The Three Phases Of Parkour Movement?

Recently, in the course of my training and discussing training with others, I have realised that in many respects, a traceur’s ability to perform a parkour movement is determined by three key factors:

1) Confidence
2) Technique
3) Strength/Condition

What I find interesting is to observe is that for many traceurs, each one of these tends to be a limiting factor at different points in their development of that particular movement. For most, confidence is the first limiting factor they encounter. Once they have a basic understanding of the techniques (or even in the process of acquiring this) they tend to be limited by the confidence to actually jump over the wall or perform a saut de chat or whatever movement they are faced with.

A classic movement that is an example of this is the saut de precision. For many traceurs, they will begin with very small jumps indeed, well within their physical capabilities. Mostly they are afraid of committing to a jump that is simply too big, undershooting and injuring themselves. They will eventually reach a point where they are jumping well for their ability level. At this point, the technique aspect becomes key. Via refining their technique in various ways, they can usually gain a significant amount of distance. And then eventually they will have worked on their technique such to the point that by diminishing returns, the only improvements that are left to make are very minor and so produce very little gain. It is at this point that in order to progress, the real hard work begins. Specific strength training is now the path to further progress in the movement. In the case of precision jumps, this is obviously very heavily focused on the lower body.

An interesting observation is that in each phase, the rate of progress is reduced, again, diminishing returns. To overcome confidence problems, often all you need to do is convince yourself you are physically capable or practice similar movements in different situations. Technique refinements take practice, observation and persistence. You also often have to accept that sometimes this means taking a step back. For me, this was with the saut de chat, when changing from “jump stop” (two-footed) takeoffs to “split foot” takeoffs, for a few weeks after forcing myself to make the change, my distance and general proficiency with the movement plummeted and then gradually built back up again, eventually going on to far exceed what I could achieve with the old technique. Simple changes can have a huge difference, my saut de chat distance improved dramatically simply by starting to take off a bit further from the wall. Strength limitations tend to require far more effort, the amount of effort that I put into my upper body conditioning to achieve relatively small improvements in climbups is hugely disproportionate compared to the benefits some simple technique refinements have made along the way.

I’m writing this in the hope that it will encourage traceurs at all stages to make the most of their training. People talk of plateaus in training, yet I think this is more that at certain moments, your limiting factors seem more overbearing. Certainly, where strength is a limiting factor, it can seem like an impossible mountain to climb. But you should know, that there is always a path to improvement, and it can usually be found in one of those areas. I think this is why the composition of people’s training tends to change over time as well. Hollie has recently returned from Lisses and told me that in Lisses the traceurs do very little in the way of specific movement training, the vast majority of their training is conditioning, perhaps sometimes incorporating some movements. I can only speculate about what it must be like to have so much experience but I imagine that by that point in your training, that is the appropriate way to train because strength will be the only real limiting factor having had so much experience to acquire the confidence and the technical abilities.

I feel that for the majority of my movements, the limiting factor is now strength. However, an interesting point to note is that often when applying a familiar movement to a new situation you can find yourself needing to start from square one again almost. This has recently struck me when it comes to large, level or near-level armjumps. The thing with these is they require a different technical approach to smaller level armjumps or armjumps with more of a height difference. So of course, it’s back to square one and off to find a nice place where I can practice them in relative safety (nice and close to ground level). It is here where I will acquire the confidence with that type of movement, then moving to applying the movement to more and more situations. It is at this point that the technique refinements begin in order to stress my body as little as possible on impact and gain the greatest possible efficiency from the physical effort I put in. Eventually, at some point way off in the future, I will be able to perform the movement across a gap as wide as I can physically manage with my jumping distance and upper/core strength. At this point, the strength becomes a limiting factor again and only by increasing my jumping distance will I be able to progress beyond this.

You get the idea, I just found these observations to be interesting. I think if you look at things with an analytical mind, you can identify what you limiting factor on a movement is and this will allow you to make progress, no matter how big or small, by training appropriately.

Good luck and enjoy your training!