What is one of the most important skills a traceur needs in order to excel at parkour? Motor skills can make or break your ability to preform the various fine-tuned motions that are needed to latch onto smaller holds and crevices, which is a critical ability needed to expand your stunt varieties.
What are motor skills?
Motor skills are skills that enable the movements and tasks that we need for everyday use, even simple things like using a fork. Fine motor skills are those that require a high degree of control and precision in the small muscles of the hand, which as you can see is quite important for a traceur when practicing and preforming their parkour skills.
While motor skills are something that people are generally focused on children developing correctly, they can be strengthened and conditioned at any point in a person’s life. Active traceurs often train for strengthening their skills, as they must be agile, coordinated and in control of their bodies at all times to execute complex maneuvers and keep themselves safe.
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Practice Strengthening Your Grip
An important element of fine turning your motor skills is upping your grip strength. It’s a crucial part of your motor skills and overall health, and keeping strong hand and forearm muscles will allow traceurs to develop their skills. Think of it this way: At one point in your parkour endeavors, you’ll most likely find yourself hanging from a precarious ledge, and you’ll need the strength to hang on for another few seconds while propelling yourself upward to the next obstacle or to safe ground.
How to build grip strength? Add some forearm isolation exercises to your training routine, as well as pull-ups. Incorporating these workout fundamentals to build your grip strength might make your forearms feel a bit sore for the first few days, but will be worth the temporary pain. Once they get used to the extra weight and movements, you’ll most likely notice a big difference in your performance skills.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqeBGJXH-uQ
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Try New Sports to Expand Your Skill Set
It’s a brilliant idea to train in other sports that can help you develop the skills you need in parkour, and something that many traceurs do. There are many kinds of sports that can help develop your motor skills and become more well-rounded runners, jumpers and all around parkour pros. Sports that include a lot of hand eye coordination and accuracy are the best:
- Mixed Martial Arts
- Baseball
- Tennis
- Rock Climbing
- Ping-Pong
Nearly any sport that players have to make sudden changes of direction to move from one location to the next, such as rock climbing, or maneuver their bodies quickly and flexibly like with Martial Arts, or hit or catch the ball at full speed offers the perfect set of challenges for traceurs. At any rate, playing multiple sports is a great idea for athletes, regardless of their primary sport.
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Partake in Hand-Eye Coordination Activities
Didn’t we just cover this above? Yes and no. While it’s beneficial to partake in other sports for any athlete, there are many opportunities to do small hand-eye coordination exercises throughout the day and improve your motor skills, and we’ve listed a few below. While some might seem silly, remember it’s all about building your hand and eye coordination quickly and efficiently and effectively.
- Drawing
- Origami
- Stacking coins
- Sewing
- Puzzles
- Any another tasks or activities like these you can think of and enjoy!
Why do these activities help you when it comes to parkour? Simple. These exercises will change and help you improve your hand speed and accuracy, both of which are essential for parkour. We guarantee you’ll be able to move much more fluidly from obstacle to obstacle, while having more confidence in yourself. Plus, if you choose to do sewing, you’ll be able to patch any holes in your socks!
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Keep Your Mind Fresh by Mixing up the Terrain & Locations
What makes an expert traceur an expert? Their ability to seamlessly navigate all natural and artificial terrains. While forests, mountains, and other types of environments will be more unpredictable and dangerous, that only adds to the fun – and the skill you’ll need. The unpredictable and heightened risk will force you to be more precise with your movements and overall strengthen your abilities, making you a more skilled traceur in the long run.
Think of it this way: The wider variety of holds in the natural world will give you a never ending fresh challenge, while giving your motor skills a new way to level up. If your goal is to build well-rounded motor skills, you’ll need to get out of your comfort zone to try new obstacle challenges.
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Squeeze Play-Dough or Make Bread
What in the world does this have to do with parkour, you ask?
It’s all about those motor skills.
Working with play-dough or clay provides an opportunity to strengthen finger muscles by squeezing and stretching the material into different shapes. Buy or make your own type of play-dough and get busy rolling it out flat, squeezing it out between your fingers and into any shape imaginable.
Want to do something more beneficial with your time than playing around? We’ll make a baker out of you yet. Try making bread dough that needs kneading – that way you’ll have a delicious snack ready after your workout!
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