The Physics of Parkour
 

Juan Antonio Calzada Navarro

Parkour: “…is the physical discipline of training to overcome any obstacle within one's path by adapting one's movements to the environment.”-American Parkour.

Physics: |fiziks|
plural noun [treated as sing. ]

“the branch of science concerned with the nature and properties of matter and energy.” – New Oxford American Dictionary.

            Parkour is a discipline that requires amazing physical feats of the human body to perform stunts that normally one would not think of doing.  The most basic concept of parkour that one should know about, is the landing.  Why the landing? As a parkour practitioner myself (also known as a Traceur, which comes from the French verb “tracer” which means “to trace” and can be interpreted as “to go fast”) we are intrigued by the possibilities nature and out environment has to offer, and most of the times it’s a leap or a drop from different altitudes; and as in everything we have to respects the laws of nature. 

            Would you normally consider jumping from 3 meter tall platform? Neither did I before I learned the technique and later on the physics behind the landing roll.  According to the Potential Energy (Pe = [mass] [gravity] [height] ) a 70kg person would feel 2,058 J if he just lands, and it can be found that the leg bones can only sustain 385 J before breaking. But a traceur can jump from this height and feel as good as new.

            How do we pull this off? It’s all in the landing.  The landing roll, when executed properly, can transform this Energy into Kinetic Energy by extending the duration of the impact and allowing the Energy to travel from the feet, to the knees and hands, to the hips and upper body, reducing the stress the legs would feel.  When we land, we exert a force on the ground and by Newton’s Third Law, the ground exerts the same force on us.  By placing ourselves at an angle for the roll, the Normal Force actually propels the roll and helps us move forward.  We don’t make this Energy disappear; we dissipate it through our body keeping us safe from harm and ready for our next obstacle.

            Thanks to this technique we are able to practice the art of movement and feel like we are bending the laws of nature to our will. This discipline requires extensive training and good physical condition which can be acquired with time, we must never fear nature and it’s physics, but embrace and respect them so we can move freely together and overcome all of our life’s obstacles, both physical and spiritual.