Any way learning the back Flip is scary if you don't have any prior experience with backward rotation such as Back Handsprings or Macaco or Walkovers, but it is by no means a physically difficult move if you have been keeping up with an active lifestyle. In my opinion it is not the first skill you should learn, but it is pretty damn sick so instead of reprimanding you on why it would be better to learn a Back Handspring first I'll just let you know what I think are the most important perquisites for a successful Back Tuck.
- A strong Jump
- An understanding of Backward Rotation in relation to Back Tuck. This requires a bit of strength training as well if you want to really get the most out of your core muscles helping you.
Shoulder Core Connection Drill
- Getting over fear
Full Rotation Drill
Keep in mind in this drill you are developing rotation without constraint of any equipment you would normally be using in a gym such as a spotting block where you can only complete 3/4 of a rotation, with this you can actually get the whole rotation. However, one drawback to this drill is that it teaches you great rotation, but if you do not apply the setting or jump into this it can make you flip way early because you cut off your jump. Thus you rotate fast and low. You have to learn to flip and jump from the floor creating both equally. It takes time, deal with it.
- A safe place to train or mess up a few times without consequence...to much consequence.
A stack of extremely soft and big pillows
Saw dust piles
A strong dependable spotter that will save you in case you freak out
I do not recommend doing them into a pool on the very first one, that's an easy way to screw yourself over.
I mean if you type that into Youtube "Back Flip to Pool Fail" you get all kinds of horrid things.
Any way if you have a strong jump and a strong Shoulder to Core connection your going to be off to a good start.
Take the Time
With any training you want to be consistent with the form of the body, if you are consistent it is easier to make changes and adaptations, if you pay no attention to form then you have nothing to go back to and see where you are making mistakes. For example, if you never realized that your knees buckled when you jump then how can you know what is killing the height in your back flip when you have more things to worry about when your upside down and facing death. Take the time to get some solid form in, your muscle memory will thank you later. Have a friend watch you or record yourself and pay attention to details.
Now lets talk about the skill itself.
Basically you want to give yourself as much time in the air to do the flip as possible so jumping high is a must. A jump specifically for a back flip should include a couple of things.
- Your Jump should not travel back or forward, up is your friend, go up.
- Your Jump should be about reaching and extending in both directions head to toe and toe to head
- Eliminate anything and everything unnecessary that you might be doing other than loading your legs in a squat to prep for jumping and then swinging the arms upward as you jump.
- Record your jump with a camera and do not proceed to flipping until your jump is the model jump for the Soviet Union...Yes I know it doesn't exist...pretend it does.
- Below is what your body should look like when you load the legs and then when you swing the arms up into extension as you straighten the hips and knees.
- Look at the pictures below. In Picture 1 I am loading me legs and prepping my arms for my jump, in Picture 2 I have fully swung my shoulders open and my hips are open. Open hips are essential for a high back flip. Here's a little secret...you can get away with not opening your shoulders, but you can't get away with keeping the hips closed, you will flip extremely low and possibly not at all. Don't believe me well just look at Jujimufus first ever back tuck, he has a super awesome viking god jump, but he did't open his shoulders at all and he still made it over. Jujis First Back Tuck
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2.- 7. You don't just open the shoulders, you also elevate them. Elevate is a fancy word for shrugging. When you swing the shoulders open, you want to shrug the shoulders upward sending all the musculature skyward. By doing so you take more weight away from the legs allowing them to boost you even higher. Ever wonder why you jump better when you swing your arms? That upward swing of your arms takes the gravitational load of their weight off of the legs allowing the legs to become amazingly more efficient. Below picture 1. Shoulders not shrugged (not elevated) Picture 2. Shrugged (elevated) Picture 3. Arms up Not elevated, Picture 4. Arms up Elevated. If you did a round off and only shrugged your shoulders up before flipping you would essentially be sending the weight of your arms up and it would give you more height in your set, it wouldn't be good set, but it would still make you go up more then if you didn't elevate... WHAT THE HELL IS A SET? Look here.
