6 Best Exercises That Can Help Improve Your Parkour Skills

Parkour is natural, effective and efficient movement through your environment, using jumps, swings and vaults to reach your goal. Basically, it's the most efficient way in which you can get from point A to point B - even if it involves moving over, under or across obstacles.

To perform parkour, you must be fit enough to jump, vault yourself and run. All these movements are quite basic and require different bodily muscles to be active or have muscle memory to perform the activity. That can be achieved through various kinds of workouts, but let’s see which exercises can benefit you the most for doing parkour.

Best Exercises To Improve Your Parkour Skills

Try these six strength exercises to get better at Parkour:

1) Quadrupedal Movement

Start off with this basic full body movement that will warm up your body and strengthen most of your muscles. The movement can come in handy during Parkour, allowing you to pass beneath obstacles too low to run beneath and also help you transition between the ground and more upright positions.

Here's how you can do this movement to get better at Parkour:

Starting on the ground on your hands and feet, distribute your weight evenly among the four points.
Your head and buttocks should be approximately at the same height.
In a reciprocal manner, advance one hand and the opposing foot simultaneously, and repeat the motion with the other limbs.
Maintain some space between your arms and legs so that your knees do not collide with your elbows when you move.
Start out slowly till you get the knack of moving forward. Progressively increase your speed.
For a similar but distinct challenge, perform the action in reverse.
You can find a soft surface (grass, panel mats, etc.), and practise this exercise on your hands and knees if doing it on your hands and feet is too tough initially.

2) Air Squat

Squats are one of the best overall exercises you can do to strengthen your entire lower body. A highly functional movement, they target your glutes, quadriceps, hamstrings, groin and even your core. A good squat is key to a strong, safe landing that's a necessity in Parkour.

Generally, squatting to the hip-below-knee position is sufficient, but you should also work on your full squat. If you're unable to squat that low, continue to improve your mechanics and mobility till your range of motion increases. Check out the video above to learn how to do an air squat.

3) Standing Box Jump + Step Down

Standing box jumps are one of the more popular jump training exercises. Jumping exercises help you gain leg strength and explosiveness. The standing box jump primarily builds vertical jumping strength. It also rewards or encourages you to improve your squat mobility when your jumps are close to their maximum height.

Jumping is a basic requirement in Parkour, as you're required to jump over obstacles of varying height.

As a precaution, beginners should begin climbing on low walls and progressively increase the height as their strength and technique improve. Beginners should begin with a leap-up followed by a gentle climb-down/step-down (the rebounding version has a bigger impact and requires greater strength/ability).

4) Broad Jump

The broad jump is one of the most popular assessments of strength in sport/athletics and a fundamental movement ability in parkour. Invaluable for leaping across gaps, broad jumps are also an excellent way to build total body strength.

Here's how you can perform this exercise to improve your Parkour skills:

Beginning with your feet shoulder-width apart, descend into a partial squat as you swing your arms behind you.
As you swing your arms forward, thrust yourself forward by exploding through your lower body.
Experiment with various takeoff angles and places till you discover the optimal one.
While in flight, bring your knees to your chest, and stretch your feet in front of you to accomplish your objective.

5) Cat Hang Pull-Up

Cat Hang Pull-Up is a fabulous exercise for novices who wish to improve their climb-up. The exercise improves climb-up-specific grip strength and footwork, making them a potentially superior alternative to dead hang pull-ups or at least a better option for those who wish to improve their ascent.

Start with scapular pull-ups in a cat hang before attempting the complete pull-up in a cat hang. This is a great approach to become accustomed to the movement and begin building the strength necessary to perform a cat hang pull-up with a full range of motion.

Utilise as much range of motion as feasible when performing CH pull-ups, with or without a jump aid, to develop strength and skill for the entirety of a climb-up. At the bottom of each repetition, assume a full cat hanging position with relaxed shoulders up to the ears.

At the peak of each repetition, pull the wall to your shoulders, and lightly touch the top of the wall with your chin. The greater the distance your chin can reach over the top, the better. However, you should not crain your neck to compensate for pulling too low.

6) Wall Handstand

A solid handstand is a valuable technique for developing ground or air awareness. As a novice, you must devote time to the wall handstand to master the freestanding handstand.

Wall handstands are an effective tool to refine your handstand technique and develop upper body pushing strength for all skill levels.

You don't need to be concerned about 'perfect' form and alignment. Focus instead on improving adaptability and control throughout a variety of handstand variations and obstacles (e.g. handstand walking, up/down stairs, presses, etc).

Bottom Line

If you're a beginner at Parkour, don't get discouraged if the initial results are slow. You need to keep performing the exercises to slowly strengthen yourself and increase your range of motion.

Parkour is merely a mindset to find your optimal path through any situation and moment. Once your mind starts thinking in the parkour way, nobody can stop you.

Edited by Bhargav