Meet the Magherafelt guy who tests Ninja Warrior courses for a living
Paul Allen used to work at We Are Vertigo
Last updated 12th Jun 2017
26-year-old Paul Allen from Co.Londonderry has landed himself his dream job.
He’s one of lucky four lucky ParKour enthusiasts handpicked by Ninja Warrior producers that gets to travel Europe testing out courses.
The former We Are Veritgo employee has been into ParKour since he was a teenager.
ParKour is a non-competitive sport that involves running, jumping and climbing obstacles. The UK is one of the first countries in the world to officialy recognise it as a sport.
Paul was a finalist in the first series of Nina Warrior UK.
“I did pretty well in the first series of the show. I got speaking to the producers, made some friends and it all kind of snowballed from there. The next thing you know I was flying to Denmark and all over Europe”.
Paul’s role is to assess the difficulty of the grueling obstacle course and is travelling to Germany this week.
“Sometimes the course can be too easy or too challenging, that’s when I step in to give the organizers some feedback. It’s the coolest job in the world really.”
Paul who now lives in Belfast holds ParKour workshops and has set up his own gym called The Playground. He trains people that are interested in the fitness craze and tailors one to one coaching courses for Ninja Warrior enthusiasts that fancy having a go at the show.
“We like to think of it as playing instead of training. It’s just a huge play park for adults really. We jump, we climb, we swing. I like to show people that fitness can be fun. It doesn’t have to be about jogging 5k on a treadmill, or endless hours of squatting in a gym. It’s a fun way to achieve your goal.”
Recently Paul revisited his old workplace We Are Verigo with a few of his ninjja friends to produce this cool viral video.
Paul works with younger kids through schools and cross-community youth organizations.
“The opportunity for physical, social and mental development through parkour is massive. We like to give back by teaching younger generations coming through everything that we’ve learned.. It’s great seeing some of the younger guys and girls progress onto bigger obstacles that at the beginning of he course thought they could never achieve. It’s a great confidence builder.”
This was Paul in action during the Ninja Warrior Semi-Final broadcast on BBC 1.