Falling is inevitable in parkour, so it is important to know how to minimize the impact of the fall that can result in injuries. Knowing how to fall properly is one of the most overlooked skills in parkour but is the best way to stay safe. If you do not know how to do it yet, you should know these before moving on higher ground.
Always Protect The Head And Spine
Always protect your central nervous system comprised of the head and the spine. It is very important to get them out of the way to prevent severe injuries to these delicate vital organs.
When you fall, tuck or curl your head away from the ground, and roll across your back to dissipate the impact.
Ensure to prevent all kinds of trauma in your vital organs so that you can do parkour again.
If you aim to fall sideways and maneuver yourself to fall to your back, you can easily protect the head and the spine. You can start with a curved motion by rolling to your side.
Dropdown towards the ground, making a smooth curve motion with the arm, elbow, and upper back. Rolling to the ground, always keep a slight bend in the arm, and don’t lock the arm.
Stay solid as a ball and fall to your back. Do not slam your elbow, your hand, or your back. Practice it by making a continuous curved motion going along with the fluidity of the fall.
If you find this move too impactful during practice, you can start doing it on a wall or a mattress. Whatever happens, ensure to secure your head and spine.
Master The Safety Roll
The basic roll in parkour is the best way to conquer heights and minimize injuries to your joints when doing parkour. This can help you survive landing or falling but only when done properly.
It is a trick used by traceurs to dissipate impact making the fall less damaging to the body. It is simple but certainly a life hack in parkour.
Before you learn to flip or vault, remember to learn parkour roll first to save you from pain and injury. To do this, start by jumping low heights and land on the ball of your feet.
Feel the ground when you land and dissipate the force using your feet like a spring.
As soon as your feet hit the ground, slightly push off yourself and use the momentum to roll back, forward, or sideways then turn your head sideways to protect it.
Tuck in the legs and roll across your back, then stand up. Gain your balance, and you can run again as if nothing happened. Master the parkour roll, and you can never go wrong in landing again.
Land On The Fleshy Parts of Your Body
When falling out of panic, the first thing you tend to do is reach the ground with your elbows, knees, and shoulder; however, you must avoid falling on your joints because it can lead to the irreversible tendon tearing.
As you fall, the impact on your joints can be severe if you land on them hence greater changes of complex injuries. The best thing to do is to land on the fleshy parts of the body like the thigh, buttocks, or back as long as it is not any bone.
You can ensure that you land on these meaty parts if you keep your elbows and knees bent and out of the way.
If you do this, it will be less likely that you will break a bone and can get back to training again in no time.
Go With The Momentum
The momentum from falling is no joke, and if you try to stop it or go against it, the fall will certainly hurt. So it is best to find a way to follow through with the momentum to reduce impact and injury by just keeping up with the fall.
Your instinct will stop the body from falling, but it is ideal for letting your body fall and trying to spread the impact across the larger parts of the body, not concentrating on one area.
You can go with the momentum by rolling after the fall; the larger distance you can roll, the less impact the fall can be.
Then, extend your palms and arms on the ground once the momentum starts to disappear and slap the ground to stop. This way, the safer you will be during the fall.
Be Mindful and Keep Calm
In parkour, presence of mind is always needed. Before making parkour moves, be aware of the surroundings and focus on the present moment.
Do not let your mind be lost in thoughts because this can lead to injuries.
Of course, you can get scared during the actual fall, but you should stay calm and keep your cool to think about how you can minimize the impact.
Sharpen Your Eyes and Senses
It is essential to have good reflexes in parkour, and training your senses is the best way to do this. Kinesthesia is the awareness of the surrounding by using receptors in the muscles and joints, which helps avoid injury.
Sharpening your senses is the prerequisite of kinesthesia, and you can achieve this by training them. You can start by meditation concentration. Supplement this with a proper diet and enough sleep.
Boost Your Flexibility and Balance
Balance and flexibility are major skills in parkour, and you should possess this to fall safely. Developing these skills may be hard at first, but you can with proper training and dedication.
Once you have flexibility, you can withstand more stress from physical activities on your muscles and joints. You can also flex your limbs to accommodate any surface that you may land.
At the same time, balance can stabilize your joints and muscles. In parkour, uneven surfaces are often encountered, and it is important to stay balanced to avoid tripping over badly.
Direct Your Fall to Non-Concrete Areas
Falling will be twice as painful if you fall on concrete; hence, always try to land on softer grassy or open spaces. It will be bad to fall on concrete because it can surely break your bones if you land incorrectly.
Pilot yourself in the split seconds you fall, direct yourself to grass or dirt, and aim away from people. Also, avoid areas that have sharp objects or corners that can puncture you when you land.
This will take calmness and peace of mind, and you should train hard to do this whenever you fall automatically.
Always Distribute The Fall Force
Remember not to concentrate all impact of the fall on one part of the body. Distribute the landing force by doing a roll to reduce the likeliness of injury.
