Getting Organised

Right, it's time i got my ass organised, with conditioning, sleep, diet and school.

Conditioning: Over christmas holidays i slacked way too much when it came to conditioning and even when i was back at school i continued with not doing nearly as much conditioning as i should have done so this week i realy got back into it with a slightly new regime which i will post up later on. I should keep doing this weekly regime for a few years at least but making it harder every month or so by adding weight or more reps.

Sleep: I have decided to give myself an 11pm bed time so that i am not soo tired in the mornings anymore as i have been going to bed way to late recently and it doesnt help, and makes me late for school almost every day.

Diet: A healthy diet is a must, but it's another thing i'm not very good at maintaining. I sent an e-mail to Chris (blane) quite a while ago about food and what is a good diet for parkour and his reply helped me very much in knowing what i should and shouldn't eat.

Here is the main part of the absolute legends reply:

'I'll keep it as simple as possible so it's pretty straight forward to follow. What you want to do is take in plenty of protein, some carbs, and hardly any fat...

Basically, when it comes to a good diet for Parkour, it's all down to getting rid of the crap. If you are - then stop eating crisps, chocolate, white bread, cake, pies etc. This doesn't mean you can't ever have this, but it needs to play a small part of your diet.

Breakfast: Everyone says this but it really is the most important meal of the day. After sleeping, your body craves good food and if you exercise and train without breakfast, you will be forcing your body to BREAK DOWN muscle and literally eat it as a food source!!! Not good... so make sure you have food in your system before doing anything or all your hard muscle training will be wasted.

I recommend (and regularly have) orange juice, yoghurt, weetabix and a sliced banana with semi-skimmed milk. If you're still hungry then toast with peanut butter on it and tea. Eggs with your toast is good too but make sure they're not fried, go for poached or boiled.

Lunch: Pasta, chicken and vegetables on brown bread ( never ever EVER white :P ), fruits, dried fruit if you prefer, turkey sandwiches, salad.

Dinner: Plenty to choose from, try and make this different from your lunch time meal... Potatoes, rice, fish, chicken, turkey, vegetables, spaghetti, salads, eggs etc.

But although I've given advice for three different meals there, it's actually more beneficial for you if you have SIX meals per day. This doesn't mean overeat, this means cut all your usual portions in half and eat twice as often. This allows your body to digest the food easier as there is smaller amounts and since your never more than a few hours from more fuel, your body will always have energy.

So perhaps have breakfast at 7am, a snack at 10am, lunch at 12pm, another snack around 2-3pm and dinner at 5-6pm. Try not to eat heavily before going to bed as the body doesn't like digesting food when it's trying to shut down and rest.

Finally, if you REALLY crave chocolate and pizza and all that stuff then put aside one day per week, maybe Saturday or Sunday where you allow yourself to eat whatever you like. As long as you're sensible on the other 6 days then this won't be a problem. ;-)'

So i'm pretty much going to stick to that and have 6 meals per day at pretty much those times (7.30am, 10.30am, 12.45pm, 4pm and last meal between 6 and 9pm dependant on when im training!

Also i am meaning to get some whey protien soon to help with conditioning recovery and strength improvement which was also a GREAT tip from Chris. (apparently they taste soo good aswel :D)

So a massive thank you to Chris is in order for the extremely helpful tips.

School: Now I realy realy need to organise myself for school because i hardly ever get my homework and coursework done on time, i'm very often late and sometimes hardly put any effort into my work so i realy need to sort this out because i think my education and the job i have when im older will have a large affect on my parkour. What i want when im older is a fairly well paying job so i can live healthily and happily but with as little hours as possible so i can train and condition almost whenever i feel like, but to get this i will need a broad education and good gcse's and a levels ( i don't plan on going to university at the moment but i could change my mind) so that i have a wide variety of jobs to choose from so i can reach my goal and keep on training and conditioning whenever I want, and just keep progressing in parkour. So to do this i must get organised and get all my coursework and stuff done on time and be on time and sort out my education. :D