Sport and Parkour: Teamwork makes the Dream Work
How to read our work
We know you know how to read! But life is busy, you're busy and this might not be what you're looking for. Skim it first, read it later.
Each Risky Kids Article can be read:
- In it's entirety (just read it all), or
- Skim read. To skim read it, just read The FOCUS, SUMMARY and then all of the DOT POINTS and you're done!
Focus
Parkour is much more than just jumping around, it’s paramount movement and can prepare bodies for the rigours of sports.
Summary
If your kid is doing sport, they should be doing parkour as well. Between these two programs you tap into every benefit that a young body needs and make it able to face any challenge.
- Sport injuries are on the rise in young people,
- This increase in injuries is harming more than young bodies,
- Parkour is the perfect donor sport, working in harmony with sport
Sport Injuries Are On The Rise in Youth Sport
- Sport Injuries are rising, with decrease in organic play being one factor,
- Parkour programs like Risky Kids have 1/8th the injuries with a focus on responsive movement.
- Lots of lateral movements and reflexes are built, reducing injury likelihood.
Sport injuries are on the rise, with more and more focus on repetitive movements, and drills for young bodies and a decrease in natural play kids are being pushed harder, but then spending more time on devices and indoors missing the training their bodies need to excel at sport.
Programs like Risky Kids which use parkour instead have a hugely decreased rate of injuries, at Risky Kids it’s 8 times more likely an injury occurs in sport compared to with us. This is because of the nature of the program. Kids move side to side, quick direction changes, lots of weird angles and when something hurts, they stop and change.
This is exactly what kids used to get out of play, which meant less injuries when they were playing sport!
More Injuries, Less Confidence, Goodbye Sport
We want to decrease the amount of injuries young people are receiving to make sure that they don’t turn away from sport when it’s valuable to them.
- Protecting young bodies from harm should always be our first objective,
- By reducing injuries we can also reduce emotional harm,
- And increase the chances of longer participation in sport,
The first and most important part of decreasing injuries, is to make sure young bodies aren’t harmed when they don’t need to be! Sport injuries especially can be long lasting for young people.
In turn, these injuries and down time can mean young people become less confident in themselves and can become isolated from the communities which are a big part of their lives. They can also become reluctant to return, with their teammates pulling ahead.
Finally they might turn away from sport forever. Dropout rates in young people are huge, with up to 70% leaving sport forever by the age of 13. One of the many reasons this occurs is because of injuries or fear of injuries.
Parkour As A “Donor” Activity for Sport
Parkour is the perfect partner to sport. Its nature fills all of the gaps which sports often misses, and means you can hit all of the marks.
- Physically parkour creates a complete picture when partnered with sport,
- It also creates a social and emotional balance,
- Finally it covers how to be independent and work without a guide, while sport teaches how to excel with restrictions,
Where sport is often linear, moving in straight lines repetitively, Parkour is versatile and involves turning, rolling, swinging, spinning and changing directions frequently. This means that bodies will be highly well rounded and less prone to injury.
Where sports are often competitive and team based, parkour is individual and social. This means that young people can develop both sets of skills, being responsible to a team, but also striving for excellence intrinsically.
Finally, where sport is often prescriptive with rules and game mechanics, parkour is exploratory and reactive. This means that young people can learn both how to excel with boundaries, but also how to work without a map and be independent when there are no guides or goal posts.
In Conclusion
Finding the right programs for your Risky Kid can be tough! Making sure those programs amplify one another is even harder. Rest assured though that if your young people are doing sport, that they can become stronger, better and less likely to get injured the more they also train parkour.
Not just that, but they’ll also become even more courageous, more determined and hungry for challenge and also be able to do some awesome tricks and moves with great control over their bodies!
How to Join Us
What matters to us most, is our communities. By joining one of our Risky Kids clubs you’re not just improving your families’ health, but the health of your community.
By taking a risk you inspire others to believe that challenge and adversity are healthy, for young people and for families.
- Inquire with our clubs online,
- Check out our website,
- Visit your local club,
Richard Williams
Risky Kids Founder, Director of Programming
Richard Williams is a fitness industry consultant, gym owner, business coach and professional stunt actor with more than a decade of experience in the health and fitness industry. With an education in psychology and criminology, Richard blended life experience as a fitness industry consultant with Spartan Race, gym owner, elite-obstacle racer, ultra-runner and professional stunt actor to create the Risky Kids program.
Richard has a passion for enacting meaningful social change through all avenues of health and wellbeing and believes that obstacles are the way. Some of Richard’s key achievements include:
- Key consultant/coordinator Spartan Race/Tough Mudder/Extreme Endurance
(Australia/NZ/Global) - OCR World Championship Finalist – Team & Solo (2015)
- OCR World Championship Silver Medallist – Team Endurance (2018)
- Professional film and television stunt performer for 15 years
Considered one of Australia’s foremost experts in the fields of fitness, wellbeing and behavioural science, Richard is frequently in demand as a guest speaker for relevant government and non-
government bodies and organisations. Speaking engagements centred on the success of the Risky Kids program, philosophy and approach have included:
- Expert speaker/panellist Sports & Camp; Recreation Victoria and Outdoors Victoria forums
- Closing expert speaker at the Australian Camps Association National Conference
- Expert speaker at the National Fitness Expo, FILEX
