Posts tagged mma

Since I have fallen in love with Parkour, I have decided that I want to get better and pursue it further. It will be a great winter sport when it’s too cold to cycle anyway.  I also hope to learn MMA in the near future as well.

Lately I’ve been weightlifting 5-6 days a week with 2-3 days of easy cardio or HIIT stuff. The weight training was sort of bodybuilder-esk, I suppose, in that I would do biceps & triceps one day and chest & shoulders another day, etc.  

Now I want my workouts to be more functional by incorporating more compound exercises.

Here is what I’m thinking:

• Monday - Pulling exercises (ex. pullups, rows, etc.)
• Tuesday - Parkour, jumping, sprinting, or stadium runs, etc (or rest if I need)
• Wednesday - Back/core (deadlifts, hyperextensions, plank, leg raises, etc.)
• Thursday - Parkour, jumping, sprinting, or stadium runs, etc (or rest if I need)
• Friday - Pushing exercises (bench press, close-grip bench, push ups, dips, etc)
• Saturday - rest or same as Tuesday/Thursday
• Sunday - legs (quads, glutes, hamstrings) - (squats, lunges, glute-ham raises, etc)

Saturday and Sunday may be switched around as well.

Hopefully soon I can add MMA on Tuesdays and Thursdays 

Thoughts?

Last week I found out about a Fitness/Training group called Fifth Ape that teaches Parkour, martial arts, and barefoot running.  When I found out that they workout and teach classes in the Forest Theatre on the UNC Campus, I was shocked that I hadn’t heard about them before.  I mean, I walk by that place all the time.

So I check them out online.  They have an awesome video that explains what they do and has some cool shots of them running around doing parkour on UNC’s campus.  

They have free classes on Sundays for first-timers so I signed up and met one of the trainers, Eric, at the Forest Theatre for my free lesson.

We started out with body weight squats and pushups to warm up and then go into jumping:  Long jumps as well as jumping from one level to another higher or lower level.  

Once I had that down, we moved to a wall about 5 ft tall to practice vaulting.  

Eric told me to run at the wall and try to get over it with any method I saw fit.  I gave him a half smile and sheepish laugh expressing my doubt but he stood firm so I gave it a shot.  I’m hanging from the wall and trying to get a grip with my shoes while trying to pull myself up and ultimately, I failed.  

He then showed me the proper way to vault over a wall by running towards it and pushing off of the wall at hip height to propel yourself upward.  You can’t push to hard downwards on the wall or your foot will slip.  

Eric said it’s all about turning horizontal momentum into vertical momentum.

The next step is to get your hands on the wall and push yourself up so your arms are locked.  Then you kick off with one foot and swing the other leg over the wall and climb up.  

The process is a little different with a higher wall.  First you push off the wall and reach up with hand on the same side as the foot you use to push off.  Immediately after you make contact with your hand, you reach up with your other hand.  Hanging there, you get your feet against the wall with your knees bent and pull yourself up so you can get one arm on the wall. Then you get your other arm’s elbow on the wall. From there you can pull your chest onto the top of the wall and then push your body up with your hands. Then you swing one leg up and stand on top of the wall. 

Fun stuff!

Then we moved onto tick tacking, which is when you run at a wall at an angle and push off of the wall to change directions. From there you can land on the ground or another wall, pole, etc.  

I want to take classes with them.  I also think I may write an article about them for HerCampus next time it’s my time to write an article.

Awesome day!