Backward roll to push up position

[pihlajat]

Hi! I have three new 10-12 year old girls in my team. They haven't competed yet but they are getting ready. Gymnastics is just for fun for them and competing as well, so we are not talking about gymnasts who are going to have a long and excellent career. They are the oldest ones in the team and are quite tall already, almost as tall as me. They are "late starters" so that's why they haven't competed yet.

One of the "silver mark" requirements (they have to master that mark before being allowed to compete in level B) is a backward roll to push up position with straight arms... In level B there is only a normal backward roll. They've been working on it at every practice, but they just don't get it! I'm so frustrated 'cause I don't have more drills or tips for them. We have done them a lot on a wedge mat but it's not improving them... I have spotted them a thousand times and told to have fast feet and push hard with straight arms. But their arms are very long and I'm sure it must be very hard for them because their strength level is not too high yet. They end up the roll laying on the stomach, elbows on the floor.

They should master that skill in a month! Is it impossible? Do you have any tips or drills?

Thank you!

 

[Kiwi]

We have done them a lot on a wedge mat but it's not improving them...

Do you mean they can do them on the wedge but not the floor? Or they can't do them down the wedge either?

 

[pihlajat]

they can't do them on the wedge either.... the other kids can and the wedge mat is usually one station when practising floor skills.

 

[marie83]

Hi,

It might be best to just go completely back to basics for a session or 2.
With my older beginners I teach it thus:

1) Lie on back on floor with hands linked together and little fingers pressing into the floor.
2) From sitting in pike, hands linked together with straight arms by ears, Rock backwards to place little fingers on floor and aim to touch toes on the floor behind hands.
3) As number 2 but with a bit more effort, so that the gymnasts are really focusing on getting their hands to the floor without bending the arms - they can finish in shoulder stand/candle stick.
3) As number 3, but on the wedge. The wedge might make them roll straight over if so, the emphasis should be placed on keeping arms straight, rather than what part of their body they land on. Knees would be a good start.
4) Start from standing and go down the wedge - make it a competition - whoever keeps their arms straight gets to move on to the next progression which would be to finish in a standing pike fold and gradually work towards front support. If they bend their arms at any stage they must go back a stage.


Please note, all of the above is taught with hands linked together - It is very difficult to do a good front support with hands linked, so when they are getting close, it is time to 'un link' them.
Tell them to press the tips of their middle fingers together with their palms facing upwards. They may need to go right back to the 2nd progression to get the feel for it.

Once they have mastered it down the wedge, move onto the floor, always reminding them to get their hands to the floor as soon as possible. They should be keeping their arms by their ears, even in the standing-sitting phase, then 'throw' their arms backwards.
They need to go quite quickly, otherwise they won't have the momentum required

Good luck! I know how frustrating it can be for you and the gymnasts! Hope it doesn't take too long until they can do it and are wondering why it was so difficult!

 

[CoachTodd]

Define "not making it" are they bending their arms and falling? If so, upper body conditioning. Are the saggy in the middle and floppy? core conditioning. If they just aren't making it over, try the following on the wedge.
1. Stand on the top of the wedge
2. put arms in front with hands at about eye level and arms straight.
3. Don't change the arm angle throughout the entire skill
4. Sit on heels as quickly as possible
5. roll quickly
6. shoot feet toward the direction of the roll to obtain a hollow shape, when the shoulder contact the wedge
7. stay tight and land in prone (push up)

 

[2gymmies]

Our girls start with straight arm backward rolls and once them can keep their arms straight, they go for push up. The other thing I've seen is to do it off the high end of the wedge (so kind of up hill) so they have to really reach their straight arms back for the floor. Definitely lace the fingers and make sure they are hitting pinkies before the head. I think the older girls struggle with this skill because of shoulder strength.

 

[nevertooold]

I feel your pain.

Work the skill on the wedge until it's as perfect as you want it.
Then one on wedge, one on floor, repeat. So they feel it correctly, then try to replicate immediately. If not perfect on wedge they dont try floor.

I have them start in a standing hollow with arms high and straight/locked bc it seems to help them stay tighter and keep the arms behind the head. I verbally cue them that that want to roll over their arms. I don't want them to think about hitting the floor with their arms /hands and slapping their way over. Roll fast and tight. For longer arms I tell them to roll faster and shoot toes higher.
I tell them to only focus on their tight straight arms and do not let them bend no matter what else happens. Yes the sometimes do a faceplant but then they understand and feel that with a little more speed their body will be moving backwards more and they dont repeat the faceplant.

