Day 19 - Evening vicar

Woke up: Blazing sun
Mid-afternoon: Pouring rain
Time to go out: Slightly damp, otherwise fine.
Nice going London.

Met up with the local group in Twickenham at a spot we call 'Big Drop'. That's down to the fact that when we were in our first year, it was ridiculously high. It's a raised sitting area in a park about 1 and 1/2 meters from the rest of the ground level.

Content
At 'big drop' there are quite a few precisions, large leaps and one cat leap spot. This was the main brunt of this area.
We moved to a play park where there are a lot of metal structures, such as monkey bars and railings [as badly pictured below], so spent a long while just messing around, having fun, developing some new movement and trying to piece together some flow.
Final place we went to was St Marys University. We meandered around the grounds a bit, doing the odd climb or vault here or stride there. We came to one spot which was nice for wall runs, climbing, cat leaps and downwards precisions, but after 5 minutes an Irish vicar, profusely shouting 'Hey Spiderman, Oy, Tarzan' decided to kick us off the grounds :-(

Location
Twickenham - Big Drop, play park and St Marys Uni [SMU].

Experience
Nothing really major apart from being at SMU. The vicar wasn't overly respectful in his manner of speaking to us. At one point he told us that a specific tree wasn't meant for climbing, and was dumbstruck when asked its true purpose.
After being ushered off the ground from behind by the vicar, a member of security had a better hearted chat with us, 'mirin our aesthetics.

 Oh dayum I've written a lot.
Just have fun everyone!

-Frank

Day 18

Tonight was a pretty good session. It had been raining a bit, so I was expecting mad wet surfaces, however, the spot we call 'funeral wall' [it's not as sinister as it sounds] was bone dry. Perfect


Content
This was a perfect set up for doing some wall climb work. Standard cat leaps [running from the floor, and jumping max distance]; climb-ups [always really nice to work on] and other techniques.
My favourite new thing was crouching on top of the wall, and dropping down past a gap to cat leap. If I had remembered to take a picture it'd be better explained, but it was a sideways-drop-to-cat, in effect.

Location
Whitton High Street, Funeral Wall spot

Experience
First session out in the wet, and has left an optimistic idea of winter in my head. If every session is this damp but rainless, I'll be laughing!

-Frank

Day 17

Nothing major. Handstand trennins at home

Content
Largely focused on handstand work. Against the wall for now in my room. Tried different hand positions; distances from the wall; spread of legs.
Best held one was normal, shoulder width arms with legs spread [comfortably] wide.
Did a couple of planche practices and some fun on my pull-up bar to top it off

Location
My room, my training wall

My Experience
Had a tiring day. Was walking a lot, Christmas shopping with the lady, but on top of that were some pretty long cycles, totalling 13-odd miles I'd say for the whole day. So fairly tired from that, which produced the arm and shoulder work.

Nothing special tonight, but I did take from it that I should practice hand balance more

-F-dizzy

Day 16 - Hitting The Ivy

Today was a good day. I felt fresh and ready to tackle some good spots. No better place local than Ivybridge Estate!
This place has spots for every level and so much content to train. You'd be hard pressed to get bored here. So many games to play, things to touch, heights to explore.

Today, however, seemed to be a rails day.

Content
Lots and lots of rail balance, walking etc; and rail precisions. Up, down, level, short and far. I didn't take a picture of every spot because that'd be like pornography and frankly, there's not enough room!
Plenty of climbing, both running and from standing. Few vaults chucked in here and there and the day was complete.

Location
Ivybridge Estate, various spots

My Experience
Today was a really nice session. My fingertips are hurting from wall climbs, as are my palms. I had a couple of moments where I slipped and almost had an accident, but instead released a shedload of adrenaline and saved it instinctively.
I both love and hate those moments.
Few kids from the estate followed us for the day, trying out some moves.
Other than that, was a standardly good sesh!!

Day 15 - Rest

I've had a pretty busy week, and a weekend with a group of friends, so I've decided to take today off to let my legs [primarily] recover, but generally the rest of my body.

