Image optioned from Park Wreking Gymnastics
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How To Help Your Kid Learn to do a Back Walkover at Home in 5 Easy Steps
One of the first really impressive skills of little gymnasts is the ability to do a back or front walkover. Once it's clicked, all they want to do is do a back walkover over anything and everything. They want to show everyone and tell everyone exactly how they do it to their delighted audience.
But how can you help them actually get to that point of giddy excitement to show off their walkover skills? We've narrowed down the process into 5 steps. Some of these may work better with the equipment links we provided, but if you want to get creative and use items you have at home you totally can! So let's get started.
Step One: The first step with teaching your child how to do a back walkover is to get them very comfortable being in the bridge and back bend position.
If they can't do a backbend yet, have them practice with their backs facing the wall and have them place their hands on the wall behind them and walk them down towards the floor until they're at the floor in a backbend! Encourage your kid to practice these wall bends all the time and make it fun.
Image from TumblingHomework.com
Have objects for them to grab at the floor if they make it all the way down. A fun idea for kids who have a hard time visualizing success is to mark areas on the wall with tape each night to show how far they've gotten each practice.
Step Two: Once they've gotten their backbends down, it's a good idea to spend some time every day in their backbends rocking back and forth on their heels and arms, this helps their arms learn to support and shift their body weight during the walkover.
Now it's time to use the wall again, but this time with their feet facing it, not their arms. It's the same idea as the hands walking down into a bridge but this time it's their feet walking up the wall. They don't need to flip over or anything, just practice walking their feet up the wall until they're vertical.
All of this weight on your child's wrist and movement may require wrist support, especially if your child is complaining about achy wrists. These wrist supports are highly rated and comfortable for kids to wear.
Step Three: Once you're child has mastered wall walkovers, she's ready to move on to the next step which is using an octagon mat! These mats are round and barrel shaped and designed to help your child learn to walkover on his or her own.
The way this works is with two people. The first person, most likely you, the parent, holds the mat steady from the octagon shaped side and the gymnast or your child stands with her heels at the foot of the octagon mat and then backbends over it. You then roll the mat gently until her hands reach the other side and her feet follow one by one. You can do this same thing for forward walkovers although those are harder to learn.
In the beginning it will be clunky, but focusing on getting her feet over the mat one by one and beginning the walkover with her weaker foot up in the air in front of her will help her feet go down 1, 2 as well. This octagon mat is highly rated for beginners and can be used in a couple of different ways too! This mat is great for supporting your child's wrists as she reaches for the floor while rolling back on the octagon mat.
Step Four: Now it's time to bring out "the cheese mat" as we like to call it. Or more formally known as the incline mat. Here is where actually doing a back walkover gets real for your kid. Keep in mind that she will need a spotter in the beginning. Here's how using it for a back walkover works.
Your child stands at the edge of the cheese mat with their back facing the wedge. Then with the help of one of your hands on the small of their back they backbend and kick over with the help of you and the incline of the mat. You may need to push their leg over at first. Make sure they are starting with their weaker leg in the air as well.
They should do these incline mat walkovers every day, and straighten their legs more and more each time they try it. We've found that practicing with these 1 pound ankle weights makes the gymnast work harder in keeping legs straight so when the weights are off, their little legs automatically straighten better during walkover and handstand practice without the weights.
This incline mat is rated the highest of all of them, and that is because of its versatility. It can be folded and used for kickoff and standing tuck practice, drills and many other things as well.
Practice incline mat walkovers with another mat beneath it. Eventually you won't have to spot anymore and she'll be doing them all on her own.
Step Five: Finally your child has mastered the incline mat back walkover! Now it's time to move to the floor! Starting with those ankle weight on, have your child push her weaker foot out in front of her.
Backbend down to the floor protected with a mat like this one with her foot pointed upwards and helping her then continue to move backwards and all the way over!
Image obtained from gymnasticshq.com
Practice really does make perfect, and the more your child practices on the wall, the mats and the floor the more confident she will become in doing her backwalkover!
Step aside, Suni Lee, you're little gymnast is next in line for that all around crown and will be back flipping on beams and floors before you know it!
We hope this helped! Until next time,
The Cartwheel Corner
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