Let me be a warning to others. If you try a new skill, be ready for days and days of pain.
I attended a 2-hour “jam” at a really interesting gym in Washington DC: “Primal Fitness”. It’s mostly a ‘Crossfit’ gym (www.crossfit.com); they do workouts like the stuntmen went through for the movie “300”.
I went to learn about Parkour/freerunning. It’s a sport whereby you run and don’t let any obstacle stop you: you go over, under, or through any cahllanged. Jumps, grabs, climbs… anything goes. Primal Fitness teaches classes in parkour, and the owners are some of the premier parkour enthusiasts in the country. They even have a professional parkour team who does commercials and live events.
Good video of a parkour friend in Seattle: http://one.revver.com/watch/157215
Ater this one workshop, I think I’ve never been so sore in my life. Everything hurt afterwards but my face! (which, btw, I did NOT fall on!) But to do even the basics of parkour requires leaping, hanging from your hands, creating levers with your legs against objects, incredible core strength, endurance, and some ‘just plain crazy’. Suffice to say, even with my stunt experience from 20 years ago, it whupped my butt. I didn’t even do ‘the real stuff’ - I just did some namby-pamby ‘preparation’ stuff! 4 days later, I’m still feeling soreness in my lats, pecs, forearms, hands, elbows, hip flexors. I can barely run, and I can’t do much of anything else either. Putting my hair in a ponytail is excruciating pain!
(The good thing is, that I must have ripped down my muscles enough to have them repair/recover even more. I can feel myself with bigger lats even now! What an interesting workout…)
Experimenters, beware…
Sooooo cool… Good on you for seeking out new experiences. I can see myself grinning ear to ear doing that stuff.
That stuff is amazing. I was trying to explain that to a fellow coach the other day.
I’d be willing to bet that guys that wrestled ~155 in high school are good fits for this activity. Good combinations of strength per bodyweight, as well as, agility, etc.
That stuff is just plain old cool. Good for you for trying it.
that’s really awesome!
that guy is so athletic!
that sport is really amazing, even moreso the people’s skills in doing it.
sounds like you tore it up good!!!
will you continue in workshop?
Crossfit is really fun pain. Ooh, did I say that? Lat year, before I started triathlon training, I had gone from regular gym workouts with my trainer to Crossfit workouts and mixed it up with aerobic stuff. The Crossfit workouts got my core strong enough to do well in Sprints last year without any substantial base in SBR. I’m interested in checking out the Parkour workouts you did to keep me from getting bored in the Fall.
“I’m interested in checking out the Parkour workouts you did…”
Check out www.americanparkour.com - It’s run by the guy who owns Primal Fitness (Mark Toorock, a great guy) and there’s a section where you can look up your area and find people doing parkour jams. I think Primal is the only ‘gym’ which teaches it, but you can look up your area and the people doing parkour to find out more. Your Crossfit gym may know also.
Warning: not for the faint of heart or body… 
“will you continue in workshop?”
Uh, maybe not. The owner asked me if I’d come back, but I have to say, while I liked the Crossfit-type warmup, what they were doing in the gym was CRAZY. And even though it was crazy in the gym, it was ‘controlled’. ‘Out in the world’ they say it’s even crazier, especially “at speed”. (When I used to do stage fights for shows, we’d practice at slow speeds… but doing the same moves “at speed” is a completely different level of insanity)
But I’d still like to support these good people, and I wish I was good enough (or brave enough) to try some of this stuff!!! I think there are levels of what people can do; some are good at some moves, others do other things. That guy in the video, Tyson, is getting really hot now. He’s filming commercials now, and you’ll see him around in the media. He wrote me that he just got into the Screen Actor’s Guild (at only age 20) so he’ll be eligible for more work now. But he’s still crazy for doing it - just ‘quality-crazy’
“Good on you for seeking out new experiences.”
LOL… this is what my life is! It’s actually pretty rare that I stick with ‘old’ experiences, unless they mean much to me (like valued relationships). I constantly evolve - as do my activities!
Hope you do this also!
I found www.coloradoparkour.com and a schedule of their workouts.
I’ll need to leave this on the side for now as I am just starting to be a decent swimmer and runner. I am about to run my first 1/2 mary’s and a 70.3 race in August, so I’ll wait a bit to ‘expand my horizons’ further. The Crossfit workouts are fun anytime, as they are all different and they can be very quick, and deadly effective !
Btw, Lauren, I ike your site and the focus on the over-the-hill-gang. I’ll probably sign up for your newsletter for more info, and you look great at 40!
