Gymnastics

Round-Off Back-Tuck

A round-off is a tumbling move in gymnastics where the gymnast lands with two feet placed together on the ground, facing the direction of arrival. It is a gymnastic technique that turns horizontal speed into vertical speed and can be used to turn forward momentum from a run into backwards momentum, which leads into the back-handspring, or, in this case, a back-tuck. A back-tuck is a tumbling move where a gymnast jumps up and the feet move forward, and the head moves back. The "tuck" part means that you pull your legs into your body as you rotate. I attempted a round-off back-tuck and I used the advice from the text of the book called Crowood Sports Guides Gymnastics: Skills-Techniques-Training by Llyod Readhead. Looking at page 54 in the section, “Technical Skills in Women’s Gymnastics,” where it states to execute a good back-tuck, “Sufficient momentum must be generated in the round-off, back flip. At the exit from the back-flip the feet must be placed just behind the hips and the body should be in an open dished shape, arms around shoulder height.” One of the parts I focused on most was where the book wrote, “immediately the feet leave the floor the arms are driven downwards, and thighs quickly lifted upwards into the tucked shape… As the tuck is initiated the head must remain neutral and not be thrown backwards,” which basically means squeeze the muscles and tuck your head in and your knees in. I attempted the tumbling pass in this video going from a round-off into a back-tuck from where I landed, and there is a picture from the actual book showing the proper way to perform a back tuck.