Over training exists, so if you don't give your body time to repair and rest, or if you don't vary your workouts, you'll see things turn sour instead of improve!


To make up for this genuine excuse and poor time management, I vow to do at least 2 hours tomorrow, aiming for about 3.
Thinking of hitting up Ivybridge.

Oooh papi, some nice pics to come tomorrow if I do.

-Franks

Day 14

Pretty easy day today. Passed my First Aid at Work course [ballin]. Decided to hit somewhere local for a short while since I had to prepare for tonight.

Content
Did lots of wall stuff and a bit of exploring. Most trennin consisted of dyno technique and practice on the stepped wall, including wall runs to dyno.
Also did some standard wall runs and climb ups.

Went to a new spot and found a climb, as pictured below, so will be working on techniques to get up that.

Location
Whitton High Street

Experience
Fairly standard sesh. Had a couple of Whittonians [who are known to be demented or soul less] approach me but nothing major.

Pics:

-Frank

Day 13

Not the most exciting day today. Pretty tired from college and had an assessment at the youth club.
So my "training" for today is the coaching I did at the youth club (as well as counting the occasional precision and the cycling journeys).

So, content was my assessment: an hour of coaching the dudes at the club. Simple things like roll and vault practice, but pointing out individual places where they could improve.

Location
Ham youth club

Experience.
Bit lethargic. First day i didnt properly train. However, i passed my assessment and im happy with my coaching.

Tomorrow should be interesting, planning to train during lunch hour!

Frank

Day 12

Another afternoon at the Twickenham Lache Spot with Lewis
Was dark, I was tired and I didn't fancy going for it hard.

Content
Laches - Developed them here a bit further by using one swing to get up and then launching on the second swing.
Stading underbar to cat - Picture below shows where we did this. Nice progression upwards getting a high jump, then underbar to the wall.

General bar work.


Location
Twickers Lache Trennin

My Experience
I did a fair bit of cycling, then loads of activity in my college gym sessions [spinning, ugh] and the coldness of the bars battered my hands a bit.

Still, did my hour!

-Frank

Day 11

Second time doing the Forearm workout. Dead, again. Meant to be making cookies tonight, no way am I stirring.
The warm up I used can be found here again.

Otherwise, the session was largely the same as before just with some progression in it.

Content
Pull-Up to Grip sets

3x Pull-ups to hang [10, 10, 8, 5]
2x Plank [45 sec, 50 sec]
1x 50sec Forearm curl - 13KG [Use weighted barbell, curl at wrists]
2x Pull-ups to hang [5, 5]
48x Push-ups [Wide arm, Narrow, Right/Left hand assisted fingertips - Reps of 12]
Cool-down included powerball to release blood from my arms.
Now about to do a 3.2 mile cycle to my ladys house.

Location
My house, on the bar

My Experience 
Rock solid forearms. Inability to do things such as grip right now.
On the up side, dem veins. If I'm ever in a photoshoot of sorts I might do a couple of sets of these to monkey out on.

Progress pic below.

Keep training folks
-Frank

Day 10 - Late Night Railing

Had college today then a Duke of Edinburgh meeting, so the only reasonable time I had to train was after it all, at 8:30PM with Lewis.

We hit Whitton.

Content
A few wall climb practices and bollard precisions, but the main brunt being rail precisions [about 1m-2m distance]

Location
Whitton High Street

My Experience
Started off cold but this didn't last long. The high street was deserted which was pretty sweet for being undisturbed, except that we got approached by an old-skooler! Johnny Last, a friend of Nicks and someone that both Nick & Lewis met at the weekend.
Another soldier added to the local ranks and a top dude to train with by the looks of things!
No pics as Whitton isn't that exciting really.

-Frank

Day 9 - Wall Trennin

This morning was a short 45 min session during which a friend an I focused on wall run technique [as he needs it for an event]

Content
Plenty wall running. Mostly focusing on correct technique, quickest ways up and all, but also incorporating the highest wall we could accomplish and a little bit of dyno work. We also found a nice traversal wall

Location
Car park near my friends flat

My Experience
Pretty good sesh, was refreshing being out at around half 9! Pretty quiet and we had a passer by stop with us who hadn't trained for a few years. Was pretty sweet and I hope my friends practice has paid off.