“I’ll need to leave this on the side for now as I am just starting to be a decent swimmer and runner. The Crossfit workouts are fun anytime, as they are all different and they can be very quick, and deadly effective !
Btw, Lauren, I ike your site and the focus on the over-the-hill-gang. I’ll probably sign up for your newsletter for more info, and you look great at 40!”
Yeah, don’t do these workouts unless you don’t want to train tri for a while. There’s a massive physiological learning curve, and it’s not for serious racers who need to make their training moments count, with no downtime from other sports.
But go watch what they do at that Colorado parkour, using their schedule… it’s very cool!
Thanks for the compliment! Btw, I’m 43 now. (I was the oldest human at that gym on Saturday…) I don’t mean to focus on ‘over-the-hill’; I just mostly get queries (and clients) from people who are above 35. Some are around 30. But I truly believe that age doesn’t have to be a factor about feeling good or looking good. It’s bullsh_t when ‘regular’ people give up on their fitness (and looking good) because they are above 35!
Thanks again,
Lauren
That’s funny. It reminds me of my college days. At USNA, where the curriculum is pretty tightly controlled, everyone used to have to take a semester of gymnastics. Seeing as how I was on the team, I didn’t have to take the class, but I had to help teach it, and it was always funny to see people who were all in pretty good shape for their respective sports showing off just how clumsy and weak a sport like that can make you look, and they were always sore the next day or two as a result. Get’s you using muscles you never knew you had.
I recently switched to P90X workouts instead of just barbell training. Man, I have forgotten about how humbling and brutal chin-ups are (even pushups when you’re doing sets of 25).
I also enjoy trying new things … or maybe it’s just a symptom of being ADD … but I always do things that require athleticism and fitness. The only thing I don’t really enjoy doing is golf. I’ll hit a pretty good shot and then the whole is ruined while I expect to do that everytime. I’m MrHyde on a golf course.
“I recently switched to P90X workouts instead of just barbell training. Man, I have forgotten about how humbling and brutal chin-ups are (even pushups when you’re doing sets of 25).”
That’s so interesting you said this… just having an email conversation with a ‘graduated’ client of mine, who was asking me about that system. I said that I saw it advertised, and looked it up online, and thought it looked good… just today he found a quality ‘3rd-party review’ which went into detail about it. (http://shapingmyway.blogspot.com/2006/07/p90x-review.html)
Yeah, some of these bodyweight training are brutal - in a good way. I gotta say that chin-ups, although I can’t do them, are great for the body. I also want to try some clap-pushups (plyo). Some of the parkour training had some plyo also. Ow. Pain, some of it even good
Lauren
Glad to see you try a Parkour/crossfit workout. CrossFit is a great way to complement tri training but I am still sore today from Saturdays workout. Parkour is just a fun but crazy way to get around. I do my version when I am trail running or approaching some of my climbs. Not as extreme as what was in “Casino Royale” but it still freaks out the tourists along the trail!
“Get’s you using muscles you never knew you had.”
Yeah, no kidding!
USNA, huh? Cool…
My sister used P90X and she’s got a great, fit physique for a female. She loaned cough burned cough me copies of her DVDs.
I like it primarily because of the pace of the workouts (self-limiting on the poundages used) and because of the small space requirements. I don’t have room/desire any more for the power rack, barbells, plates, dumbbells, etc. I can use dumbbells from 5 to 65 pounds, push-up bars and a chin-up bar (all in the garage) and get a great workout, that (usually) doesn’t leave me drained or inflicted with DOMS for the next day. Furthermore, it’s not as mentally draining on my nervous (or immune) system like hard, heavy (relative) strength training.
The crossfit workouts are also very interesting to me … particularly the ones featuring the power clean (I like that lift) … but many of those crossfit workouts are hard to moderate the intensity, which eventually interferes with the other stuff I do.
“USNA, huh? Cool…”
People say that, but it didn’t seem so cool when my friends at Maryland or GW were finishing off a keg and I was stuck on campus in uniform.
Lauren,
I’d love to chat about these varied programs sometime. I am 40 and feel I am in better shape due to Crossfit and tri training than at 30, so I am psyched.
For those following the thread there is a site that puts out “scaled” workouts of the day which translated to English means:
this webpage: http://forum.brandxmartialarts.com/viewforum.php?f=16 shows a beginner and intermediate level version of the WOD , or workout of the day that Crossfit creates every day.
Zev
“I’d love to chat about these varied programs sometime.”
Sure - love to. This week isn’t good due to a deadline, but drop me a line to my email (on my website) and we can talk when my schedule frees up.
Lauren