How To Teach A Proper Back Flip

Hello Everyone, I was in a gym the other day and was absent mindedly watching a coach, who I did not know, spot a back flip to a child for the first time.  I was curious of why the coach was spotting the way she was. She simply was not looking into the future, and simply wanted the kid to not land on their head. So it inspired me to write a little blurb about proper coaching technique.

Back Flip:

First of all the coach must understand that what they teach their athletes from day one is important. I understand a lot of coaching have the mentality of " teach them first perfect later". Well for some kids this works but for most, at least the ones I know and have coached are forced to keep revising what they think they know. This can be very frustrating obviously and the child will start to lose focus and fail to take in what you are saying or they will get demotivated to learn the skills because they keep juggling back and forth. One day they are learning flifis and the next day they are doing a back tuck with their head in for an hour. Doesn't make much sense does it? So I always teach the children no matter what age or what skill level everything I know as we go. I do not scream and yell of course because some techniques do take a while to understand but simply I do not let the athlete move on too much until ALL the technical aspects are taken care of to the best of my knowledge. Younger athletes are also easily amused. A national level athlete will usually get bored doing the same skill over and over again. A younger athlete simply just loves to repeat. When I first taught one of my athletes a front tuck she would do it every second of the day. I told her to do routines, but no she wanted to do flips. Use this to your advantage coaches!! The athlete has a large attention span for skills they like so let them do 1000 back flips with critical analyses of every little issue. It will be easier then having them learn a double back flip wrong and then having to go back to "boring single back flips".

OK now lets get into technique:
General:

Every back flip or front flip starts exactly the same way. It starts as a back lay out. This allows the athlete to keep the legs straight after take off to ensure a full push out of the bed. A lot of athletes will jump high and then cut their height to do the actual flip. How can you do that if you are taking off for a back straight? The idea is that the athlete will take off straight up and down, keep body completely straight for the first quarter of the flip and then "snap" into a tuck position to finish the flip, before opening up and landing, and maybe even sticking the flip.

Progressions:

The athlete needs to jump with full extension of the legs going at a decent height. It is up to the coach to judge the height needed. The athlete can start off by doing flat back- back drops. This is a variation of a simple "legs up" back drop where the body falls in one straight position and remains tight upon landing. The heals, buttocks, back and head all land at the same time. This is you quarter flip in the lay out position. Ideally the child should be able to do this with arms above their head. The hips should land where the feet have taken off from the trampoline. Assuming the child can do this with eyes open perfectly I make them do it onto a big fluffy matt with eyes closed. YES YES I KNOW- don't do it , its bad, if my level 1 and 2 tramp instructors see this they will be upset. Too bad. Simply said: the athletes usual problem is that they throw their head back. They want to see where they are going. Well, if they can do a back drop comfortably with eyes closed then they will have no reason to put their head back because no matter what they do they wont see anything. It will help reinforce proper head position which I will discuss later. So after the athlete can do it blind folded and non-blindfolded correctly almost every time they are then ready to move on. If you have taught back drop correctly this stage should not take very long. It also depends on age, gender, maturity level, etc etc. You will know very quickly if you moved the child on to quickly. They will have to go right back to it.

Once this is complete the coach should stand behind the athlete and instruct them to do the exact same back drop. The coach will catch the athlete while he or she is horizontal in the air in a flat back back drop position and then push them back up. The coach catches the athlete by putting one hand on each shoulder blades. You slow them down a bit at the apex of the jump and then push them up so they land back on the feet. I find some athletes think to much and freak out so I do not tell them what I am doing. I simply say " I am watching from a different angle". have them do it eyes closed and then push them back up. They will freak a bit but they just did it with out throwing the head back or changing anything on the way up. That's what I want. I could care less how they come back down. Once the athlete can do this easily with eyes open and closed then the next stage.

Instruct  the athlete to do the same back drop but when they see their toes go parallel to their head, tuck in a quick and tight as they can and hold it. Many will half tuck and freak out and chicken out but keep doing it. The athlete will soon be able to go up in a straight position, tuck quick with the head in and then kick out and land again. All of this is done with you behind them so they do not actually flip. Some athlete will go so high that you can actually balance them in your hand before  letting them down. This method will teach the child to tuck after the quarter straight flip so that the tucking motion actually speeds up their flip. Ren, from Gymnastics Mississauga, gave me a helpful hint when trying to teach me standing double back. A back flip is like standing with your hands above your head and jumping so that you kick your hands. Bringing the feet over your head instead of your chest down to tuck.

After this stage the hard part is done. The child can now do a half a back flip with their head in after a straight quarter take off and snap into a tuck position. Simply now, you roll them over your shoulder. Hold on to them as you roll them but at this stage they should be comfortable with the landing. Do this a bunch of times and then you can spot from the side in a traditional manor. Do not expect the athlete to do it the same though. You may have to go back and forth until he understands that no matter where you are the skill is the same.

from there it is simple. Number, numbers and numbers. Eventually the child will do it on their own. I have had athletes take a few months to progress through these stages. I have had athletes take a day to do a proper back flip progression. All depends on the athlete.

The last part is the arm movement. The arms do not take off  straight up like many coaches teach. The arms are slightly flexed just above the should girdle. This allows the arms to be thrusted upwards on the take off. This does a few things.

1) it forces the athlete to wait before adding twists when learning back fulls etc.
2) gives the athlete a bit more height because of the shoulder thrust
3) allows the athlete to hold lines a fraction of a second longer on the skills before the back tuck ( prudent in higher levels( holding lines right to the bed))
4) make the athlete actually think of jumping higher rather then just flipping
5) actually make it easier to stay in a single spot on the trampoline because the arms are moving upwards. Arms whipping upwards are more stable then arms being isometrically contracted.

With all these benefits it seems stupid that even many senior national team members do not focus on it. Got to hand it to Dave Ross, me and him don't get a long great sometimes but hey, no one knows trampoline like he does.

Have the athlete do a million back flips with this arm technique. has to be done on the way up just out of the bed. To early or to late causes the athlete to miss the timing and not get the full effect. This arm extension upon take off has fixed one of my athletes back fulls. It does work, give it a try.

A simple drill is by having the athlete start with his or her arms down completely and throw them up as fast as possible on the take take off for the back flip. The athlete will find it easy in comparison when you ask them to do it from 45 degrees from shoulder height.

There you go. :):)

bye