The summer of 2024 was a bonanza of gymnastics progress. I managed to avoid injury, and I had some pretty cool successes. There was a ton of breaking through some deep-seated Mr. Lizard fear of going backwards on the TumblTrak. In this article, I share my progress and the personal strategies I’ve used to get there.
Once upon a time, chucking back handsprings on the TumblTrak was no big deal to me. They were a part of my regular training and I could do them in my sleep.
I even had a mission to connect as many straddle front tucks as I had room for afterwards:
Oh, how things have changed. Before this past summer, the last back handsprings I chucked on TumblTrak were in 2022. I remember it started to feel unsure, perhaps unsafe. In one of the last videos I have from that time, I can see my form was breaking down.
I’m sure I wasn’t maintaining proper strength and mobility in my lower extremities and shoulders. Over time, I had sustained all sorts of sudden injuries: calf and hamstring pulls, ankle jams, rotator cuff. Feeling increasingly unsure, I’d land the back handspring on my knees instead of my feet. It was all bad. I got so spooked that I just stopped trying altogether. When you stop trying, it all goes out the window.
Then, in August of 2023, I broke my foot trying to advance a skill on the TumblTrak. (Read the series Sometimes You Break Yourself for that saga.) Let’s just say, it was the biggest wrench in the works of my forward progress at the gym.
Getting back on the horse…uh, the TumblTrak.
It took a lot of physical and mental rehabbing over time for me to start training there again. For a long time, the only thing I’d do was running punch fronts, maybe the occasional front handspring. For me, going forward is much easier than going backwards. Less frightening, too. I wouldn’t even do round-offs because I was afraid of aggravating my wonky shoulder and lower back.
Instead, I decided it was the better part of valor to stay off the TumblTrak. I stuck with the trampoline, where I worked on my mechanics. I also worked to improve my overall fundamentals, strength and mobility. Clearly, there were underlying issues that needed attention.
This summer, I started to feel stronger. The injuries I had sustained were under control. My trampoline handsprings were much improved and more consistent. I had reached a pinnacle, but felt I had nowhere to go.
Read Rebuilding Confidence: How to Overcome Fear After an Injury for more details about steps I took to work through that fear.
My brain and body were starting to send different signals. I was actually entertaining the possibility that it was time to try again. And I didn’t get the awful feeling in my gut that said “No way, no how.” That in itself was scary. If I started trying again, would it result in another injury? What if, what if, what if…
I decided to slowly work things in. I played with round-offs, which didn’t feel terrible. My form had improved there, too. I tested standing back tucks in the belt, then solo. Progress was happening, slowly.
Each time I chucked a skill, I’d carefully assess how my form was feeling. If it wasn’t great, I’d step back and work on fundamentals.
Read Commit to the Fundamentals for specifics.
Unlocking the back handspring
My first handspring attempts on the TumblTrak since 2022 were in the belt with a manual spot. I can chuck these so easily on the trampoline. I can even do it with a panel mat that deadens the bounce. But transferring that to the TumblTrak always made my heart race. I was getting tired of not having any way to progress further on the trampoline. I had to start considering how I would make the transfer without panic or worse, injury.
There was one strategy I hadn’t tried yet: the manual belt. It worked for my back tucks. Maybe it would help to unlock my inner She-Hulk power for handsprings too.
Using the manual belt
I spent several weeks at this stage, even though my rational brain knew I was capable of ditching the belt. When my brain is screaming STOP!!, I always listen. That much noise in my head means everything is not in place to chuck it solo.
Ditching the belt
All this time, I had also been getting more confident and consistent doing solo standing back tucks. My brain started to quiet down about the back handsprings. At that point, I knew it was time to move forward. The video below shows that transition from belt to solo.
Progress is never linear
Of course, it’s not always a success party. Because of this, my go-to expression is:
Progress isn’t linear
What you think you have mastered one day doesn’t necessarily stick the next. Lasting skill requires so many repetitions on so many different days. It’s quite maddening, to enjoy the incredible boost of confidence, only to see it dissolve in the next gym session. You can see this clearly played out in the next clip:
This was not a dramatization. This really happens to even seasoned gymnasts over skills that present any danger that would trigger Mr. Lizard, aka the self-protective mechanism in our brain. Remember Simone’s Tokyo twisties? Mr. Lizard is VERY real, even at the elite level. Even though we are perfectly capable of physically executing these skills, it’s a non-starter if Mr. Lizard is active. If only our brains would fully get on board, we would accomplish so much more.
To be fair, that Lizard brain is responsible for making sure we walk away in one piece and physically whole. Even if our rational brain screams “YOU KNOW HOW TO DO THIS, JUST GO!!!,” Lizard knows that something in the mechanism is not quite right. There’s a fine line between trusting yourself to commit successfully and desperately trying to follow an uphill, linear path that doesn’t exist.
Annoying as it can be, there’s wisdom in the Lizard brain. We don’t always agree with it. We don’t always like what it has to say. I’m learning that it is best to heed that wisdom. My body is thanking me for that.
What to do when Mr. Lizard doesn’t cooperate?
The “I got it, I don’t got it” vacillation is irritating to say the least. When it happens, my years of experience have taught me a lot. This is the wisdom that now drives me:
It’s better to take a safe step back
than to push forward when your brain isn’t ready.
Let’s look at Tuesday’s class, two days after the above video. I really wanted to get my confidence back on the back handsprings. I knew my brain was resisting, so I decided to go with the mental security of the belt. For some reason, it enables me to lower my guard and activate what I know. So I put it back on and had Coach Michael and Kwesi on either side.
