eli5: How do parkourists not break their ankles?

Question

I just saw a video of some guys jumping off extremely tall buildings onto concrete, no rolling afterwards. How do their ankles not just snap?

In: 30

Answer 1

Conditioning and knowing good technique. Both are important. They’ve been doing it for a while and their joints, tendons and ligaments are prepared for that impact. If they take a long break and come back to it they probably would risk injury. I used to jump onto hard surface a lot. Not super high but anything repetitive from above head height could easily injure if you are untrained.