I have been doing backhandspring series down the mat, and never can seem to get my first couple of handsprings with straight legs, they are always bent a little bit at the knee. I don't know if its back flexibility that I need more, I think I have enough, I can do backbend and ups, but don't know how to use it that much when I do a bhs. I have enough flexibility I think, with shoulders and back, but my back always turns out straight kind of when I throw a bhs, with bent legs. I have been told before to throw your hips up to get it to bend more but not as much luck as I would like with that... any ideas?

I would stretch out the area behind your knees because it sounds like you have great flexibility everywhere else but here.

A lot of muscle control in a backhandspring is in the hips so I would suggest doing splits and things to stretch out and give you better flexibility and muscle control.


Just a thought...

If you are talking about flexiblity behind the knee as a pike, I can do that very well. I can reach a ways past my feet and touch my noise to my knee. I don't stretch the splits though as often as I should. I have a decent spread, but my splits aren't very good like most female gymnastics have. I'll try that thanks.

Also though, my bridge isn't that bad, but when I do a backhandspring I don't have a lot of back bending it doesn't seem. I have been told before that you don't need back flexiblity to do a bhs, I don't know if that is true or not.

Thank you for posting your question to the Ask Me Help Desk.

Stretching splits or bridges will not fix this issue. It is also true that you do not need back flexibility for this skill.

While you did not mention it specifically, I will assume you are working from a roundoff rather than standing since I cannot imagine doing a standing back handspring without bending the knees to get started. From a roundoff, however, you should be tight like a 2 x 4.

My suggestion would be two fold... 1) concentrate on your ability to rebound out of the roundoff and 2) strengthen the snap and pull the toes through better so that you land more angled to the rear with a hollow position

To focus on these aspects take a spotting block and kick to handstand on the box.
Arch slightly and push off the box while snapping down and lifting the chest.
The key is to get the legs to land as close to the box as possible.
This will simulate the landing of the roundoff
The body should be hollow and you should rebound off the floor and travel backwards.

Remember... the roundoff is designed to turn you around without losing speed or power. If you land leaning forward, bend your knees, fail to go hollow, etc... you will lose both.

I call these "snap-ups" - from the arch... snap to the hollow while lifting the chest from the push off the box.

If you still have trouble with bent legs on the landings - work some plyometrics and strengthen the rebound.

Hopefully, you find some usefulness out of this. It is hard to explain without showing you as much as it is difficult without watching what you are doing but it sounds like this may be exactly what you need to improve.

Best of Luck!
rudi_in

Yes that is helpful. I just hear so many different ways of doing things from reading stuff on the internet, and all coaches teach different and say different things so its hard to find the right way, or what way works best for me.

I have another question, from what I have been learning on, I only tumble on a rod floor track. A lot of people have more equipment, like a tumble track, or a huge spring floor platform. I wonder if having resources like that can allow you to excel and get better a lot faster. I think that having some resources can help a lot, a good friend of mine learned how to do backhandrping series on just dead mats, it took him 2 years to be able to do several consistenatly.