Stopping In The Middle Of A Handspring...

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Aug 10, 2010
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i have two girls on a senior level 2 team that will throw their handsprings by themselves all the time, but will reach the handstand position and just collapse...
does anyone have any tips on how i can get them to pull their toes over faster and get their hands off the ground immediately??
oh, and if they throw it down the decline, they are beautiful. so im not exactly sure what the problem is!!! :help:
 
By sounds of it they are getting their arms further around if it's fine on a decline, one simple fix that may work is having them focus on what we call fast arms... They to swing their arms much faster and past their ears, creates a bigger arch , easier for snap downs
 
Isn't landing on their head enough of a deterrent?

its really not like they are TRYING to stop. these girls want these handsprings so bad, its just in their head that they cant throw them on the ground by themselves. im trying to find easy drills to build up confidence, rather than having them get discouraged when they fall over and over again.
 
If It's a courage thing this is what I used to do, I'd start at the top of the cheese mat and take a little step back after each back handspring until my toes where the only thing on the cheese mat. It made it way less scarey and is a big confidence builder. It may be the first few times they can only get to the middle of the mat but it really helps. Hope they get their back handsprings.
 
I am no where near an expert on advice, but it seems like maybe they need to work on their upper body strength. I was always told if you can not hold your own body weight, then it will be hard to do a BHS. Maybe have them do handstands on the walls and stay in the handstands as long as possible to help build their endurance of holding their own body weight. My daughter's former private coach use to make her do handstand push-ups when she was not doing her bhs correctly (he would hold her feet while she was in handstand position and do the push-up). He would stop the privates and work on conditioning the rest of the time. It worked.
 
Athletes that can do a back handspring well down the cheese but not on floor usually need to jump harder and sit back further with their hips in the sit before the throw.

Most cheerleaders I have worked with shorten their back handspring when they move from any surface to floor. The cheese mat provides athletes with backward momentum they are not producing themselves, so without it their handspring goes just up but not back.

Make sure they are sitting with their hips back and down and their ankles even with their knees, not behind.

If they can do it perfectly down cheese than i don"t think it's a strength thing.

Happy Skill BUilding!!!
 
From what you're saying it seems like they aren't snapping, maybe try some handstand snap-down drills and ab exercises to strengthen their core to snap?
 
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