How To Do A Backflip On The Ground

WARNING: The following instructions must be used with common sense and reasonable safety measures to avoid personal injuries - reasonable safety should always come first, but if you'd like more information, please visit http://www.videojug.com/terms/terms.

Hi. My name's Desmond Aspill, and I've been teaching gymnastics for twenty years. Today we're going to break down some of the difficult elements of gymnastics, so that it's more approachable.

With techno-gymnastics, we try to make things more approachable, building confidence, and making gymnastics fun. A tuck-back somersault or, as they say in America, a back-flip. So, when we're doing a tuck-back somersault, we need to show a good tuck shape in the air, and we need to get substantial height in order to rotate before touching, or hitting, the ground.

So what we're going to do is put a foam block (behind the gymnast.) That drives the gymnast up: stops the gymnast going backwards. The more height we can get, the better.

This is a great technique for building strength, as you need to get a lot of power from the legs to get the height, in order to rotate in the air. You'll find a lot of gymnasts, when they do this they'll hit against the block, they won't be driving up. So it's a really safe way to build confidence and direct the gymnast up rather than back.

The most important thing is getting a tuck shape in the air, and getting height off the ground: getting as high as they can, and pulling into a tuck shape on top of the block. Eventually, you can progress on to the tuck-back somersault, or the back flip. Driving up as high as you can, nice tight tuck, and a good landing. So, off you go! .