This is why learning the parkour basic or safety role is crucial.
An example is to use your legs like a spring. When you fall and your legs are spread out, try to pull your feet into your chest, preventing the knees from hitting your face.
This position can help minimize the impact, dissipating it from your back to the legs. Practice this to the point that it comes in second nature.
At the same time, you can easily do this if you learn proper momentum control useful for almost any parkour move.
Stay Active and Train Falling Regularly
Staying active and always practicing the tricks you need for soft falls will be ideal to allow your muscles to remember the drill so that, every time you fall, you can do it naturally.
There is no other way to build that muscle memory but to do it frequently until it can be second nature. Ensure to practice falling safely as often as possible and be ready each time you fall or land.
Fall Forward If You Can
Falling forward is one of the most effective ways to be safe from a fall since this is the starting move of a safe roll and can give you some control over the direction of the fall.
This move is one you can easily do and learn anywhere. You have to start low and slow with a simple roll. In this trick, you can apply the same curve technique as falling to the back.
Next is to choose a shoulder that you want to roll. Roll with that shoulder, and roll from that opposite hip diagonal line to the back to make a smooth roll.
Place the hand side on the side shoulder you’re rolling into first. Placing the hand down, breaking the motion by bending your arm and rolling the shoulder smoothly.
Practice making this fluently and incorporate it into your training until you can stand and jump after a dive roll.
It would be best to aim to do this automatically when you fall forward, which you can achieve by practicing and getting used to it.
Use Your Palm and Forearms Wisely
When you train how to fall, It would be best to practice your arm reaction time first in general, since you can use your palms and forearms to stop yourself from rolling further.
Do not lock up your elbow fully; instead, keep your elbow slightly bent always to be ready to catch and absorb any impact.
Having good upper body strength and speed is very important to this exercise. Don’t throw your fingers straight to your head; instead, curve your fingers towards the inside.
Startup with the roll on the ground, keep up with the momentum, and allow yourself to go with it by rolling. Once the momentum has slightly faded, slap your arms and palm flat on the ground.
Keep your arm tight; bend your arm to help the body absorb the impact.
Plan Your Fall
Falls are usually unexpected and do not happen when you are prepared, but you can plan out your fall while on the verge of falling.
While in the air, scan the surroundings and plan out how you will position yourself on the ground to lessen the impact. Imagine what the fall may look like, plan and execute.
This action plan might sound idealistic, but it is doable.
Tips For Practicing How To Fall Properly In Parkour
If you still find it hard to prepare for the fall, here are some tips I recommend you do in training to conquer the fear and do the training efficiently.
Never Forget to Warm-up and Cool Down
Warming up before an exercise or training is beneficial to the body. It increases the heart rate gradually, making you ready for intense exercises and reducing the chances of severe muscle shoulder.
At the same time, cooling down will return the physiology of the body to its normal state, recirculating the blood and oxygen to help with muscle recovery.
When you train to fall properly, warm up well and do drills focusing on your shoulder and balance, especially mobility.
These are the most important exercises for safe falling since it involves a lot of flexibility and shoulder actions.
Practice on Something Soft
Falling is scary, and if you find it hard to practice directly on the ground, I suggest you start practicing on something soft such as a bed or a grassy lawn.
This will also make the training less impactful until you gain the confidence to do it in the parkour arena.
Do Proper Progression
It is important to do proper progression in any parkour move or a new skill you learn, not to overexert yourself.
It is wise to know that each athlete has a different progression rate, and you should understand that it is the way to perform a trick flawlessly.
You can start with the prerequisite moves, do them regularly until you master them, then combine the moves and perform the whole thing.
Make yourself comfortable before you show it off to others. Train your joints and muscles for harder and more complex moves.
Acquire Good Body Strength
Falling will mean a lot of force exerted on your body when you touch the ground, so it is essential to train your body with good strength to counteract this force.
It is important to acquire good leg strength when landing on your feet since you will mainly rely on them to distribute the force across other body parts.
Develop Proper Breathing Techniques
Proper breathing is essential for safe falling because it can calm the mind and allow you to think. It is also needed in the movement and endurance of your muscles to take a fall.
At the same time, after taking a hit, you can use proper breathing to reduce injury recovery time and heal faster from muscle soreness and pains.
To know more about proper breathing for parkour, you can read this article.
Start Practicing At Small Heights
To develop comfort and calmness when falling, you have to be patient with yourself and start first at smaller heights. Once you arm yourself with experience, you can begin to fall on higher grounds.
Be patient, and do not be tempted to jump without the confidence because you might fail, and it will certainly hurt physically and mentally.
Conclusion
Falling can get nasty, and there is no golden ticket to avoiding falls and injuries when you do sports such as parkour, so the best way to stay safe is to train how to fall properly and incur only minor injuries. Through this article, I am confident that no fall will catch you off guard but only if you know how to do it properly.