If you can, set up an incline at other events to do these as a side station more often.

Repetition & consistency.

 

[pihlajat]

thank you so much! even if i knew a lot of these information given already it really helped me to read them from here! we'll have a practice today and i'll take my camera with me so i can videotape their efforts and then watch them at home to understand better which part is the most difficult one for them etc. and maybe i'll post an example here also so you can keep helping us

 

[BlairBob]

Hmm, personally I teach the back ext roll ( be it tuck, straddle, pike, prone/plank/straight ) with the shoulders as open as possible as long as the chest is hollow (and in) versus out (ribs out). Ideally this mean there is no shoulder angle.

The gymnast will bow a bit with their upper torso so their arms are roughly horizontal yet their head does not stick out. This will allow to get some momentum into the roll without compromising shoulder and head position. For boys, I may allow them to work this where there hands essentially are touching the ground or reaching for the ground so that they are folded over piking at the hips. It's not a deduction in the routine and I don't have to worry about picky WAG judges.

It's also important as they "sit" to not just squat and sit down but to be sitting behind them similar to the sitting action we teach in backhandsprings. We want momentum to be going backwards not down. Butt and hips go backward not down.

While swinging the arms back can generate a bit more momentum, all too often the gymnast will fail to make their arms reach as open as possible.

It is important to have their shoulders "up" as they would normally do for a handstand. Shoulders up in ears. This is also one of the reasons I start them with their arms as vertical as possible.

They must "sit" fast from a stand to a tuck squat stand as they actively reach back for the floor.

A drill for this is candlestick rocks with their arms outstretched beyond their head with their chin tucked in. They will attempt to rock to the point of rising off their shoulders. I generally spot this slowly as well to HS or to prone/plank/pushup support.

For beginners, I do not allow them to pike their butt to the floor in the back extension roll. This is generally done with the hands reaching down for the floor to soften but need fast arms to be swung.

As well before the backwards extension roll is introduced, I teach them a forward roll with straight arms and locked out elbows as this is extremely simple so they learn how to push their shoulders into ears, locked out arms, etc. This can be done with a slight dive forward, down a wedge, on a Tumble-trak, wherever. It's basically the back extension roll hand placement in reverse. We also use this in pike shape as an introduction to the front hip for pike compression.

 

[pihlajat]

blairbob, thousand thanks! i'll read your post later with a internet wordbook because for some reason my brains can't remember all the words you used so i can't have a whole clear picture about what you are saying. english is not my mother tongue so it's not always easy to understand what people are saying when they try to clarify some gymnastics stuff by writing only. it's hard in any language : D

altought, we practised the rolls today and they seemed to improve very fast. maybe it was just because i paid more attention to them and made them believe they can do it. and we took a step at the time. we used many of those drills you mentioned and then started to work on wedge. we made it a game like you recommended and the girls moved from level to level. there is a short video from the end of 2 hours practice. Two of them did it pretty well from a wedge mat and one of them still works with a pike/straddle roll... one of the girls wanted to try the roll from a very small downhill but you can see at the end of the clip how it ended : D but we will keep working!

here is the video:

backward roll - YouTube

feel free to give corrections! i know they were nowhere near to perfect, but this is a HUGE improvement from the last week!

 

[marie83]

Just watched your video - They aren't bad at all! Especially the first girl in the video. The 2nd just needs to remember to open her shoulder angle a little more.

I noticed your wedge is a lot steeper than the ones we use - perhaps a stage between the wedge and the floor could be a springboard covered with a splat mat - this would still be an incline but not so steep - the girls would have to work a bit harder to get over.

 

[pihlajat]

yeah we have done them from the covered springboard also (actually at the end of the video there is a very low and OLD wooden spring board under the mat) but didn't do them today from the real spring board because both of them were used elsewhere. the girls also say that they don't like doing them from the covered spring board because it's so hard and their hands slip because of that floor mat. maybe we should try a softer and tackier mat on the springboard.

and believe me or not, the rolls were A LOT worse last time : D

 

[marie83]

ah I did wonder whether there was a board under there on the video! couldn't quite tell!
Yes, maybe try a thicker mat if you can - We used to use a 2 inch mat over ours before we got our wedges and it didn't hurt me when I used to do it! lol

 

[CoachTodd]

I'm kind of surprised that I've seen so many folk having the kids lace their fingers. I guess it's just a personal preference of mine not to have them to that.
From what I could see in the video, even though the down hill is steep, they aren't rolling very fast. I find it quite difficult to make it with straight arms if I go that slowly. I also have a big head so that could be my issue .

