I’ve officially passed the four-month mark since rupturing my Achilles tendon at the gym. It was an awful disruption in my existence. To commemorate my resilience and commitment to healing, I did something I’ve missed since that fateful day. I flipped!
April 16, 2025
If you don’t know me, I’m an adult gymnast who started her flipping adventure at 36. I’m 53 now.
If you’ve been following my story, you know I’ve been recovering since December from an Achilles tendon rupture. From gymnastics. Most people might shy away from an activity where they got hurt that badly, I am not most people.
As the title suggests, I just reached the four month mark since the injury happened on a roundoff back handspring landing on the TumblTrak on Sunday FUNday morning. I had done a bunch of them with no problem. On the last one, the tendon just snapped.
I’ve been spending these past four months healing and rebuilding. Getting out of the cast and the boot, re-learning to walk, returning to the gym, and getting back my normal life activities took a very long time. Physical therapy has been a huge help.
And now, we’re here.
Trampoline is my happy place
Recovering from this injury has been a huge challenge for obvious reasons (the story starts here for more context). One of the biggest challenges has been refraining from jumping activities until the tendon is healed. That means the trampoline, my favorite gymnastics activity, was out for me for quite some time.
In the past two months, since finding life closer to normal, I’ve been slowly building back trampoline skills. From baby bounces, to back drops, to tuck jumps, to dive rolls, I’ve tested the repair little by little.
With each session, I’d cautiously go a little further than last time, being really mindful of the stress or strain on the repair. As soon as the tendon felt a little weary, I’d stop and move on.
Fortunately, the trampoline is a very forgiving rebounding surface. It absorbs a great deal of impact and landings are super soft, compared to the TumblTrak or floor. It’s a good place to try basic, lightweight plyometrics. Heck, it’s a good place to try anything related to tumbling.
The trampoline isn’t great for building joint strength or speed needed for tumbling on other surfaces. That said, if you’re afraid to try something, you might feel safer doing it on a tramp. The bed has a slow rebound, so you have time to think through a movement combination. This is especially good for older people (like me) whose fast-twitch muscles have basically gone to sleep.
Also a major boon on trampoline: it’s a great way to increase your heart rate. Try doing 30 jumps in a row. Or 10 straddle front tucks. You will be heaving for oxygen.
So, you can understand why this injury, other than the obvious reasons, was so devastating for me. Never, in the last 17 years, have I gone this long without flipping. Even when I broke my foot, I was chucking front tucks on trampoline at about 10 weeks.
Soft tissue injuries, especially Achilles tendons, are much harder to heal than broken bones.
Returning to my happy place
Ten weeks after the Achilles rupture was the first time I stepped my feet back onto the trampoline. The ankle was feeling strong enough to try little bounces. That first back drop where I rebounded back to my feet was exhilarating. But I’ll admit, it was scary to allow myself to try the first one.
After that, I’d spend a little time each session adding a new fundamental movement. This video shows a bunch of them at 14 weeks.
Warmups before trampoline
Of course, I don’t do any activity without a LOT of ankle warmup. Before I step foot on the trampoline, I make sure the ankle is well-prepared. The video below gives an idea of the different ankle exercises I do at the beginning of a gym session. I find new ones all the time and add them in.
These are a bunch of the exercises in the video. There are plenty of others, but these cover a variety of options.
- Down dog knee bends and heel pedals
- Resistance band step throughs and range of motion exercises
- Ankle gliding on my AnkleBlock
- Deep squats with counterweight
- Assisted single heel raises and lowers
- Light jogging through the toes
- Single foot balance on one foot
I dedicate anywhere from 15-30 minutes doing ankle prep, shoulder mobility and wrist warmups. Those are my weak links and attention must be paid.
The moment of truth
To be honest, based on all the time I spent on trampoline basics, it’s feasible to think that I could have tried the front flip a little earlier. But my doctor specifically said that it would be better to wait until April to start trying. He also suggested I try belted ones first so that the landing could be a little lighter.
He read my mind.
So finally, on Tuesday’s class, I told Tammy that I was ready to give it a go.
Talk about exhilarating! My favorite thing to do in the gym is flip on the trampoline. It always gives me a rush of excitement and boost of confidence to do skill combinations there. Before the injury, even as I was trying to move skills onto the TumblTrak, I’d always do them on the trampoline first as a warmup. Moving forward, I might just stay put there.
At the end of that video, Tammy asked “Wanna try back tucks?” My immediate response was a hearty “NOPE!” Since I injured myself on a backward landing, I thought it best to give rehabilitation a little more time to set and strengthen the injury. Maybe in May. Maybe.
Despite my disturbing blend of impatience and fear, I’m very satisfied with my recovery so far. There’s still a great deal of tendon strengthening that needs to happen. There’s also a lot of time that needs to pass to make sure better healing happens. Gymnastics presents a ton of different forces on the body, and I must ensure that I’m ready before proceeding.
The last thing I need is another injury on this body.
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