How to do Arm Swing Drills for Back Handsprings

Video Transcript

"Hi! I'm Mandy Butler on behalf of Expert Village. I'm going to be taking you through some back handspring drills and techniques to help you on your way to mastering the back handspring. Now I'm going to take you through a simple arm swing drill. This is really important because the things you need to remember for a nice powerful back handspring are jumps. Use your arms. Make sure you have a fast arm swing and your body is nice and tight. A lot of people swing their arms too slowly, that by the time they get upside down, their hands are still in front of them. If my head goes back first, my arms are here, while I'm upside down, what's going to hit the ground first? My head. If my arms go back farther, then my hands will hit, which is what I'll need to happen. A good way to teach your athletes how to keep their arms fast and get their hands back behind them, rather than landing on their head, is just to have them lie down on a cushion mat. Hands by their side. You can also do this lying down on a wedge mat. They're just going to swing their arms, straight elbows back above their heads like this. I have them come down slowly so they feel the difference between the two. If you have them just go back and forth like that, they don't understand exactly the tempo of which they should be moving their arms. This is an arm swing drill on a mat."