When people think about health they think doctors visits, colds, medicine and hospitals. The World Health Organization (WHO) defined ‘health’ as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”. While the term wellbeing has a new age feel, they do have a point, health isn’t just about disease and doctors. It’s keeping you in good functioning order and having the ability overcome any challenges thrown your way. I’m of the opinion that a health body equals a healthy mind.

Exercise is the performance of movements in order to develop or maintain physical fitness and overall health. It is often directed toward also honing athletic ability or skill. Frequent and regular physical exercise is an important component in the prevention of some of the diseases of modern life such as cancer, heart disease, cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes, obesity and back pain.

Exercises are generally grouped into three types depending on the overall effect they have on the human body:

* Flexibility exercises such as stretching improve the range of motion of muscles and joints.
* Aerobic exercises such as walking and running focus on increasing cardiovascular endurance and muscle density.
* Anaerobic exercises such as weight training or sprinting increase muscle mass and strength.

Physical exercise is considered important for maintaining physical fitness including healthy weight; building and maintaining healthy bones, muscles, and joints; promoting physiological well-being; reducing surgical risks; and strengthening the immune system. All of these can be acquired through Parkour/Freerun, with its broad skill base and broad range of fitness facets. So training in the discipline is an excellent means of staying fit and healthy.

So what can Parkour/Freerun do for you?
Weight Loss And Diet

Engaging in a physical activity like Parkour/Freerun can tip the balance of a person’s calories consumed versus calories burned, with this kind of exercise and moderating your diet, it’s certainly possible that it will have a significant effect on your body composition.

Because of the nature of our discipline, a person’s strength-to-body-weight ratio is a good predictor of success, slighter-built people do better than more overweight ones, so as soon as a traceur or freerunner starts to lose some excess weight, they find out that they’re more agile and making better climbs, jumps and so on. Fat will quickly be seen as excess baggage to be carried around and with this mind set weight management becomes important to practitioners.

Proper nutrition is just as (if not more) important to health as exercise. When exercising it becomes even more important to have good diet to ensure the body has the correct ratio of macronutrients whilst providing ample micronutrients; this is to aid the body with the recovery process following strenuous exercise. We generally look to eat healthily and eat in the best manner to improve what we do.
Strength And Power

While watching us move you’re seeing great expression of strength and power. Jumping, landing and climbing require both of these and doing Parkour/Freerun will improve both. When starting from scratch, it is necessary to prepare the body for the more strenuous demands to come by first giving it a relatively light period of adaptation. Tudor Bompa calls this phase Anatomical Adaptation, in which the main objective is to strengthen the body as whole, correct muscular imbalances, and prepare the muscles, joints, tendons and ligaments for the prolonged and intense training to follow. Things like bodyweight circuits, GPP training all prepare the body generally for the multidisciplinary nature of Parkour/Freerun. You’ll not find many practitioners who can not do a good number of pull ups, push ups, pistols or jump very far. When a practitioner is generally ready to go to the next level they may look towards weights (weighted vests) and specialist conditioning workouts to improve their performance further.
Balance And Proprioception

We hear a lot about how to keep our heart and lungs healthy, but not so much about how to keep our balance and proprioception in check. Our balance system includes all the senses in our body that tell us how we are moving.

This complex system needs plenty of regular ‘practice’. As children we develop good balance by practicing balancing activities – walking along walls, jumping and climbing. Too many adults give up these activities, but we maintain and look to build such skills. Climbing, scaling and positioning on top of objects requires great balance. Proprioception is the sense of the relative position of neighbouring parts of the body, where as balance requires a mixture of sight and inner ear balance. Proprioception indicates whether the body is moving with required effort, as well as where the various parts of the body are located in relation to each other. The proprioceptive sense is believed to be composed of information from sensory neurons located in the inner ear (motion and orientation) and in the stretch receptors located in the muscles and the joint-supporting ligaments (stance). The traceur/freerunner is using proprioception almost all the time without realising it. The proprioceptive sense can be sharpened through study of many disciplines. Several studies have shown that the usefulness of these types of training is challenged by closing the eyes, because the eyes give invaluable feedback to establishing the moment-to-moment information of balance. A good example would be trying to walk a balance beam with eyes closed.

