Photo: Snapped! by Becca Clark
I’m a dead mat hater, and most of you probably are too!
I avoided tumbling on dead mat at all costs because I was not used to it at all and it made everything harder, but here are 5 tips I have for you to overcome your hatred or fears of tumbling on it:
- Be tighter and hold more tension in your body as you tumble. You can get away with being a little loose on a trampoline because it’s bouncy and forgiving. The same thing happens on a sprung floor, so once you transition to an even harder surface like dead floor, you’re going to need to make sure you’re tight during your skills. This way, you won’t see a drastic loss of power, decreased speed or poor technique.
- The floor is less forgiving without springs underneath so be prepared for potential wrist or ankle pain and adjust your angles as needed. If you normally land short on a sprung floor and don’t feel ankle pain, you may experience it on the dead floor since the harder surface won’t absorb so much of your landing. You can prevent this by adjusting the angle of your landing. For example, snapping your legs a little further in front of you when exiting a round off or handspring (in comparison to how much you would normally do on sprung floor).
- Exaggerate your movements because there are no springs to help you out. Similar to what I mentioned about snapping your feet in front of you more than normal or being tighter than normal, you may need to exaggerate a little bit when doing your skills on dead mat (reach further, set higher, jump harder, etc.).
- Don’t train on bouncy surfaces (i.e. trampolines) right before tumbling on dead mat. It will throw off the feeling/timing of your tumbling and make it harder to adjust.
- Train other things on dead mat to get used to the feeling. Practice your jumps, sit and stretch, do conditioning or just do basic tumbling skills like cartwheels & handstands to familiarize yourself with the feel of it.
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