Abstract
Parkour is a growing sport that mostly involves jumping, vaulting over obstacles, and climbing in a non-dedicated setting. The authors gathered all known relevant literature across miscellaneous academic fields in order to define parkour with regard to other sports disciplines. Parkour is a lifestyle sport, and as such provides an alternative to mainstream sports, away from strict rules, standardized settings, and necessary competitions. Traceurs (parkour adepts) consider the city as a playground and as an outlet for their creativity, but they also have a strong taste for hard and individualized challenges. They usually train on non-specific structures, at ground level. Although their social background is not clear, they are mostly young and male. Traceurs are stronger than recreational athletes, especially in eccentric exercises. However, their endurance skills may be below average. One of the core specificities of parkour is its precision constraint at landing, which turns a standing long jump into a precision jump, regulated in flight so as to prepare for landing. The running precision jump follows the same landing pattern, and its flight phase contrasts with long jump techniques. Injuries, which are not more frequent than in other sports, often occur at landing and to lower limb extremities. This risk is mitigated by targeting the landing area with the forefoot instead of letting the heel hit the ground like in gymnastics, or with rolling in order to dissipate the impact. Overall, parkour focuses on adaptability to new environments, which leads to specific techniques that have not yet been extensively addressed by the literature.
Highlights
Parkour is well in line with modern lifestyle sports, that challenge our traditional view of sports as rule-based, set in a dedicated environment, with specialized equipment
The standing long jump (SLJ) is close to the iconic parkour precision jump (Fig. 1) and it is a standard test that represents a good starting point to compare traceurs’ to other athletes’ performances
Parkour is a relatively new lifestyle sport in which adaptation skills are crucial to succeed in overcoming diverse obstacles in an efficient and safe fashion
Summary
Parkour is a physical activity born in the early 1990s in the suburbs of Paris, France, that involves using only the body to overcome obstacles. Some call it a training method [1], or a way of getting from point A to point B [2] through complex, three dimensional environments [3]. ScienceDirect, Pubmed and Google scholar databases have been screened for the term “parkour”, without restriction on publication date Both social aspects and life science aspects have been examined and compared to those of other sports, in order to give a broad insight on the discipline and to help further understanding the singular position of parkour
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