What Makes Parkour Unique? A Narrative Review Across Miscellaneous Academic Fields

Abstract

Parkour is a growing sport that mostly involves jumping, vaulting over obstacles, and climbing in a non-dedicated setting. The authors gathered all known relevant literature across miscellaneous academic fields in order to define parkour with regards to other sports disciplines.Parkour is a lifestyle sport, and as such provides an alternative to mainstream ones, away from strict rules, standardized settings, and necessary competitions. Traceurs (parkour adepts) consider the city as a playground and as an outlet for their creativity, but they also have a strong taste for hard and individualized challenges. They usually train on non-specific

Acute effect of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on postural control of trained athletes: A randomized controlled trial

“…Indeed, parkour requires not only to jump high or far, but to be accurate at the same time (e.g. when jumping from one the edge of a wall to another), making the activity fundamentally different from many other sports, such as track and field were the goal in to jump as far as possible [ 18 ]. This conflict between power and accuracy may lead traceurs to show neurophysiological specificities, at a spinal level regarding reflex pathways as well as at cortical level in M1 area configuration [ 20 ].…”

“…In the present study, we aimed to include athletes that are particularly trained regarding balance–parkour practitioners [ 17 ]. Parkour is a modern physical activity which consists in overcoming various obstacles from the urban landscape, such as fences, benches, or walls [ 18 ]. Parkour practitioners (also called traceurs) showed greater lower limb muscle performances than untrained individuals or other trained athletes such as track and field athletes or gymnasts, particularly in eccentric modality [ 19 ].…”

“Run-and-jump failure”: new injury patterns in indoor bouldering

“…Thinking out of the box similar complex movement sequences such as running followed by jumping and catching the momen-tum with arms or legs are reminiscent of movement patterns from urban free-running, also called parkour. Recent publications on parcour have shown an strong accumulation of injuries in the area of the lower extremities [11].…”

Mencegah Keparahan Cedera dengan Pemberian Edukasi Penanganan Cedera Akut pada Komunitas Parkour

“…Parkour merupakan olahraga yang dilakukan oleh traceur (orang yang melakukan parkour) dengan tujuan untuk berpindah ke satu titik ke titik lain dalam lingkungan yang kompleks dengan cara yang cepat dan efisien tanpa peralatan tambahan (Karmali et al, 2019;Pagnon et al, 2022).…”