IntroductionI've studied the training the training philosophies of many traceurs. They differ greatly. Some say you'll be fine if you avoid large drops, and don't take any drops of more than 1 meter for the first six months. The original original Traceurs (yeah, the "original Traceurs', the ones who are referred to with a capital T) just use a general rule of 80% strength training, 20% movement training. Still others (and by others I mean the yamakasi) don't even let their members jump for the first year of training. And then there's me.My storyWhen I started out, I was, to be completely frank, pretty stupid. I began actual training in September of 2006. Then, I had no idea of the risk of damage to my body. Without any previous condition (I wasn't even particularly athletic), I began taining immediately with vaults and wallruns on concrete. I used extremely poor landing technique, and I'm sure I took a particular seven-foot drop at least once a week. I trained an hour or more a day, five days a week, for a month. Then my knees started hurting. A few days later, my ankles started hurting. The pain would come and go often. At first, it would only hurt if I trained too hard for too long. Then, it would come at other times, like when I was walking to class. Ignoring these warning signs (not warning signs like 'yield to oncoming traffic' - warning signs like 'warning: unfinished bridge', and trained whenever the pain stopped, and sometimes when it was still there. My condition worsened. I began to feel pain more and more often, and with greater intensity. For a few weeks, i was limping more often than not, and I would often wake up with pain. Occasionally, I thought to rest for awhile, at most for a few days. Then I would train and train and train until the pain returned, and the cycle continued. When I described the situation to my mom, she attributed it to growing pains.In mid Novemeber, I realized that these weren't growing pains. They were joint damage, and if I didn't act fast, I would be crippled for life. Looking back, I can only call it an act of God (I don't mean that as a figure of speech) that that hadn't happened a long time ago. So, I put a halt on parkour for awhile. Because my ankles were hurting significantly more than my knees, I conditioned them exclusively. From mid-November until early January of 2007, I could be seen in the weight room two-to-three times a week doing machine calve presses. My ankles became significantly stronger, and although the pain was still about two-thirds as intense, the frequency with which it appear dropped to a small fraction of what it had been. Then, based on the advice of a certain track-runner (whom we will call James Ragland) and the confirmation of a certain baseball coach (whom we will call Mr. Dean), I began doing machine leg extensions in addition to the calve presses, although I stopped doing both about four weeks later. By that time it was February, and the pain in my ankles and knees was almost totally gone. I experimented with various methods of ankle and knee conditioning for the next two months, and was careful not to overdo it with training. During that period, only once did I do movement training more than two times in one week. After that, all of my joint pain was gone. Still, I knew from experience how to tell if the pain was coming, and I was uneasy about how easily I began to feel that slightly compressed sensation in my knees, that taut feeling in my ankles. So now, we've come to the present time.NowI'm writing this on May 7, 2007. I have decided to begin a project, a 600-day-long project which I call "Six Hundred Days", inspired by the one-year rule used by the Yamakasi. Over the course of these 600 days, I will train and condition my body carefully, slowly but steadily progressing in intensity. By train, I don't mean I'm going to spend nearly two years running and doing push-ups. I'm not just taking time off of parkour so I can focus more on my strength and stamina. When I started training way back in Septemberm my bones, my joints, my muscles, and just my body in general were weak, and the result. was terrifying. I trained, and was almost crippled. I will never make that mistake again.The objectiveThat is the main purpose of Six Hundred Days. i don't simply want to be stronger so I can be better at parkour. I want to start over, and to do it right this time. The most careful (a very good quality for parkour) traceurs recommend taking six months to condition your body, to prepare your body, before starting parkour. That isn't enough for me. Six months is enough time to prepare your body to be strong. I don't what to be prepared to be strong. I want to be strong, to be as useful as I can be. That is the real purpose behind Six Hundred Days - to grow stronger, to be more useful. If this project is a success, on January 20, 2009, I will emeger from my training, stronger (in more ways than one) than ever before.What I will be doingDuring these 600 days, I will abstain from any of the movements of parkour, freerunning, tricking, or other similar activities*. However, I will use parkour if necesary in the case of an emergency situation. When not training and preparing my body, I will use my time to learn French both to honor Parkour's roots and with the hopes of one day visiting the birthpalce of parkour - Lisses, France. More importantly, I will study the roots of parkour - where it came from where it has been, and where it could go. This will be both a physical challenge and a personal journey, and I will track and record my progress and my experiences.For the remainder of May, I will rest my body, abstaining from all movement trainging and avoiding putting unnecesary of stress on my body. I will also use that time to design a plan for Six Hundred Days. The clock will start on Day 1: June 1, 2007.*please note that I grouped these activities together not because they are similar in philosophy or purpose, but because they are all very high-impact. I completely recognize the importance of distinguishing them.