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2. 3. 4. - 7. I have found personally that I like to have my arms extended up at about a 60 degree angle in relation to my torso vs. Straight over my head, that is a personal preference and you can see we apply it in my more recent back tucks. I feel it keeps me from traveling back, so for just the back tuck itself I like this method, if I'm doing something else I will swing them straight over i.e. Arabian, Back Full, Flash Kick.
- 8. When you extend your hips squeeze your glutes, that's your butt muscles, squeeze them so hard you coccyx will cry. In fact try to utilize every muscle when you jump, every muscle that is not squeezing is essentially not helping fight gravity, it's not pulling its weight. Any time I have been struggling with making my flip more powerful if I actively think about more glute power I do better. Does that mean if you squeeze all your muscles at once you will fly? It works for DBZ? Seems legit.
- 9. Push through the whole foot. That means utilizing the plantar flexion and pushing with all the range of motion from ankle to toe. It will allow you to straighten your legs tighter, making you jump more powerful, power is good. Watch my body as I combine all three key points; Arms Swing Up With Shoulders Open and Elevated, Hips Open and Glutes SQUEEZED, and Ankles Plantar Flexed All The Way To The Ball of the Foot. Like my crappy Plantar Flexion?
If your jump is super straight and extended in the air then we are off to a great start, if not...Continue if you don't give a hoot.
Next up is learning how to push the shoulders open in your jump, so much that you actually begin to fall back at the top of the jump when you reach full extension. Watch the video below and pay close attention to the shoulders. Also notice I do not let my form break, it is crucial to pay attention to your form, a strong mind with a strong body means AWESOMENESS!!!
Shoulder Extension When Jumping Drill
Starting the Rotation
You can practice jumping onto a mat like this...No mat?...Stack up some pillows, mattresses, or go to an open gym, do something to create this set up, part of teaching yourself is about creativity. This vid below shows me opening my hips and then stay in an extended position as I drive my hips up and then land on a mat. By doing this and being very strict about form you will have a much more powerful pull over when you tuck the hips over the shoulders.
Starting Rotation Drill
Eventually you are going to have to do the whole skill. So Remember to have a trusty spotter or a landing plan ready.
Here is a Sample Plan for you to get your first tuck
2 to 3 times a week practice or once a week if you only have it.
In this order 10-15 good executions of each, when you are short of breath, take a break, this is a skill not an endurance sport.
1. Shoulder Extension When Jumping Drill
2. Starting Rotation Drill
3. Shoulder Core Connection Drill
4. Full Rotation Drill
Attempt skill to pit or SAFE AREA a few times like 3 at the most, video them, and replay so you can see where you are cutting the move short. What ever area you are not executing properly go back to that drill and work it a few times. Then go back to the Safe Area and attempt again.
Do not do more then 7-10 attempts of the whole skill in any given day until you start to land the skill and you can rep it without missing your landing. Also if you see no improvement after 5 attempts or it gets worse after 5 attempts then just do the drills and come back to the skill on a different day.
Now lets look at manipulation of axis of rotation. It is obvious that our center of mass is around or near our hips, but it is kind of scary doing a back flip that rotates around your hips, the real flippers flip over their shoulders... That's right you flip over your shoulders. You still rotate around the hips but good high flips are about hips over the shoulder rotation. This does not mean you can't rotate just around the hips, in fact it is a great skill to understand, especially for bailing certain skills and if you don't have the room to jump high, but one thing at a time. Watch the vid below and pay close attention to the shoulders as I back flip, you will notice that the shoulders stay in place at the apex height of the jump and the rest of the body rotates around that axis. This is difficult to do with a standing tuck, but I do an ok job at it.
The second clip is a way better example of a standing tuck then the end of the first one. Did you look at the shoulder line and how I was able to get my hips to get up to the height of my shoulders. It's a neat trick.
We want to lift the whole body over the shoulders and there are certain strength drills you can do to develop that sensation, I'll post that vid at the bottom as well.
