Back handspring exerices + drills

Back handsprings are an essential tumbling skill, forming the foundation for complex tumbling moves and more advanced skills, including tucks, flips and aerial exercises. Perfecting the back handspring can be challenging. This skill requires strength, flexibility and confidence and may take months of consistent training and practice to learn and perfect.

Exercises

Some basic exercises at home or at the gym can help develop the strength and flexibility required for back handsprings. Do handstands at home, either against the wall or free standing. Take time for pushups and situps daily to strengthen the abdominal, back and shoulder muscles. Hold a 5-lb. weight or a pair of 5-lb. weights during workouts in each hand and lift straight up above your head to work key arm and shoulder muscles.

Getting Ready

Several drills can help to prepare you for a back handspring. Stand slightly away from a wall, leaving enough room for your thighs, and slide into a wall sit. This will help to develop a feel for the correct positioning of the starting movement of the back handspring. Work on back limbers over a rounded half-circle mat to develop the muscles and movement needed in your back for the trick. Practice jumping backward onto a mat or into a pit of foam blocks to build your confidence when you push off the ground.

Learning the Back Handspring

Depending upon your gym, you may start back handsprings on the floor, trampoline or a wedge mat. You may use a mat for support on the floor or trampoline and the coach will spot, or help support you, through back handsprings as you learn to do them independently. To do a back handspring, you'll stand with arms in front of you or above your head and spring backwards while arching your back. Keep your back arched until your arms hit the floor, then spring in a hollow position from your hands to your feet, ending with your feet together and arms in front.

Building on Skills

Once you can do a back handspring with a mat, you'll begin to work on a round-off back handspring, gradually reducing your mat thickness until you can do a round-off back handspring on the floor and eventually a standing back handspring on the floor. Once you can do a standing back handspring, you'll learn to do more than one in a row for tumbling passes, then build on these skills. Do back handsprings regularly to maintain the strength and flexibility you need.

Level 1 Gymnatics requirements

Floor
Cartwheel

Bridge

Backwards tuck roll

Forwards tuck roll

Candlestick

Beginning a Split leap

Beam
In Level 1, a gymnast learns to mount the beam by jumping to a front support with the beam at her hips, and to dismount with a stretch jump, meaning she stretches her body up as she jumps with her arms above her head. A gymnast also learns the tuck sit, with her knees at her chest. She practices the coupe walks and candlestick on the beam, as well as releve walks, which are simply walking on the toes with the arms outstretched above the head. Finally, she must hold an arabesque, also known as a scale, by standing on one foot while leaning forward, extending the other leg behind her and outstretching her arms at her sides.
Bars and vault
In Level 1, a gymnast doesn’t actually use the vaulting table. Instead, she simply does a straight jump onto a mat that is at least 8 inches high. On the bars, she performs a pullover -- pulling her legs completely around the bar. In the Level 1 cast, she begins in a front support with her hips at the bar and pushes her hips off the bar, driving her legs behind her. In the back hip circle, she begins with a cast and then returns to the bar, and rolls her body backward around the bar. The final progression is pushing off a cast as a way to dismount. USA Gymnastics allows a minimal spot, or assistance, on some Level 1 bar skills.

Here are some inspirational gymnastics quotes.

Random gymnastics pictures and quotes

Rhythmic gymnast

Artistic gymnast

Split handstand on beam

Basics gymnastics floor skills

Here are some basic gymnastics floor skills.

Handstand

Middle splits

Side splits

Cartwheel

Front walkover

Back walkover

Forwards/backwards roll

Bridge

Back handspring

Womans Artistic Gymnastics events

In artistic woman gymnastics there are 4 events Vault,uneven bars,Beam and floor.
Vault

Vault is one of the four events in woman's gymnastics, It is an explosive event that lasts only a few seconds: A gymnast runs full speed to a table perched at the end of a runway, then springs off the apparatus in a graceful, yet powerful combination of flips and twists, before landing (hopefully upright) on the mat.
Uneven bars

The bars are parallel to each other and set at different heights, with the low bar at about 5 and 1/2 ft., and the high bar usually over 8 ft. (This height is adjustable)Most lower level gymnasts perform on the lower bar, higher gymnasts perform on both bars.
Beam

A balance beam is 4 inches (10 centimeters) wide Competitors Perform jumps,leaps,running steps,
turns and tumbling using the whole length of the beam. A beam routine must be a minimum of 60 seconds at the most 90 seconds.
Floor

The floor exercise is a square, about 40 ft. long by 40 ft. wide. It's usually made of foam and springs, and covered with carpeting. A gymnast performs Dance and tumbling skills to music.
Gymnasts must use the entire floor mat during their routine, but cannot step off the floor mat at any time, or a deduction is taken.
A floor routine lasts up to 90 seconds.