Over-the-Top Exercise: Parkour Teaches You to Climb and Leap While On the Run

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BEING DRIVEN UP THE WALL by work is no good, but driving yourself up the wall for a workout can have some real fitness benefits. That's what Sean Hannah, a trainer at the Sports Club/LA (1170 22nd St. NW; 202-974-6600; Mpsportsclub.com), learned after discovering parkour, a sport that looks like a chase sequence from an action movie.

The idea is to run in a straight line, overcoming any obstacles in your way by scaling, vaulting and leaping (and it already has a following in D.C., thanks to Primal Fitness in Mount Vernon Square, the first parkour-based gym in the world).

Acting like a stunt man might not sound like something for everyone. After all, as Hannah says, "Most people will never have to jump off a building." But working these skills at a basic level can still help you better navigate wherever you're going in life, which is why he's offering a parkour workshop at the club Thursday night (6 p.m.-7:30 p.m., contact Sean to register).

The fun will kick off with an activity he calls "movement origami." He'll start the group in a simple position, such as in a squat with one arm touching the floor and another reaching toward the sky, and then students will "add kinks." The first one might tell the group to slide their right legs out to the side, then the next might have everyone pivot so they're in runner's lunges. It's a quick way to simultaneously warm up the body and mind, which are both critical to parkour success.

To boost agility, Hannah next plans to go through a series of quadrupedal drills. Moving on all fours like various animals forces every muscle to wake up and makes it easier to recognize that walking upright isn't the only way to travel.

Then it's on to the nitty-gritty of parkour. How do you get over a 3-foot-high ledge? You could just jump if you can get high enough, or you can push off with your hands to vault. And if you can't do either on the first try (which is likely), Hannah will break down the movement into its parts — the jump, the shove, the foot placement, the momentum transfer — until you get it. And if you don't,"it's a workout just to fail," he reminds.

Yet, the appeal of parkour to Hannah is that it never seems like a workout. "It makes me feel like I'm a kid exploring. As a child, I never needed an excuse to climb something," he says.

If you need one these days, think about what a continuous 15-minute parkour run — which is how the workshop will end — can do for your body. You'll get cardio from raising your heart rate, power from hopping and hurdling, muscle from pulling and pushing. "It makes you more everything: strong, agile, fast," Hannah says.

But it won't make you injured. Or, at least, that's the hope, so you can work on running up walls next time.

Photos by Lawrence Luk for Express