Technique Tuesday

Drills for Roundoff Back Handsprings 20927 views

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Uploaded by Benjamin Carson | March 7, 2010

I received a request for roundoff back handspring drills, so here you go. I have been teaching roundoff back handsprings for a long time. It takes a long time to get this skill, so I try to illustrate the process I go through with a variety of demonstrators at different skill levels.

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15 comments

Annie 3 months ago

Hi there, I am looking for a mat like the one that your girls are practicing their sit backs/lay backs on (on the floor). What is the thickness and name of that mat? Thanks!

Ricky 6 months ago

I don't really agree with this progression : in all exercises on the video the gymnasts are in piked position, folded in two in order to try to keep their balance, when the goal is on the opposite : not to keep balancein order to go into the back flic !

According to my experience, one of the biggest problems I have with beginners is that the body doesn't rotate during the flic : the roundoff is correct, they push back properly, but at this point they just arch their backs and land into bridge. And a bridge with speed means in fact landing on their head !
So I correct this with a drill which is similar to this one on Youtube.com : watch?v=KXQM1RATlj8 (sorry the spam filter won't allow me to give the link so just copy/past that code after the Youtube URL) and also with the harness and elastics on the floor (with the same start : a little jump forward in order to lean back, and immediate jump into the flic).
It works pretty well, once they understand their bodies have to rotate in the air they are able to correct and to do the element without help.
But I think Carson's progression is going to amplify that problem, that I see with maybe 50% of the beginners.

Taylor Cook 2 years ago

This totally gave me a better idea of what exactly is not working in my round off back handspring.

Tc 2 years ago

I want to try this

Benjamin Carson 3 years ago

Yes, those are my students demonstrating. I like this drill because it helps kids who drop their arms when they connect the roundoff to the back handspring. Hey, it looks funky, but this is what works for me.

3 years ago

Assuming that those are his students demonstrated, it looks that the round-off in a pike position on the rebound (which is something that I was confused about) was not damaging his students' form, so I'll give this a shot if I'm bored with the drills I currently employ

Masa 3 years ago

Hi!

Just wanna add that I attended the FIG level 2 Academy and our mentor (also former Valeri Liukin's coach) taught pretty much the same stuff. So I'm with you on this one. Good stuff!

Benjamin Carson 3 years ago

Thank you for your input, you are welcome to disagree with my methods.

I open the by saying "this isn't a comprehensive list of all the drills that you can do, these are the ones that work for me." I never explicitly assert myself as an authority, I am simply sharing my personal experience. Yes, a roundoff should not pike down. I never said that it should. Listen to what I said in the video - I teach the kids to sit down in a pike sit this way because it teaches them the feeling of having their feet in front of them as they travel backwards.
Let me be crystal clear and reiterate what I said in the video, "This is not a comprehensive list (I'm leaving stuff out) these are the drills that work for me."
Disagree all you want. Even though you think that I'm wrong, these drills work for me! Results speak for themselves. You won't get any arguement from me about "optimal technique." Let's agree to disagree: I am presenting very unorthodox drills that stray away from traditional methods. Most coaches would disagree with my methods and that's fine, but if this gets results, you can't totally discount it.
The idea behind this video was to help a coach who's thinking, "okay I feel like I've tried everything, what else can I try?"
Try this. Nobody else teaches it this way, but it works for me.

Benjamin Carson 3 years ago

I never say to "pike down" or "arch." I specifically say in the video that I teach a a'sit-back' (because most kids learn to stop after their roundoff) and a 'lay-back' with hips up (because most kids tend to throw their heads back first). Yes, these drills are counter-intuitive when you seem them, but you have to understand that this is for teaching beginners and developing them to the the point where they CAN land in a tight hollow. If you've ever worked with young children, you know that they don't get it right the first time. As a coach, you have to teach your gymnast in accordance with their abilities, accept the fact that they won't be perfect, and have the patience to develop good habits over time. Alex and JAO you're repeating the same rhetoric about technique that I've heard for 20 years, my aim is to bring something new to the table and help coaches with the development process. Although you are correct, you're just rehashing what most people have heard many times before.

3 years ago

i think he is trying to teach them to go backward. even if u tell a little gymnast to hollow they will do this but still re-bound up. i have seen it at my gym and the gymnasts who do this end up having really high flip flops that don't travel backward. this makes it harder for them to learn more skills out of the flip flop in the future. so i think the drills on this video would help.

alex 3 years ago

why would you teach a pike into arch? you shouldn't pike a roundoff down, you should land in a tight hollow with feet in front...if you're in a pike at the end of the roundoff, your chest is down and that's just a mess....what was your thought here?

ApolytonGP 3 years ago

Thanks. I tried to do gym as an adult and felt that some aspects were tougher versus being a child (fear factor and perhaps more likelihood of injury if landing upside down), harder for the coach to lift, having to teach yourself skills, etc. Question was in that context.

Benjamin Carson 3 years ago

Absolutely. I developed these drills while teaching tumbling for high school age cheerleaders.

ApolytonGP 3 years ago

fascinating. Would you use the same approach with a full weight adult?

3 years ago

I like it! Thanks

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