 

[BlairBob]

Well, the girls know the "feel" of the skill but now there bodies just need to catch up. In short, they need to be stronger. Stronger arms in support, stronger through the core.

They can either do straight arm raises with bands or weights sitting or standing against the wall. What's important is to not use the back and ribs to lift and lower, but just the arms.

After they can do it on a wedge, I use a 6 layer panel mat. Only thing is lining up where to lay on it is somewhat tricky (I generally have them place the top of their head at the edge of the mat, or ears). You'll have to spot them at first because they won't know where the floor will be and it's sort of freaky to do it that way.

Then you can just take off layers until you are doing it off 1 or 2 layers. They generally start from a seated pike position, tucking their legs upon start.

 

[marie83]

I'm kind of surprised that I've seen so many folk having the kids lace their fingers. I guess it's just a personal preference of mine not to have them to that.
From what I could see in the video, even though the down hill is steep, they aren't rolling very fast. I find it quite difficult to make it with straight arms if I go that slowly. I also have a big head so that could be my issue .

I teach it like this to my little tinies (aged 4/5) because it reminds them that they need to keep their hands turned in towards each other. Once they can do it I encourage them to 'un link' them as they can learn more when they are not linked.

 

[BlairBob]

Yeah to learn straight arm forward or backward rolls, I too have them intertwine their fingers but try to get them out of this habit ASAP once they can keep their elbows straight as I prefer their arms to be shoulder width, not less than shoulder width.

 

[wordsmith]

From what I could see in the video, even though the down hill is steep, they aren't rolling very fast. I find it quite difficult to make it with straight arms if I go that slowly.

One thing pihlajat might consider doing in transitioning from a high incline cheese to something lower (and ultimately to the the floor) is to have his gymnasts answer the following question: "What purpose does the wedge mat serve?" Get them to think about how they may gather the same kind of speed on the regular floor as well as the amount of pressure against the floor that is required to complete the roll (the steeper the angle of the cheese mat, the less pressure the arms have to apply against it in relation to the body weight going over).

I teach it like this to my little tinies (aged 4/5) because it reminds them that they need to keep their hands turned in towards each other.

Another thing the linked hands encourages is for gymnasts to keep their arms in at shoulder-width apart. This sometimes helps those gymnasts who at first feel comfortable letting their hands drift wide (a kind of cheat for those who roll too slow or who are weak).

 

[pihlajat]

thank you all! we'll have a one week break because the gymnast have a winter holiday now so we can't continue practising the skill before that, but after the holiday i'll make them do more upper body conditioning.

my gymnasts haven't link their hands before (except when we do candle stick rolls) but now when i asked them to try the backward rolls that way they said it helped them a lot. i said that they can unlink their hands when they move the rolls from wedge mat to the floor but they said they don't want to!

yesterday i coached three other girls who are going to compete next week. thy have a handstand forward roll in their routine and it has always been a hard skill for them to do with completely straight arms. so, i asked them to link their arms, even if i first thought it would be impossible to do a good handstand with linked hands. first they did like 20 forward rolls with straight arms and they looked like absolutely beautiful! then i make them to try a handstand forward roll. and wow, i was very confused when they did their handstand forward rolls with perfectly STRAIGHT arms, one after another! myself, i have never find it hard to make a handstand roll with hands in the normal handstand position, but i guess that for some gymnasts it's much easier to NOT bend their arms if the middle fingers are together.

it really made my day to see how a gymnast who has struggled with that skill so long made it look so easy in just one hour! though we have a little problem with shoulder angle and a hips angle, but i guess we'll get rid of them soon... bended arms were the major problem that caused the biggest deductions at competition.

here is a very short clip about their very first tries with linked arms:

handstand rolls - YouTube

first two girl didn't actually do a tall proper handstand at their first tries but the rest tries very a lot better. SO THANK YOU for that very very nice tip of linking hands! i think it's a fantastic little "trick" that may make learning skills a lot easier for gymnasts who are struggling with bended arms.

 

[wordsmith]

myself, i have never find it hard to make a handstand roll with hands in the normal handstand position, but i guess that for some gymnasts it's much easier to NOT bend their arms if the middle fingers are together.

I wonder if any of this has to do with wrist flexibility? With fingers facing forward, it might be that some find straight arm rolls tough on the wrists if they don't have adequate wrist hyperextension flexibility. I would think that most would, however (since the heel of the palm comes off the floor and the stretch is transferred into the fingers as the body hits the candle position); and that it is mostly a matter of being able to maintain tension strength/pressure against the floor as one's body is falling forward.