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Gymnastic Vault - Front Handspring
In this lesson you will learn how to do a front
handspring over the vaulting table.
Before you try this, you should learn the handstand, all
the previous vaulting exercises for
straight vaults
and the flyspring. Make
sure the landing are is protected with sufficient mats and ask your
coach to support you.
Find more vaulting instructions at gymnastics
main.
Technical description: Gymnastic Vault - Front Handspring
- Run towards the vaulting table and jump from the springboard onto the table.
Swing your arms forward up and extend your body totally when you are in the air.
Block ( that's when your hands touch the tongue to push yourself off ) shortly before your body reaches vertical level.
Keep your arms totally extended and only push off by extended your shoulders a bit.
For more information on the first phase, please visit the straight vaulting exercise 04.
The blocking turns the forward-acceleration into an up-acceleration, so that you can gain more height for multiple flips
and rotations. If you block too early, you might vault too short and hit the back of your head on the table.
If you block too late, you will not gain much height.
- Blocking:
Push off with your hands and by extending your shoulders, so that your feet are as far as possible from the table.
Whip your arms back slightly and hollow your back a little, like if you were doing a front handspring on the floor.
Keep in mind that the elbows, the knees and the ankles have to stay fully extended.
Upper body, arms and head move as one unit. Abs contracted. ( ears stick to shoulders )
This is an explosive technique and should happen shortly before you reach vertical level.
( as soon as your hands touch the table )
The faster you run, the harder and higher you will be able to block off.
The first half of the vault should not be too high.
Worst mistakes: Bending elbows and knees
- If your up-run was fast enough and your block had the right timing, you will gain quite a lot of height.
Make sure you don't bend your legs or your arms in the second phase of the vault.
Keep your back slightly hollowed ( but not too much ) and ask your coach to assist you in this phase.
He has to protect the back of your head in case you didn't vault away from the table enough.
Many beginners vault too short and hit the head on the back of the vaulting table. ( because of early blocking or slow runs )
- Try to land in a stuck landing as upright as possible, with your back not hollowed anymore.
A stuck landing is when you don't need an extra step or a hop to balance out the landing.
Keep your arms raised and don't bend your knees too much to dampen the landing.
At the beginning you can use some extra landing mats.
Trainer advice: Gymnastic Vault - Front Handspring
- Keep your arms and your legs totally extended. Don't bend your elbows as you block off.
- A fast run up is essention for a high vault.
- Exercise 01: Fill the landing area with mats and do exercise 04.
Bridge down from your handstand or try flysprings with the landing mats as table-tongue height.
Then remove mats gradually.
- Exercise 02: Do flysprings from a springboard and then put more and more mats to the place where you
push off with your hands. ( until you are blocking from a high pile of mats )
The height of the landing area has to stay the same from the very beginning.
Related instructions: Gymnastic Vault - Front Handspring
Videos: Gymnastic Vault - Front Handspring
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