How to Do a Back Walkover

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Virginia and I'm here with Amanda, at Encore Gymnastics, and we are going to teach you how to do a back walkover. It's really important that whenever you do any gymnastics, that you stretch out your muscles first, especially for a back walkover, you're asking a lot of your muscles. So you want to stretch out your wrists and your ankles, very, very important to get those wrists and ankles stretched out. Tops and bottoms, flipping them over. Stretching your ankles around in a circle, making sure you also get your hamstring, as well as your Achilles. Very nice. Also, it's very important to have nice, black...back and shoulder flexibility for your back walkover, so you always want to make sure you stretch out your bridge first. Over the top. When you do your bridge, it's really important that you push your chest over your hands, that's a really important way to do a bridge. A lot of times you'll see bridges, bend your knees, and it'll look kind of like this. So what you want to do is, straighten those legs, squeeze the legs together, push your shoulders this direction over your hands. Once you get this alignment and this flexibility in the shoulders and the back, your back walkover's going to be much easier to do. So come on up, Amanda. Starting out with our back walkover, let's see what a beautiful back walkover looks like. Arms up, leg up. Ding! There it goes. And back over the top, finishing in an arabesque. Oh, or, with your hands down in a lunge. Very nice. So, when we do our back walkover, we're going to start here with a big stretch over the top. It's really important as you go into your back walkover, your hips push forward. You don't want all your weight going down on top of the ground all at once. When you go back, it's really important that you lead with your fingertips. Really pull that shoulder arch back, fingertips down first. Go ahead, pull it in. Fingertips, shoulders, split, over the top. We're going to go through this nice split position, right here, big split! Foot down, arms come up, finish in a lunge. Very nice. Good job. Before you do your back walkover, a couple things you're going to want to work on first would be your bridge. Go ahead and just go back into a limber, back, make sure you're weight's over the top. Before you try your back walkover, you're going to want to be able to do a bridge kick over, so make sure you get that one down pat first. Kick over the top, arms up, very nice. Let's do that one more time. When you do your bridge kick over, go ahead into your bridge, don't kick quite yet. When you go to kick over, you're going to lift this leg nice and fast, and then you're going to push through this toe. As you do the lift and the push, you're going to push your chest forward over your hands. You want to get your momentum and your weight going in this direction, where you're going to land. So big kick. Push. Over the top. Arms up. Very nice. Once you have that, you're ready to start. From the stand, arms up. Again, it's really important to start with a great big stretch. Get your body nice and in alignment, and lead with your fingertips. Go ahead. Tips to your heels. Good! Arms up, big finish. And...beautiful! That is how we do a back walkover."