Bent arms and legs

[fullinitup]

WHat are your favorite drills or exercises to stop your athletes from bending either their legs or arms in the bhs and series of bhs.

 

[fullinitup]

Anything, anyone??

 

[Deleted member D3987]

huh? ^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

[Marino]

This is a good question, because any answer will always be right and wrong.

When a gymnast does a back handspring their arms and legs should be slightly bent, so why do we teach the gymnasts to have straight arms and legs? The answer is we are actually teaching them something that is wrong when learning to do a back handspring, but is necessary or else they will actually bend too much.

When teaching we always teach the gymnast to keep their arms and legs straight as possible and that is what you should be doing.

A common reason why gymnasts bend their arms too much when doing a back handspring is usually because they can't handle the forces when doing the back handspring (here I'm thinking the handspring through handstand position).

A common reason why gymnasts bend their legs too much when doing a back handspring is usually because they take-off in the wrong body position. The most common problem is that after the round off they don't get feet far enough forward, meaning that they land almost in a straight vertical position after the round off... this means the only way they will be able to do a back handspring is to bend their legs (a lot). You need to teach the gymnast to push their feet forward as they land in their round off, so that their feet is in front of their knees.