To Sum this all up:
- Load the legs
- Extend the Hips, and Knees explosively shrugging the shoulders up with head forward
- Start the rotation by bringing hips over the shoulders
- Bring the knees up to the chest
- Extend to land
- Good Luck....
Some more tips for you
When first learning the back tuck DO NOT GRAB YOUR LEGS TO TUCK OR TO GENERATE ROTATION!!! You need to bring the legs and hips up with their own muscle. Most noobs, including me when I started, grab their legs to flip, it is not necessary and usually causes more problems then is helpful. The problem is that the only thing keeping you from stopping in the air is that your lower half of the body is chasing your upper half, if you drop the chest down and grab the legs you will counter rotate and slow your rotation down dramatically. Think about it, if a back flip is a hip over shoulder rotation from a jump then if you were to lay down on the floor and do a backward roll it would be the same kind of rotation except in order to finish the roll you have to push yourself over your shoulders with your arms. It is not possible to do a Backward Roll on the floor if you do a sit up (shoulder to knee) you will stop. Our goal is to do knee to shoulder and hips over head. If you shoulder to knee you will slow down your rotation. Do no grab your knees bring your knees to you with your muscle alone.
Secondly, get your feet under you so you can land as nicely in a stacked body position as possible. If you have been doing your backward rolls off of things and practiced your jumps (SOVIET UNION MODEL JUMPS!!!!) you will have a better chance at landing. What is a Stacked Position? Take a look at these pictures.
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The first stack of blocks is not stacked because the structural integrity failed due to to much weight on one side of the balance. The Second one is equally balanced all the way across.
This relates to Joint Stacking where you want to all the joints from head to toe to be stacked on top of each other because it is the most energy efficient way to bare weight from vertical forces, such as gravity, on the body. You basically want to make sure that your hips, knees, and ankles are all stacked so they can bend into a good receiving position upon landing.
Hips, Knees and Ankles Stacked:
Hips, Knees and Ankles bent but now Hips are stacked over Ankles and as Knees bend Forward.
If you do not do this you will either fly forward because your body cannot bare weight that far away from the stacked position.
Or you will do a number of things like over rotate and fall backwards, or you might under rotate and compress your ankles by putting them into extreme hyper dorsiliflexion. See the picture below, Imagine the dorsilflexion happening with all the weight of your body adding the power of the jump and then imagine your ankle going a little bit to far into flexion crushing your Talus and Tibia together. DELICIOUS.
This is a very common injury. I've had it, several times and it sucks. Watch this vid of Elsabeth Black coming up short in her vault and see how her left leg is not coming in under her hip, neither is her right actually and all the force goes into that poor left ankle. OUCH!!! This bad habit, costed her a possible medal at the Olympic Games in 2012.
SLOW MOTION ELSABETH
One more area to consider is if your knees collapse inward when you prep to jump and when you land. This is called Valgus Knee and it is associated with a load of bad injuries including ACL TEARS. If your Knees look like this FIX IT DAMN IT!!!! YOUR FUTURE IN BADASSOLOGY DEPENDS ON IT!!!
If you think this guy is strong, he is, but he also tore his ACL because he didn't fix this problem
Now getting yourself to do this skill can be challenging because it is scary as all hell if it is your first skill. I'll be honest my first attempt at it involved me landing face first in the mud. However I figured out how to progress safely into it because of other skills I had developed. Please take a look at the tutorials below for more visual ways to develop your back flips in a safe progressive manner. I had my back handspring way before my back tuck and it helped me immensely with going over backwards, the video below explains how I got my first back flip. The rest are other ways to do it, good luck.
NO MAT OR GYM? BEHOLD THE ORGANIC HOME GROWN BACK FLIP.
GET YOUR BACKWARD ROLL DAMN IT!!!
GOT AN OPEN GYM WITH MATS? PERFECT!!!
DEVELOP YOUR SHOULDER TO CORE STRENGTH FOR MAXIMUM STRENGTH IN ROTATION!!!
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Francesco Caban
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