First round: I chucked three in succession with good rebound. Pretty solid 👍.
Second round: Since the belt was there, I thought I’d up the ante. I really wanted to add the back tuck, just to see if my brain would let me do it. The result is below:
I still have a long road to travel to feel comfortable with back handsprings on that TumblTrak. For whatever reason, Mr. Lizard is more forgiving if I have that belt on.
In the end, it’s all about the numbers. The more I complete comfortably, the more confidence I develop, the more I can rock Mr. Lizard to sleep. I accept that this is a marathon, not a sprint. The best strategy is to keep chipping away and working on a variety of support skills to get you there.
Strategies to support back handspring progress
My nemesis, the TumblTrak is where I have sustained the most injuries and suffered the most frustration. Fortunately, I have gotten wiser in my older age. In training for longevity in the sport, my goal is not just to chuck the back handspring once or twice. It is to do so consistently and safely so I can progress it into other connections.
To do so, I needed to develop the right combination of strategies to unlock the door to progress. Conditioning and drilling the skill in multiple ways are the keys to getting more comfortable. When there are no other sub-levels to conquer, you must draw on your inner She-Hulk strength, commit, and GO. The way to do that safely is to ensure all the cogs in the machine are in tip top shape.
What’s in my toolbox of strategies?
I thought you’d never ask.
First, I’ve done a couple of tutorials about back handsprings. You should look at these posts: Improving Back Handspring Technique and Improving Back Handsprings, part 2.
Second, I have some things I do regularly that have become good habits that support this tricky, anxiety-producing skill. Let’s take a look:
STRATEGY 1: Strength and mobility training
It sounds counter-intuitive, but you really need to work both stability and mobility in the shoulders. Mobilization allows you to attain the correct range of motion for the skill. Stabilization enables you to add weight to a potentially end range of motion. Without both, injuries will certainly happen.
Old shoulders, particularly ones with wonky rotator cuffs, require a massive amount of intentional conditioning.
I’ve been asked many times what conditioning exercises I focus on. This is what I do as regularly as possible:
Stretch and Mobilize
- Shoulder CARS: (here’s a good video) First without weight, then adding light weights (3 lbs. each hand).
- Static shoulder extension: hands high on a wall or on a counter. Step back, dip your chest towards the ground with your hips in a right angle. You’ll feel a great stretch in the shoulders and ribcage. Arch and round your back for more mobility.
- Banded shoulder extensions: A quick, dynamic move with very light resistance that helps develop fast-twitch muscles to get arms overhead quickly. Step on one side of the loop, hold the other side of the band in your hands. Quickly, raise your straight arms overhead. Rinse and repeat.
Strengthen and Stabilize
- Shoulder overhead presses: I am now working with 20 lb. weights in each hand.
- Lat pulldowns/banded pullups: I can now pull a little more than half my body weight.
- Rows: I’m pulling about 100 lbs. on the universal machine.
- Farmer’s carry: When I have access to a regular gym, I’ll grab two 50 lb. kettle balls and walk around the gym as long as I can. This is really good for core strength, which is necessary for a good handspring.
- Handstands: Lots of them. You need to go through a good handstand in your block for the handsprings. Train these ad nauseam.
STRATEGY 2: Handsprings on the trampoline
While I’m trying to move to a harder surface, it’s imperative that I don’t lose proper form and technique. I always warm up doing lots of handsprings on the trampoline. I’ll often put a panel mat down to kill some of the bounciness. I’ll also work on round-off back handsprings to encourage and maintain my ability to smoothly connect the two skills.
I think there’s wisdom here. With the ease of the bouncier surface, I have more time to process my body positioning throughout the skill. Where are my feet? Are my legs together throughout? Are my toes pointed? Where are my hands? Are they going wide or closer together? Is my block adequate? Am I keeping my arms by my ears through the end? What does my timing look like? And so on…
The goal: keep that information in the forefront so when I’m increasing the difficulty, my body doesn’t betray me. As we age, stepping back is an essential component in our quest to move forward.
STRATEGY 3: Back tucks on TumblTrak
While they are skills with slightly different messaging, tucks and handsprings start off basically the same. Back tucks go up and land in one place, handsprings sit back and travel backwards. I still need the good arm swing and quick shoulder extension for both. Since I’m now more comfortable doing back tucks there, I’ll chuck a whole bunch of them as a warm up.
Of course, those slight differences make for big brain challenges. There are significant mental machinations that happen right before I chuck a skill. Usually, I’m going through the laundry list of requirements before tapping into She-Hulk (as noted in STRATEGY 2). And sometimes, I’m competing with Mr. Lizard for brain space. All of that overthinking can be enough to sabotage the whole effort.
But, I remain undeterred. I believe the “overthinking” is what is keeping me in good shape, uninjured, and baby stepping forward. Ultimately, that pays off in big ways.
I hope the chronicling of my stories has proven valuable to you. The strategies I follow are certainly not all-inclusive of the possibilities for training back handsprings. They are what I can do and what work for me.
In sharing them with you, you might be inspired to try something you hadn’t thought of before. Who knows? Maybe you’ll find a way to unlock a fear block of your own!
Happy flipping!! 😁🤸♀💪️
Read more from The Geriatric Gymnast!
I've written a lot over the years about my awesome, crazy, scary adult gymnastics experience. You can take your pick of topics at An Overview of Geriatric Gymnastics. If there's something you like, or that you'd like to hear about, post a comment and let me know!
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Very interesting.
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