updated 9:01 a.m. ET July 21, 2009
Chad Bowers didn’t learn about his favorite new workout at the gym or by reading an article about it. He watched videos on YouTube, where people have posted thousands of clips (影视片断) of themselves jumping over benches and railings (栅栏), leaping down flights of stairs (stair flight指一段楼梯), climbing up walls and fences (篱笆), and swinging from (悬挂) playground equipment and tree branches.
They’re practicing parkour (跑酷), an extreme sport rooted in (来源于) French military training that has been spreading to cities across America. Parkour fans are typically people like Bowers who discover it on the Internet and then start up local parkour clubs that get together for “jams.”
Bowers, 20, a junior at Drury University in Springfield, Mo., started practicing parkour almost a year ago. He met with more experienced practitioners (老手，实践者) – known as “traceurs” (males) or “traceuses” (females) — in Kansas City and St. Louis, and he and a friend created a group called Springfield Parkour.