When practitioners are moving through space, climbing or moving, the feeling of effortless technique is achieved over time through a combination of coordination, balance and proprioception.
Aerobic/Anaerobic Fitness

In general, aerobic exercise is one performed at a low to moderate level of intensity over a long period of time. For example, running a long distance at a moderate pace is an aerobic exercise, but sprinting is not. Playing singles tennis, with near-continuous motion, is generally considered aerobic activity, while golf or doubles tennis, with their brief bursts of activity punctuated by more frequent breaks, may not be predominantly aerobic. Parkour/Freerun covers both the bases with a mixture of running, sprinting jumping and climbing mean that both energy pathways are thoroughly challenged.
Mobility And Flexibility

Today’s sedentary lifestyles mean that over time people lose mobility and flexibility. A lot of today’s modern back and joint complaints are a result of bad posture, lack of regular movement and sitting in one place for too long. Simple as this seems, it is a creeping issue that people only acknowledge when its too late and need surgery or therapy.

The process of learning to stretch and move around over and under objects involves the body working to give the necessary mobility to allow such movements. The fluid movements in parkour and freerun teach a person how to utilise their mobility to overcome obstacles. For an example a simple wall pass requires lifting the legs through space. Without mobility to pull the legs over, it couldn’t be done. By starting small and working up mobility and flexibility are improved. Simply put “good mobility and flexibility means a movement should be effortless”. The effortless movements we see are achieved by working on progressive movement and build on mobility and flexibility.
Why Parkour/Freerun For Health?

Parkour is a great form of exercise and those who are just getting into parkour and freerunning, indoor gyms and workshops can provide a safe and supervised environment for mastering the sport’s techniques and becoming comfortable with new movement and improving fitness. What we do gives a great sense of well being through its philosophy, greater sense of freedom and overcoming life’s challenges. However if philosophy isn’t you bag however it is a gratifying way to get fit and stay in shape.
More About The Author – Will Wayland

Will’s academic background, coupled with his ‘under the bar” experience , has proven to be a recipe for success. Will has worked with athletes of all levels, from youth sports to the professional. Will specialises in developing the body for the goal of enhancing performance. Heavily inspired by russian conjugate squence system his training methods are used by athletes, bodybuilders, and fitness enthusiasts of all ages and from all walks of life. He has a Bsc honours degree and HND in Applied Sports Science from the University of Teesside, and he specializes in the muscular and neurophysiology of human movement and performance. He currently trains, consults, and lectures around the country. You can find him on the net at http://williamwayland.blogspot.com

http://www.urbanfreeflow.com/category/artgeneral/

Click on the symbol for a Parkour Competition Video

crawling out of the cave…

and “Park Bench Yoga” signs at freeway rest stops?!

Yoga without the studio: Outdoors practice popular
WRAL.com – Raleigh,NC,USA
In fact, outdoor yoga is about as minimalist a fitness activity as you can get: no mat, shoes or other gear required. The State of Vermont is banking on …
See all stories on this topic

A  couple dozen middle-aged movers and shakers make a recurring Tuesday evening pilgrimage to the Blue Pearl Temple. Nestled in the Redwoods, the ambiance is sacred, unconventional, and natural. Bodies are strewn across the floor, as if finally awakening from a somnambulant daydream of a day. Real clarity glistens with Lisa’s reading of an initiatory quote from Adyashanti.  Soon there is a frenzy akin to what you’d see in one of those bins filled with colorful plastic balls where parents deposit their toddlers to frolic. Winding down,  the bodies again reach for each other and drift into the wood floor like wilting flower petals. Bells ring and we have been wrung.