Safety and Parkour

One of the first questions someone asks about parkour is "but isn't that dangerous?". The question of safety is a good one, and the truth is that it depends on how you choose to practice. Parkour is potentially among the safest athletic activities possible, but when practiced recklessly or incorrectly it can have horrible effects on the body.

There have in fact been very few reports of serious injury due to parkour and the original traceurs from France are exceptionally healthy for top level athletes. David Belle, the founder of the discipline, has said that he has never suffered a serious injury from practicing parkour.

Parkour is dangerous, only when techniques are practiced without the necessary fitness and skill level. It is very important that new traceurs do not attempt to jump from building to building or to drop off of heights. Beyond that, major dangers of parkour are overuse injuries due to the pounding of the body on concrete. A smart and progressive training program will prevent overuse injuries, while reckless, inconsistent, and thoughtless training will cause it.

Parkour can be significantly safer than many other popular sports for two reasons: it is done only with the use of the human body, and does not involve contact with other human beings. Compared to sports that involve boards and wheels, parkour does not have the same potential for speed (excluding large drops). With wheels, skis, and boards – surf, skate, or snow – one can attain speeds the human body alone is simply not capable of. For this reason it is much easier to save yourself from a fall while doing parkour than while skiing or skateboarding. Quite simply, a crash going down hill at 60 miles an hour is more dangerous then one going 15 miles an hour. Skateboards and snowboards also have the tendency to slip out from under the body, resulting in a fall that has to much momentum to allow for a recovery roll. Anyone who has ever caught their front edge on a snowboard or had a skateboard slipout from under them can tell you how fast and painful those crashes can be. Such slips can happen in parkour because of wet surfaces and unsturdy or broken obstacles, but they are far less pervasive a worry. In parkour you are always on your own two feet interacting with the environment using only natural human movement capacities. This allows parkour to be practiced with great safety.

The major dangers in team or combat sports involve interference from another player, whether a tackle in football, slide tackle in soccer, or being undercut in basketball. The primary dangers in these sports involve the momentum of two different individuals and sudden changes in movement forced by player interaction. The litany of common injuries caused by player-on-player impact in team sports is very lengthy and goes all the way up to spinal injury and death. In parkour the only impacts are from inanimate objects, which are generally not moving themselves, making them far more predictable than multiplayer interactions and therefore much safer.

Parkour can be very safe, safer then most sports in fact. The originators of the discipline have had a very strong history of safety. However, as parkour has spread via the internet through the passing around of videos, showing only the highest level movements and not the years of hard work that allowed them, more and more people are becoming injured because of their training.

It’s important for the practicing or perspective traceur to understand that it takes a great deal of time and dedication to develop the skill levels that allow the types of movements seen in the most popular videos. The jumps at height carry a huge amount of danger and could result in serious injury and death if missed. Within the French parkour communities it is customary to train for two years with dedication, training with more experienced traceurs before any such jumps are attempted. Anyone who is not training with absolute dedication should never attempt such movements, and even with strong dedication if you lack the instruction of people on the level of the original French traceurs, one should wait several years before attempting such movements. The ground level is absolutely the primary arena for parkour training, and this should never be forgotten.

The next largest danger in parkour is intentional drops from height. Huge forces can be generated in the legs by even relatively small drops, and the huge drops seen in the videos of some of the most experienced traceurs absolutely require years of physical conditioning and perfect technique to be accomplished safely. As well as a myriad of potential immediate injuries like bone fractures and torn and sprained tendons and ligaments, repetitive training of drops can result in significant chronic injuries through the degradation of the cartilage and connective tissue in the leg joints, especially the knee. Patello-Femoral pain syndrome, also known as patellar tendonitis or chondromalacia, is likely one of the most common injuries in parkour. This consistent ache and knife like pain when trying to jump can completely stop a traceurs practice for months. This type of condition is especially worrying because the traceur may perform many drops before the condition develops to the point of being painful, at which point it will take a good deal of rest and rehabilitation to undo the damage already done. While there have been no formal studies done on what levels of jumps are safe, and it depends a great deal on previous leg conditioning and individual biomechanics (a short legged muscular person with straight knees will survive drops much better then a long legged knock kneed slender person), a general rule that has grown to be accepted among experienced traceurs is that one should not drop off anything higher than you can jump onto without several years of dedicated training and physical conditioning. In addition to drops, high speed jumps and vaults and landing on concrete can cause deterioration of the soft tissue in the joints.

Slips and falls at ground level can also be significant risks for injury. Wet or unstable surfaces add significant elements of risk to parkour practice. Checking the surfaces and obstacles one intends to use in training is integral to safe training. Look before you leap, as the old saying goes.

All of these dangers can be minimized with correct practice to the point that parkour, as stated earlier, can be one of the safest athletic pursuits in the world. The problem is that, because of the way parkour has spread, very few people understand correct practice. Anyone interested in parkour or even active traceurs should do their best to seek out the training expertise of more experienced traceurs, both in person and through articles online. The key is dedication, incremental progression, and safety-oriented practice. Thankfully groups like David Belle Productions, the Parkour Coaching group, the British Parkour Coaching Assocation, the Yamakasi and now the PKNA are working to develop material and methods to teach Traceurs safe and correct training methods.