Parkour and Body Image

One of the fringe benefits that has me taking fitness more seriously is a desire to improve my body image. Parkour has particularly attracted me because it's such an all-encompassing discipline: it increases flexibility, strength stamina, all that... but how good is it at toning muscles and things like that? Size isn't really what I'm after: if I was larger, I just think I'd look weird (I'd look like that big manservant the writer guy has after Alex cripples him in "A Clockwork Orange"), but it would be neat to have abs and all that. It may sound shallow, but self-image is very important to people, and the people in those parkour videos on Youtube usually have nice bodies. Does parkour cover this aspect of fitness, too?

if you train hard enough. yes

Being "toned" and having your abs showing is all about having a low bodyfat percentage. Parkour will help you get there but it'll be mostly about eating right.

Society's view of what physical attributes are attractive does not coincide exactly with what is functional, so if that is all that you are concerned with there are probably better ways to achieve it than parkour, but the affect on appearance is close enough that people often remark upon the appearance of parkour practitioners' bodies (as you yourself have done), even if the practitioners themselves are not all that concerned with appearances.

Dave: The classic male body ideal is that of a young muscly man with a low-body-fat percentage. All three of these things contribute to the ability for a man to produce offspring, now tell me that isn't functional.

i think what dave ment was, that there are far more efficient ways to get such a body/appereance whcih is considered to be something ideal. for example body bulding will bring you much faster a lot further in this, but if you want to advance in parkour that surely isn't the perfect/only way (allthough i'd say that you can develop strength for parkour in a gym very easily but this is not my way whatsoever). With the right diet and a healthy and structured training it is however possible to develop a body which is quite nice to look at and a low body-fat percentage is good for parkour anyway

Let's see it as a nice side-effect?

Agreed. Besides, in modern society looks are an important thing so you need to pay attention to your appearence even if it is shallow and not connected to parkour.

i really believe its the conditioning that gives those effects and not the the actual parkour training

well it depends on what you classify "parkour training" as. Everyone trains differently; some spending their time conditioning while drilling techniques, others focusing on techniques, resting well during sessions and not tiring themselves. It definitely depends. Personally, i'd think (and i know this isn't entirely on topic here) that when i'm interacting with my environment and moving through it, i'm training for parkour. Since some people do a lot of conditioning in this way, yes, they can have alot of their physical work coming from "parkour training".