Etre et Durer: Plyometric Training for Parkour
Your toes hang off the edge of the last brick as you take in a measured breath and then step out into space. You drop, enjoying the momentary freedom of airtime before bracing yourself for the compression of the precision landing. The uncompromising concrete is met, joint at a time, as ankles, knees and hips absorb the shock, storing up the potential energy like a coiled spring. Fractions of a second later the spring releases and you are launched forward and upwards, your centre of gravity shifting to allow your
Parkour: Way of the Pathfinder
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. -Robert A. Heinlein What we now know as parkour began with a quest: a quest for strength; a quest for the next challenge; a quest for
Parkour Generations London: New Harrow Gym
WEST LONDON CLASSES If you haven't yet tried our dedicated parkour space at HarroWall Climbing Centre, then what are you waiting for? Jump on over! Not only do we have a great training set-up that's suitable for absolute beginners, but you'll also be taught by one of the world's most experienced parkour coaches, Chris Keighley. For class times and age ranges simply visit www.parkourgenerationslondon.com or download the 'Parkour Generations' App now. Or if you have further questions, please DM here or hit us up at contact@parkourgenerations.com.
The Tao Of Parkour
Much has been made of Bruce Lee’s enduring concept of Jeet Kune Do, across myriad different activities, art-forms, sports and disciplines. Often it is applied quite wrongly, of course, flourished with bravado in a slapdash attempt to justify some sort of unstructured and unresearched approach to training or development. Nothing could be further from what Lee intended with his concept, or indeed more removed from his own path towards personal liberation. However, a strong and meaningful analogy can be drawn between Lee’s concept and our own discipline of parkour[1]. In fact, parkour is
Time to Play
Look at how children move when they play: almost universally (assuming the adults around them don’t intervene and impose restrictions on their natural instincts to play) they run, jump, climb, crawl and they do these things at every given opportunity, exploring their space and learning what their bodies can do. The movements of play are holistic, complex-dynamic, non-linear, instinctive and adaptive. They don’t play by repeating isolated patterns over and over. They don’t play by deconstructing movement into its component parts. They don’t obsess about ‘alignment’ or ‘core strength’. And
SPRING-LOADED: WHY PARKOUR JUMPS WORK
One question I’ve been asked countless times over the years by fitness professionals, physiotherapists, sport scientists and general public alike is how do you (parkour practitioners) not break things, explode joints and generally cripple yourselves taking all those impacts from jumps? And looking through the lens of many recent models of human movement – typically those that deconstruct and treat the body as an automaton – the question is an obvious one, as it just doesn’t seem to make sense or adhere to prevailing theories of what the human body can safely
Nature’s Athletes: Adapt or Die
‘Complex systems are weakened, even killed, when deprived of stressors’ Nassim Taleb Here’s a truth I want everyone who doubts their physical and mental potential to keep at the forefront of their mind: beneath the shell of the soft, sedentary people we have become are the raw materials of nature's most adaptive and capable athlete. The key word here is adaptive. If you’re not already convinced that adaptation is the true birth-right of all human beings, I’ve got one word for you: wingsuits. How the hell have we worked out how to do
London Gym Re-Opens 12th April
The Chainstore Gym reopens this April 12th and we couldn't be happier or more ready to welcome you back!
New London Classes
From the 29th March, we're transitioning out of lockdown with a new schedule of outdoor sessions for you to jump on into.