Photo: Snapped! by Becca Clark
Everyone wants more power in their tumbling, especially when they’re trying to add on more difficult skills at the end of the pass. Having good power makes tumbling a lot easier, less tiring and safer (if you know how to control the power).
Here are 3 ways to improve power in your running tumbling:
1. Tweak Your Hurdle
Make sure your hurdle is 3 things: long, reaching and forward. By long, I mean don’t expect to do a short little jump and have enough power to do a round off handspring tuck easily. That being said, you also don’t want to hurdle TOO long or else the movement becomes awkward and you’ll slow yourself down.
Next, by reaching, I mean reaching hard through your shoulders. They should be fully extended and reaching so much that there’s no space between your shoulders and ears. If you’re reaching properly, the joint will be very stable, allowing you to create tension in your body for the rest of the pass (which allows power to build) and provide a good support for when your hands touch the floor.
Lastly, by forward, I mean as you enter your round off you need to think more about reaching forwards to the wall/space ahead of you and less about putting your hands on the ground. If you’re thinking about reaching down to the ground as you enter your round off, you’re likely going to cut off your reach which breaks the momentum a little bit, creates choppier timing, slows you down a little bit and prevents power from building throughout the pass.
Basically, the better you can start your pass, the better you’ll be able to do the skills in it! A lazy run/hurdle without a reach is going to set you up for a slow and difficult tumbling pass.
2. Reaching = Tension
This goes with the reaching I mentioned in the first point. The tighter you are and the more you reach throughout the pass, the more power you’ll maintain/build.
Shoulder reaching isn’t the only thing you need to be conscious of, you need to also think about leg reaching! The term leg reaching sounds weird, but you need to reach both ends of your body in opposite directions as much as you possibly can and maintain that reaching throughout the entire tumbling line. Your body should be LONG. This will create tightness/tension within you. There should be tension when reaching into your round off, reaching back into your handspring, setting for your back tuck, etc.
Practicing creating tension through reaching will instantly change your tumbling, so try it next time you do a skill!
3. Strength Train
An obvious tip is to do some strength training! Power = speed + strength, so if you can create a good strength foundation, you’ll set yourself up to be more powerful.
For tumbling in particular, you would want to focus mainly on lower body strength training to make the entrance into the pass easier.
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Comment below what you struggle with most when it comes to tumbling! I’ll reply or give you some tips in another blog post 😊
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