How to Do Backflip Combinations

Performing backflip combinations is one of the most difficult skills to master in gymnastics. After learning how to perform round-offs, back handsprings and tucked backflips, you are ready to master the backflip and move onto stringing two backflips together into a backflip combination. A double backflip is incredibly difficult to perform, requires instruction and practice in a safe environment.

Things You'll Need

  • Gymnastics facility with springboards and trampolines or foam pits
  • Floor mats
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Instructions

    • 1

      Perform a round-off and back handspring onto floor mats in a gymnastics facility under the guidance of a gymnastics instructor. Land on the balls of your feet, keeping your heels off the floor. Tighten your abdominal muscles.

    • 2

      Spring straight up vertically as soon as your toes touch the mat, getting as high vertically as you can. Throw your arms and hands straight above your head with your thumbs pointing inward.

    • 3

      Snap your legs and hips up, bringing your toes above your head vertically. Keep your arms straight so your thumbs brush against your hips on their way down to the floor. Flip so that you complete one rotation in the air and land flat footed on the mat. Practice landing on both feet simultaneously.

    • 4

      Practice performing single backflips until you master the technique, then practice stringing two backflips together. Complete the first backflip but land on your toes and immediately spring upward into your second backflip. Stick the landing of your second backflip on both feet, flat and simultaneously.

    • 5

      After mastering a double backflip on the floor mat, practice back somersaults on a gymnastics trampoline. Gain height jumping and raising your arms straight above your head. Bring your legs up and bend your knees, grabbing your legs behind your knees to complete a backward rotation in the air before straightening out and landing on your feet. Practice this until you can master landing on your feet on the trampoline. Move on to double backward somersaults in the air on the trampoline.

    • 6

      After mastering a double somersault on the trampoline, combine the skills you learned in executing double backflips on the floor mats and double backward somersaults on the trampoline by running on a floor mat into a backflip just before a foam pit. Bounce up and out of the backflip into a double backward somersault so that you land on your back in the foam pit. Continue practicing this until you are ready to move on to attempting the entire routine on the floor mats so that you run into a double backflip, double somersault combination that ends with you landing flat-footed on both feet simultaneously.