Parkour Conditioning

[TheTeddy13]

Hello everyone, I've taken an interest in parkour for months now, but all of my conditioning attempts have either failed miserably, or have been so slow as to almost be non-existent. Well, after doing a lot of research, I've put together this routine here, using exercises from americanparkour.com, and I'm wondering what you all think of it, and what you would suggest as improvements.

Monday/Thursday: Upper Body

20 push ups x3

4 pull ups x3

10 skull crushers x3

8 inverted rows x3

15 tricep dips x3

5 wall dips x3

Tuesday/Friday: Lower Body

15 Split Squats x3

12 Lunges x3

10 Step Ups x3

5 Box Jumps x3

20 Squats x3

Wednesday/Saturday: Core

30 Sit Ups x3

45sec Front Plank x3

20 Russian Twists x3

45sec Side Plank x2

These would be done as a circuit, which I think would give adequate cardio as well, but any suggestions for improvements and changes are entirely welcome. Thank you in advance!

[161803398874989]

Why so many exercises?

I'd say, do a few (push exercise, pull exercise, core exercise and leg exercise) as a circuit to get stronger. Add explosive variations (since you'll be doing a lot of explosive work) and that's pretty much it.

You ought to start training your actual parkour skills as soon as you can. Learn how to roll and how to jump (and land!) first, then move on to the exercises. If you're focussing on Parkour, training should be a supplement to that, not the other way around. The schedule you have now will pretty much burn you out (well, except for the core part) every day. When are you going to practice parkour?

[Guest Carjack]

Upper body:

Push ups progressing to handstand and one arm push ups x tons

Pull ups x tons.

Lower body: Learn to lift weights, do squats.

If no heavy weights handy, pistol squats.

Core: Push ups, pull ups, squats, a plank progression to dragon flags.

Frequency: Do it all three times a week. Do pull ups even more.

To work daily: York Hand Balancing Course, grip strength, flexibility, skills like rolling. Go easier on the frequency of landings from up high.

This routine is better and it didn't take me five minutes to make, I am efficient.

[TheTeddy13]

Well that makes me feel uneducated lol

So, just one big circuit three times a week, and then handstands and flexibility and such daily?

[Guest Carjack]

The thing is you want to keep the circuit/strength/cardio simple.

A few pushing and pulling moves hit everything skullcrushers and all that other stuff hits. So a workout of whatever push up variations you like and some pull ups is all you need in that department.

This isn't very taxing on the body so squats the same day is fine too and all this in combination strengthens the abs, back and obliques.

As soon as you progress to a weighted back squat or pistol squat, there's no need for doing 786358564378 air squats because increased strength = increased endurance in turn.

So if you want to mix it up:

a. Push ups - pull ups - squats or jump onto and off of a box, one big circuit.

b. Pistols or squats with weights for multiple sets - then push up and pull up superset.

c. Separate them. Do a workout of many push up variations from wider grip to elbows in to diamond to one hand or one hand kneeling, do same thing with pull ups.

Aim to reach 15 pull ups, 50 push ups, a wall handstand push up and a pistol squat or 200+ pound back squat. For cardio you can also just run around jumping fences to work on your skills.

The important thing is you focus on the basic multi-joint exercises: push, pull and squat. They build the most all around strength and you can progress to harder versions of the same thing as you get better. They're also good because you can do them in full body workouts without taking up much of your time.

The handstands and flexibility are optional, but I think they'd improve your parkour a lot.

If you need to learn the exercises better, this guy has most of them: http://www.youtube.com/user/InciteFitness

And here's the hand balancing course: http://www.sandowplus.co.uk/Competition/Hoffman/YorkHandBalance/yorkhb.htm

[TheTeddy13]

Is this any better or am I still making this overcomplicated?

Monday/Wednesday/Friday:

Push Ups 20x3

Front Plank 45sec x3

Pull Ups Max x3

Side Planks(both sides) 45sec x3

Squats 30 x3

Wall Dips Max x3

Everyday:

Handstands

Rolling

Climbing

Frog Stands

Sorry if I'm looking like a slow learner here.

[Guest Carjack]

Is this any better or am I still making this overcomplicated?

Monday/Wednesday/Friday:

Push Ups 20x3

Front Plank 45sec x3

Pull Ups Max x3

Side Planks(both sides) 45sec x3

Squats 30 x3

Wall Dips Max x3

I used to do soemthing similar but it was like this:

push ups

pull ups

squats

(or just push ups and pull ups)

...etc.

Then I'd wear myself out with ab planks. Got to a four minute hold eventually.

You don't need a very specific plan for these exercises. Your max reps will go up fast and instead of 3 sets of 20 it'll be 4 sets of 35 or something like that.

Then you'll end up doing things like this:

Your plan works but simple means:

Push up, pull up, squat, plank, etc.

Reps: As many as you want.

Sets: As many as you want.

Order of exercises: Whatever order you want.

Everyday:

Handstands

Rolling

Climbing

Frog Stands

Perfect.

[TheTeddy13]

Simple sounds fun. But I think wall dips are necessary for the second half of climbing up walls, so I'm gonna keep those. So it will look something like this from now on

Monday/Wednesday/Friday:

Push Ups

Pull Ups

Squats

Wall Dips

Planks to failure

Everyday:

Handstands

Rolling

Climbing

Frog Stands

Also, the pull ups should probably be done 3-4 times a day, every day, so I can get better at them since they're one of the most important things

[Guest Carjack]

Wall dips are fine. Any push is good if it's hard.

Planks don't need to be to failure. Just held as long as you're willing to hold them.

[TheTeddy13]

I still have a lot to learn, but I'm gettin' there

[MMyers]

Carjack has a pretty good idea of it, but if I could suggest, maybe once you hit a certain number for whatever you move on to something harder.

Like Push-Ups->Diamonds->One Arm Push-Ups->Etc...

[TheTeddy13]

Oh well yeah that's what I was thinking too. Once an exercise gets too easy, or there's too many reps to do to really make any progress, I'll switch to a harder version of the exercise.

[MMyers]

Also, for dealing with the stress of landing and rolling, I'd suggest Bridges.

[TheTeddy13]

I'll look into, thanks MBM. Also, I'm joining the Army too, so hell yeah +10/+10 for name of awesomeness

[MMyers]

Very cool, good luck with everything.