smooth, efficient path through them. At first most people will probably find individ¬ual movements to drill to get used to the basics, then they can start to string different moves together into longer runs. After training for a while, you will think of the individual moves less and less and be able to focus more on the path and the goal. It’s a great feeling when you go out and train and realize that you no longer do any moves that have names, but rather have adapted to your environment and chosen the appropriate movement for the obstacles you face.


What do you foresee for Parkour’s evolution in the future?

It will obviously continue to grow, with more and more compa¬nies becoming interested in marketing Parkour for their prod¬ucts and more and more kids becoming involved in the sport. I hope to be able to attract a wider range of different people to the sport that I think would benefit from the principles and movements if they understood the proper progressions. Obvi¬ously, as Parkour grows, it will become harder and harder to communicate the ideas of simple and effective movement, as more people with the wrong ideas and motivations will get a chance at media attention. My hopes are to make use of the opportunities I’ve been given to teach people about the sport to keep the overall outlook positive as it gets bigger.