Gymnast and CrossFit coach Laurie Galassi of CrossFit Santa Cruz breaks down a movement that causes a lot of jitters and requires a safety-first approach: the back tuck.
Galassi notes that while being able to power-clean your body weight might indicate some of the physical attributes needed for a back tuck, a clean provides little of the “air sense” needed to perform the gymnastics skill. Progressions are the key to safe learning.
“The starting thought as you go into this is you’re flipping over your own shoulders,” explains Galassi, who finished eighth at this year’s Northern California Regional. “So we’ve got a ton of jumping and little bit of air sense to find yourself back to the ground before anybody even thinks about flipping over.”
She begins by having athletes jump backward off plyo boxes. Next, she has them backflip on gymnastics rings. The hips are rising over the shoulders, Galassi notes.
“This is giving you that fixed point,” she says.
Next, athletes jump backward into a padded wall, followed by drills where they tuck the knees into the chest and lift the hips while lying on the floor. After that come backward rolls over a wedged-shaped mat and then backward rolls with the mat elevated on wooden boxes.
“In terms of creating rotation,” she says, “some people flip and some people don’t.”
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Additional reading: Why Train Gymnastics Basics? by Jeff Tucker, published Aug. 1, 2008.