• Parkour Toronto FAQ
• Wikipedia article on parkour
• Video of David Belle, the founder of parkour

I started training on and off in Australia around the middle of 2007. When I moved back to Toronto in March 2008, I began training with PKTO (Parkour Toronto).

Unfortunately, it seems that I’m a bit prone to injuries. From parkour alone, I’ve punctured the same shin twice, sprained an ankle a couple of times, bashed my knees many times, and received the usual cuts and scrapes that come with the territory. Two weeks ago, I also crashed while riding my bicycle. That was NOT pretty, and it did a number on knee. And the second shin puncture occured two weeks before the crash. Ack.

So for the past month, I’ve been healing rather than training. Healing sucks. I mean, it’s great beacuse it’s getting you closer to being able to train again, but the fact that you can’t train…at least, not train “fully”…sucks.

Yesterday evening I got back into training. However, while I was healing, there were times when I was pretty unmotivated and down. I felt like I was making no progress: I’m always injured, what’s the point?, etc. But I slowly realised that there are things you can do to keep yourself motivated while healing.

First of all, train other parts of your body. My knee was giving me grief, so I started working towards 100 push-ups. If you hurt, say, your shoulder, work your abs and legs. Also, stay involved in the community. Go out to meet-ups even if you can’t train. It’ll keep you motivated and looking forward to when you can train again.

Another thing you can do is stretch and do research. Videos abound explaining technique, conditioning routines, etc. Do some homework and develop a routine for the time that you’re recovering, and tweak your usual training regimen.

It’s all about making the best of the situation that you’re in. Yeah, it sucks to be injured. But accept it when it happens, and modify your training to fit in with your predicament. If you do that, you’ll be pleasantly surprised when you get back to your regular training.