First Cut Fitness

The climb up is one of the most useful moves in parkour, yet also one of the most difficult to master because it requires a good deal of lower and upper body strength along with stellar coordination. Ryan Ford of APEX Movement uses a "measuring stick" to test your prowess, which is 5 climb ups in a row.

Anything 15 seconds and under is pretty impressive. If you can get it down to 11-12 or even less, you are truly an amazing athlete. Even if you don't do parkour, this is a great skill to practice, as it is essentially a complete upper body workout, with a bit of legs thrown in the mix. This is also a precursor to the muscle up, so if you are able to do a good amount of these, you should be able to perform a muscle up without too much difficulty and vice versa.

Also, keep in mind that the time starts from the moment you make your first descent, and ends when your feet touch the top of the wall on the fifth climb up, not when you ascend back down. Have fun and be safe!

From March 15-17, we had the opportunity to train with the preeminent parkour coaches in the country, Ryan and Amos from APEX Movement. The newest branch of their ever-expanding empire has recently opened its doors right in our backyard, so we knew we couldn't let the opportunity pass us by.

The idea of this course is not just to learn more about parkour, but to become certified coaches of our own. We figured this would be a great way to complement the calisthenics and bodyweight stuff that we already do. We've always implemented parkour conditioning into our teachings anyhow, so by obtaining this certification from APEX, it will only help to solidify our teachings. Look for more parkour-related content from us in the near future!

 

Oh, and the facilities are pretty nice too! If you are in the area, come check it out, and also see E's Yelp review here!

 

APEX Movement NorCal

930 Detroit Ave. Suite A

Concord, CA  94518