5 Reasons Parkour Is a Catalyst For Summer Growth

When summer rolls around, many students take a break from school, sports, and extracurricular activities. While some downtime is healthy and necessary, it’s also important to stay active and continue progressing in the things that matter to you. For parkour practitioners, staying enrolled in parkour classes during the summer can make a huge difference in skill, confidence, and overall well-being.

Here’s why continuing parkour through the summer is so important:

1. Consistency Builds Progress

Parkour is a discipline that relies heavily on muscle memory, coordination, strength, and confidence. Taking a long break over the summer can cause progress to stall—or even regress. Regular training ensures you stay sharp, keep building strength, and retain all the movement patterns you’ve worked hard to develop during the school year. Breaks are definitely necessary and everyone should take breaks when they need them. However, three months off of training is a big hit to consistency, especially when students are at the verge or have just acquired a new movement. Take the time you need off, but we wouldn’t recommend anything longer than one month at a time unless you are training parkour elsewhere.

2. Summer Is the Best Time for Practice

With more daylight and fewer academic distractions, summer is actually the ideal time to train. Indoor classes are great for students to learn and refine their movements, while outdoor training lets students get their reps in. When they get back to classes, coaches polish students’ movements more. This process of refinement and repetition creates muscle memory that develops students the most effectively, especially when students work with harder surfaces and begin to set their own goals to train.

We already know outdoor training is great to get outside, and summertime is less stressful and more restful. Pair that up with outdoor training and indoor learning, and you have a great time to take your parkour to the next level.

3. Staying Active Supports Mental and Physical Health

Parkour is more than just jumping and climbing—it’s a full-body workout that boosts cardiovascular health, builds strength, and improves flexibility. More importantly, it’s fun and mentally engaging. During the summer, staying active in a structured environment helps reduce screen time, prevent boredom, and support emotional wellness. If children are stuck at home while families are still working jobs over the summer, indoor classes teach students what to do outdoors when they get there. Unlike other sports where you need equipment, parkour can be practiced anywhere.

4. Some Movements Need Constant Training

More specific to consistent progress, there are some movements that need constant upkeep more than others. Balance, precisions for accuracy (not just jumping), bar swings, flips, and anything fear-based which can include a variety of things like climbing, higher heights, or narrower surfaces need constant work to prevent from going rusty. If students take too much time off from a jump they just built the courage to obtain or if a move requires time to familiarize with, they’ll have to restart when they come back which can lead to self-limiting mindsets. Kongs can take multiple sessions to build up, and it’s easy to lose when it’s not solidified in muscle memory. Losing a kong vault can take as much time to learn again if the break is too long.

5. You’ll Be Ahead of the Game in the Fall

When others return from summer break feeling rusty, students who stayed in class will come back stronger, more skilled, and ready to tackle new challenges. Similarly to students comparing previous versions of themselves, students can develop comparative mindsets when they see others ahead of them who were not previously. Staying in parkour classes gives you a head start and sets you up for success as the next school year begins.

Final Thoughts

Summer should absolutely be fun, but that doesn’t mean hitting pause on your passions. Staying in parkour classes keeps you moving forward, both physically and mentally. Whether you're working toward specific skills, staying in shape, or simply enjoying the community and creativity of parkour, summer classes help you make the most of your time off.

Take your breaks, but don’t let them bring your progress to a halt. We recommend keeping breaks to a one-month maximum—keep climbing, vaulting, and pushing your limits. Your future self will thank you.