Freerunning
How Pasha Petkuns's baby daughter transformed his approach to fitness
Being inside freerunner Pasha Petkuns’ imaginative mind is always a fun place to be and as his latest fitness inspiration shows, his creativity is burning as bright as ever.
For the last 15 years Pavel 'Pasha' Petkuns has seen the world as his playground and developed a freerunning style focussed on originality and innovation. His childlike enthusiasm for finding fun new ways to push the limits of bodily movement was brought to life in his Human Pinball project, where he created a huge pinball machine and played the part of the ball himself.
Three times a Red Bull Art of Motion winner as well, Petkuns is renowned for being one of the most powerful freerunners, with his complex moves requiring strength, balance, agility and stamina.
Pasha Petkuns is an icon of freerunning
© Jason Halayko/Red Bull Content Pool
Unsurprisingly to his Instagram followers, who see his ripped physique, training is not taken lightly. The freerunner knows his way around the free weights and in direct contrast to his videos, where movement is far from in a straight line, he also uses a treadmill to ensure his cardio fitness is up to speed.
Most important though, is his stretching routine. "I feel like stretching is maybe even more important than exercising with weights, especially in freerunning, because there are a lot of impacts," explains Petkuns. "If you're flexible, you can take those impacts in a very different way.”
His newfound focus on stretching isn't by chance, but has been inspired by an unlikely source – his baby daughter. And while he believes he can still push his body to new levels, he's enjoying the switch from "complicated tricks" to "movement as meditation" that fatherhood has presented.
"I'm getting so inspired from her movement, because she started from zero," Petkuns says. "She was just on her back and couldn't even roll over. Now, she runs around. And the way she climbs and sometimes the way she trips, it inspires me because I see her ways of managing her skills and clumsiness.
Since becoming a father Petkuns has been taking infant inspiration
© Najib Zouein/Red Bull Content Pool
I feel like stretching is maybe even more important than exercising with weights, especially in freerunning
"I even started stretching way more, because I got so inspired. We went to the park and I saw this kid squatting so well next to a toy car, like a frog. I started stretching more because I want to sit like this kid!"
Seeing firsthand the innovative ways kids learn to move their bodies has sparked an interest in kinesiology. So much so, he might turn it into a new project. Petkuns reveals: "I'm taking notes when I see she does something. She can be sitting in a weird way that I've never seen before. I'm reliving being a baby again and it motivates me to absorb her, see what she's doing, take the inspiration and apply it to my world.
"I look at some things and think: 'Oh, I want to film a video of me doing what she's doing right now', because I think it's funny."
Petkuns is a firm believer in the benefits of daily stretching
© Najib Zouein/Red Bull Content Pool
Despite not dreaming up as many jaw-dropping runs across building tops as he might have once done, don't worry, there's still room for the occasional high-risk, custom flip. Warning, don't try this at home!
"I did a Backflip recently while holding my daughter on the trampoline," Petkuns remembers. "We started with a regular jump and then we did a 360 jump. I asked her if she wanted to try to flip with papa. She said yes, so we flipped and she was laughing. It was easy!"
We’ll leave that one to the professionals, Pasha.