Improve Your Balance and Coordination for Parkour, Free Running, and Tricking with Easy Exercises

Everyone has wished at some point that they were a little more coordinated. Whether you want to get more agile to improve your tricks, or you want to fall less and avoid injury, better balance and coordination is something to always strive for in Parkour, free running (sometimes spelled freerunning), and tricking. Exercise is a common suggestion for improving any physical quality, but many people find traditional exercise repetitive and boring. Instead of doing the same old drudgery, try these fun and easy exercises to improve your balance and coordination.

Try Wii Fit.

Wii Fit is a video game available for the Nintendo Wii that has numerous exercises for improving your balance. Most of the "exercises" are fun mini games in which you try to roll a ball through a path or walk a tight rope by using the Wii Balance Board, which senses shifts in weight. The games are very entertaining and help with balance and reflexes, another great skill for athletics. There are also strength and yoga exercises. The yoga exercises improves balance as well as flexibility and strength, both of which help with agility, and the strength exercises are simple body weight exercises such as push-ups and lunges which improve strength. Both have clear and easy-to-follow instruction with trainers that show you the proper way to do the moves.

Go to dance class.

Going to a dance class or doing a dance video or DVD can greatly help your coordination, as well as your balance and sense of rhythm. Any kind of dance can be both fun and a great workout. There's everywhere from tap to jazz to ballroom to ballet to hip hop. Trying all the different kinds can be exciting and broadening. Learning the routines can be tricky at first but can be a great skill to have. Finding a quality teacher or DVD makes understanding the routines easier and is often to key to enjoying dance.

Do yoga.

Yoga helps with flexibility and balance. Yoga comes in different varieties for all skill levels. Hatha yoga, for instance, is slow and meditative and generally has simple poses. Vinyasa is usually faster paced with the poses flowing seamlessly from one to the next. Many yoga poses call for balancing while in an unusual position and can greatly improve your sense of balance. There are many beginner classes and tapes that have poses that the less experienced can perform without difficulty. As your skill increases you can try more and more difficult poses and strive to perform each pose better. Yoga is also popular for stress relief.

Play on a playground.

Playgrounds are a great source of fun activities that can help improve coordination and balance. Playgrounds are also well known as good places to do Parkour and free running. If you feel embarrassed playing on a children's play set, you can try going at hours that are less busy such as school hours during the fall. From climbing around on the ladders and ropes to traversing the balance beam, playgrounds are basically free and easy to find obstacle courses, and obstacle courses are a great way to improve coordination and balance. The military even uses obstacle courses to train and test soldiers' agility. Plus, there's nothing like the nostalgic feeling of getting to play on the monkey bars again.