-Frank

Day 8 - Saturday in Soton

Ooooh today was awesome. Met up with the local community at 1PM and they took us around to some sweet spots!
Unfortunately, Chris injured his leg, a lot, which ended the day but we were 3 hours in so that was enough anyway

Content
Bit of everything. Cat leaps, wall climbs, plenty precisions and strides. Just a load of good stuff in new places

Location
Spread around Southampton

My Experience
Was really cool to train with these guys. Some modest, beast stuff going on down there. Unfortunately, we were at the first spot and police got called, rather ridiculously, to move on a small group [us] of about 15-20. Southampton police would die of shock if they saw Londons scene.
The day was good, the trennin was good and the muscles ached.

Pics, as standardly. Yes I was red.

See ya

Day 7 - Quick Soton

Posting at 2:01AM :-)

Content
Precisions, movement, routs and lines. And teaching some bros some things. Mostly just mad precisions. Bit of climbing too.

Location
Southampton town Center

Experience
Really nice new areas. That's largely it!

Enjoy pics
Latarz

Day 6

Today I had 2 training sessions.
The first was mandatory due to an assessment on my Fitness Instruction course.
The second was also mandatory as it was work.

Content
For our assessment, one student was the Trainer and one was the Client. That's irrelevant, here's what I did:
2.5k Rowing Machine
Seated Leg Press
Chest Press
Upright Row
Single Arm Rows
Lateral Raises
Chest Press
-Sets and reps are more or less irrelevant as they were low for the assessment.

Work:
In a youth club I coach at with Ash Holland and Bobby Smith [two sweet dudes to tren with]. As well as coaching all the children who attend, I did some vault practice, with a little bit of strides, but session focused on precisions to a bar.

Location
College Gym & Youth Club

My Experience
Today was alright, bit tired throughout due to cycling everywhere and the amount of activity but it was well spread out.
Forearms felt dead from yesterday and the rower didn't help.
Session at the youth club was pretty sweet, massive amounts of energy from everyone and loads was done.


I'm going to Southampton for the weekend, so blog posts might take a back seat, however, I am meeting up with Freff :-P

Preddy mush.

-Frank

Day 5 - Owch Forearms Owch

So I got into my training today with no plan and at home, so I decided to have a look at an American Parkour email I get daily.
The warm up I used [after some joint mobility and pulse raising] can be found here.

After that, I got into the main component.

Content
APK described it thus:
"On a pull-up bar, do the max number of pull-ups you can (choose a variation that allows at least 10), immediately after reaching max, hang from the bar as long as possible. Once you fall, rest 20 seconds and hang again. Repeat the full cycle 2 more times."
If you really want to go beast mode on your forearms and grip, then do these. By god do these.
Here's what I did for my session:

3x 10 Pull-ups to hang
2x 45sec Plank
1x 45sec Forearm curl - 13KG [Use weighted barbell, curl at wrists]
2x 5 Pull-ups to hang
40x Push-ups [Wide arm, Narrow, Right/Left hand assisted fingertips]
Cool-down included stretching and powerball to release blood from my arms.
Location
My house, on the bar

My Experience 
I've found my Captain America forearms exercise. Holy hell it's hard to type! The pull-up to hang exercise is ridiculously good and on I will implement fortnightly most likely.
Worked a lot of forearm tonight, including some shoulder and core. Felt good to have a moderately structured session too.

Check out the pics below to see Gorilla Mode

Signing out, to watch Hercules [1969 Arnold version],
-Frank

Day 4 - Scaffolding :-P

Hey sup hi,

So today I went out with my buds Lewis [http://lewisatpk.blogspot.com] and Nick.
We went to a nice, tucked-away spot locally which has some gorgeous scaffold setup, as shown below. We've been quite a lot before and each time we set-up and find something new.

Content
Lots and lots of bar work. Routes which included precisions; jump to bars; swings; laches; swings to cat; swings to precisions; dynos and cat leaps.
There's so much in this spot that writing it all down would take up my whole evening!
It's a condensed little spot but has a lot of possibility, thanks to the set-up of the scaffold and the moveable floor planks.

