December 21, 2005
Wall Flips
Three months ago I started going to an adult gymnastics class once a week. I figured that it would be a good way to increase my strength, coordination, and balance. One of the first things that I learned was standing back-tucks (flips), and round-off back-tucks. I have a good vertical jump, so these were not terriblly difficult for me. However, I quickly learned that my ankles were not ready for the impact forces generated by landing these flips. I landed a few of them poorly and experienced severe pain down in the joint on the top of both ankles. For the last 8 weeks or so, both ankles have still been quite tender if I push on the tendons running down the top of the ankle joint.
Today things felt healed enough to attempt some more high impact stuff, so I decided to try learning back flips off the wall. I have read a bunch of pointers on the web and watched several video clips, so I figured I had the general idea down.
First I practiced running 2 steps up the wall and pushing off hard trying to get the most height possible.
Next I pulled a big crash mat over near the wall and practiced pushing off and landing on my back on the mat. After doing about 20 of those, I was getting very comfortable and getting good height coming off the wall (horizontal 5-6' in the air) before landing on my back.
The gymnastics instructor came over to spot the first attempt. I ran up, pushed off, and flipped over! He ended up just barely putting a hand on my back as I rotated. He immediately stepped back and told me to just "go for it".
I was a little freaked out, and just decided to pretend I had done a ton of them and just go do another one. Turned out that it was much easier than I thought it would be. I ended up doing 18 of them before my ankles started hurting bad enough that I had to stop.
With standing back tucks on the floor, I find that I have to concentrate hard on both getting a high jump on the take-off, and also on tucking hard for rotation. With the wall flips, the rotation feels almost automatic. The extra height from the run up the wall combined with the fact that I am already leaning back horizontal make the rotation a no-brainer. I noticed that the best flips were the ones when I just focused on getting UP the wall.
Doing these has been "on my list" for a long time (since I was in high school). I still need a lot of practice, but it feels really good to have done a few of them.
Posted by bcroft at December 21, 2005 04:44 PM
Comments
It was nice to check up on you recently... and more importantly, it was once again inspiring to know that recent intentions to get into better shape were precognately pursued by a good friend... I think I would have been disappointed otherwise... looking forward to new gains and new posts on your progress!
Posted by: Rawlin Bagnall at April 27, 2006 04:45 AM