JUMPING off rooftops, climbing up buildings, doing handstands on lampposts and balancing on walls are just some of the routine activities of these Southend freerunners.

Freerunning has become extremely popular in Southend as a local group has grown from 5 to 300 in the past five years.

Professional freerunning and Parkour athlete Alex Tucker, 22, from Southend, has helped the phenomena grow and says the sport is helping young people who have gone down the wrong path find meaning in their lives again.

Freerunning is the art of moving through an urban environment using obstacles in a creative, acrobatic or efficient way. It is currently one of the fastest growing sports in the UK, and that includes Southend.

Mr Tucker says it is often portrayed as dangerous and wreckless, but feels it is an unfair depiction of the sport.

He says: “This is not the case, when carried out properly it is a very safe and beautiful discipline being a perfect outlet to be active, creative, artistic, individual, productive and adventurous.

“Any normal person will walk past a wall and just see a wall. A freerunner will see the same thing as a beautiful object that can be used in an acrobatic, creative way and artistic way.”

The 22-year-old is best known for his stunt doubling of Sportacus in the children’s television programme “Lazy Town”. He was in the world renowned Arena Tour of Jesus Christ Superstar – Andrew Lloyd Webber production.

As a professional freerunner Mr Tucker is part of a team called DTM Freerun, a professional group, who spend their time travelling around the world performing and competing at various international events.

He said: “We are famous and well respected in our community.

With over 8,000 likes on our Facebook page, and thousands of hits on YouTube we can help inspire people and make them aware of this beautiful discipline.”

He said he has been a freerunner ever since he was little, but just didn’t realise it.

“I have always climbed trees, walked along walls and jumped off park benches, ever since I was about 5, I just didn’t realise it was a discipline.

"It was when in school someone told me it was Parkour. I looked it up on the internet and itit went from there, I have been doing this professionally for about 7 years.”

It is now his full time job and every booking he goes to is different, from music videos, to being a stunt double, in a musical or performing on the street.

DTM Freerun are supporting young people in the town who are getting involved in the sport, showing them how to do it safely and to not get into trouble, the group feel it is a sport that can help many young people.

Mr Tucker said: “I would love to help more children and adults become aware of freerunning. If teenagers are hanging out on the streets taking drugs, smoking, drinking etc, freerunning can be the perfect way to get them involved with something more productive allowing them to go down a better path.”

There are gyms in the Southend for newcomers to learn safely on crash mats before taking it to the streets.

“We want to support them, to tell them how to do it safely and to make sure they are doing it in a place where they are allowed and not on private property. If you don’t know what you are doing you will get hurt.”

The sport is growing more and more, mainly due to videos being posted on social media and going viral, to see DTM in action visit DTMFREERUN.com