Photo: Front Row Cheer Photos
Standing up from a front walkover is always the hardest part of the skill. If you’re having trouble with this, it doesn’t always mean you’re not strong or flexible enough to stand up.
The most common reason for not being able to stand up is because you haven’t mastered weight transferring yet! In order to stand up fully onto your feet again, you need 100% of your weight in your feet. If any of your weight remains behind your balance point, you’re going to fall in that direction.
Let’s start with the beginning though.
As you place your hands down and bring your legs over, you need to “open” your shoulders. This means creating an arch through your upper back and shoulders by pushing your armpits in the opposite direction your legs are going. Not only will this slow things down a bit and give you more control of the skill, but it’ll allow for easier weight transfer later on when you want to stand up.
In addition, as your legs are kicking over, make sure your knees are fully straight and squeezed. The knee of the leg that touches the floor first will need to bend a little as it touches, but it should remain straight the rest of the time. You should aim for your legs to be in a perfect split also. They need to be reaching in opposite directions to create tension. This will make your walkover look pretty and feel easier.
Now to the standing up portion…
Once your first foot touches the floor after kicking over, you need to shift your weight off your hands and into that supporting leg. You can do this by pushing that hip forwards to get the most weight possible on top of that foot. It helps if you try to straighten that knee as well.
After some weight is transferred onto that foot, you need to continue reaching *down* (yes, down right towards the floor) with your arms when standing up from a front walkover. If you continue to reach down towards the floor, you’ll be able to transfer your weight into your supporting leg more easily. It sounds counterproductive, but if you try to force your upper body up before enough weight has been transferred, you’ll end up falling backwards.
Once the weight is fully transferred onto your supporting leg, you can begin to pull your upper body up. As mentioned above, if you bring your arms or upper body up too early, you’ll be off balance and either fall backward or not be able to stand up at all. Keep your arms by your ears and keep reaching down with your arms as you use your anterior core muscles (abs) to pull yourself up.
It helps to squeeze the glutes of your supporting leg while standing up too. This will make it better able to resist any movement that can pull you off balance and make you fall backward.
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