Location
Twickenham Scaffold Spot

My Experience
I felt pretty good today. I've noticed since the start that I've been feeling better each day and that's either due to increased trennin, increased sleep or [likely] both.
Did a lot of jumping today, and I can still feel my callouses a bit from the amount of holding I did of the cold, unforgiving bars.

Hopefully this picture gives some scope of what it's like. In the snow, Twickenham is going to be REAL interesting.

-Frinkles

Day 3

 Evening,

I decided to stay at home again but this time stay in my room. I wanted to do work on handstands, but this turned into hand balance and playing on my pull-up bar.

Content
Lots of hand balance work. I cleared a section of my room so I could use my wall to help out. I did quite a lot of balances against the wall and tested some handstand pushups.
Alongside this, I did a lot of tuck planche work; holding for 10-15 seconds; trying pushups; extending one leg at a time then retracting it. And some push-ups
Also, I tried new things on my pull-up bar; hanging straight upside down and slowly controlling bringing my legs to the floor [negative leg lowering basically]; pull-ups, standardly; leg tucks.

Finally, I decided to count the two 25minute cycle journeys I had in the evening towards my training. I made an effort to pump hard there and back!

Location
My room.

My Experience
Was a good day, exploring different moves and techniques. Tomorrow will be better as I'm hitting some scaffolding with friends. Awesome :-P

-Frankles

Day 2

How do everybods,

Today was pretty unplanned. I ended up in Whitton High Street with Joe, doing another hour.

Content
I practiced wall climbing techniques for the majority of the session, including normal climbs [low wall and high wall]; static climb-ups [for strength and technique]; one and two handed dynos; and shimmying [much like Ms. Croft]
My plan this session was to do sets like before, so 5 reps of right hand dyno, 5 of left and so on.

Location
Whitton High Street

My Experience
 Training with others is always fun due to the challenges you set each other. I also find you stay out for a bit longer and are more motivated.
After exploring around a bit of a roof a shop owner came out and told us there were cameras around. Due to his broken English he said, "If anything is missing..." then just trailed off. We assured him we'd stay on the lookout for theives and no-gooders.

         ^-A poor quality photo of the walls we practiced on
-Frank

Day 1 - The Beginning

What better place to start than in the comfort of your own home?
Gonna keep it brief as I have to go out soon.

Content of session:
I used wooden planks to set up various precision drills. I wanted to work precision technique, foot placement and get a core workout.
I did general jumping around for warm-up moves. Then I set up a couple of routes and practiced those till I got them down
I also did a lache to precision; tree climbing; strides; consecutive [2 footed] jumps; resistance exercises [various curls with small planks, overhead squats with long plank] and what I'm calling Up & Downs [Quite simply, you do a set of 5 jumps up, then 5 down in one spot. Only stuck landings count]

Location
Back garden of my house

My experience
-Felt good to get going. The long year ahead of me hit me though.  An hour a day isn't much if you sacrifice unnecessary other tasks but could get challenging depending on where you are.
-Worked my legs, my core, and my arms and shoulders slightly with the climbing and curling.
-Didn't  see much interesting, it was my garden..

Day 1 finished, now to hit the shower.
-Frank

Introduction

Readers,

This idea began as a suggestion from Chris Bean; Why not take the idea of Photography 365 and adapt it to Parkour and General Trennins?
Beginning 12th November 2011 and ending 12th November 2012, I will be committing to 1 Hour at least per day of training, with the aim of documenting:
-Content of session
-Location
-My experience [How I felt, What I worked, What I saw]
And anything else which may seem appropriate.

Updates won't come daily because committing to an hour a day is enough commitment. But look forward to pictures and videos!

Notable points during PK365:
-Tankuary
-Paleo January
-Camp America [Work in progress]

Goals:
-Captain America forearms [dat Chris Evans]
-Spread awareness of Parkour
-Improve body; both functionally and aesthetically
-Develop skills further [bigger, better, safer]

Thanks for reading,
-Frank