Are you on your Mobile? The Secret Ingredient to Injury Prevention in Parkour
So, I got injured. After months of non-stop jumps my body finally told me to stop. As heartbreaking as it has been to have to pause my parkour training for the time being, it has given me space to reflect on my parkour progress so far and how I can prevent getting injured again.
When I started getting a bad back and hip, I was frustrated. How come everyone around me was able to keep going, doing huge jumps and high impact landings outdoors? Why was my body breaking down? What were their bodies capable of that I wasn’t?
The problem with parkour being predominantly on social media platforms is you often don’t see behind the scenes of the work it took to achieve a viral clip. For the athlete, it can appear effortless. In reality, it takes months of training in elite athlete gyms on bespoke training programmes for specific challenges if you are sponsored by Red Bull, or the quiet grind in the local parkour gym with 1:1 coaching and personal training before competing. But, front and centre are the big wins, with the hard work kept in the shadows and not pushed by the algorithm.
What you don’t see is what you don’t know. Put simply, my body, which had only done mostly light exercise for most of my life, was not prepared for the constant impact and explosive movement that I pushed through nearly every day to get close to my dream of becoming an athlete in a year. I have had to swallow a lot of humble pie these last few weeks and get realistic with where my body is at and what it can tolerate, while still hanging on to hope that I will get to where I want to be in the future. If I am serious about parkour, then I need to look after the vessel that allows me to participate.
Learning parkour skills is one thing, but I had been neglecting something crucial in my training… mobility work.
It seems obvious, but mobility is not often talked about. Parkour is a movement sport after all, so to support your body to move well is paramount. Parkour movement puts a lot of strain on the joints and hips, and if these are not mobile enough to cope with the demanding range of movements, then injury is inevitable. Most back pain in parkour comes from uneven landing due to a lack of mobility in the hips, forcing the spine to absorb the impact instead.
So, what’s the solution? Work on improving the mobility in the key areas for injury in the body:
Hips: Vaults like the kong and movements such as monkey ups all come from the hips, so supplementary stretches called “hip openers” are fantastic. Most of us sit for long periods at work, so these are helpful to combat any back pain you may experience in other areas of your life, win-win!
Ankles: Make your ankles stronger than steel so you can walk away from rolling or landing unevenly. Weighted ankle exercises will strengthen the joints, but build this up gradually.
Wrists and Shoulders: Prevent strain from impact from hard surfaces through the shoulders and wrists and build strength for climb ups and cat grabs.
Focusing your attention on activating these three areas before you train and committing to deep stretch sessions afterwards will help increase mobility and prevent injury.
As the name suggests, supplementary mobility stretches at home will add to your flexibility and over time will increase your range of motion if you practice stretches daily.
Here are some exercises I have been doing during my rehab that you can start today:
90/90 hip rotations - sit with legs at a 90 degree angle and slowly rotate your hips to the opposite side. Make sure the move goes through the hips and not the lower back.
Glute bridges - Using the glutes to lift your torso into a straight line, this can provide relief for the lower back.
Yoga - Poses like the pigeon and child pose focus on the lower back and open the hips, with supportive breathwork to get more stretch with less pain.
Deadhang - Not just for upper body strength, deadhangs help to align your spine in a neutral position.
Above all, rest. If you have injured yourself, exercise and movement can help you to heal, but only if you stay off what hurt you in the first place. Rushing back to activities before your body has had enough time to rehabilitate could worsen the injury and put you back months. When you are ready to return, do this over many weeks, slowly building back up to your full range of movement. Parkour starts from the ground up, it’s okay to go back to the start to benefit you in the long-term.
If you want to master your own body movements, a new beginner friendly adult calisthenics class has just launched this month and runs every Friday at 7pm, so give some supplementary exercises under the close supervision of Coach Rich to get you feeling more confident in your strength and mobility.
Have you been injured in parkour? How did you navigate your return to the sport? Let me know in the comments!
Go send (with care),
Demi
(DISCLAIMER: I am not a personal trainer nor qualified to provide medical advice. If you are injured, consult a physiotherapist before commencing any of the suggested exercises.)
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