How to Do a Backflip in 6 Steps

It’s a sign of core strength, gymnastics skills, and, well, coolness. In a cool world, doing a backflip is kind of everyone’s dream!
Whether you want to impress your friends, you’re into gymnastics, or you just want to strengthen your core, we’ll help you learn how to do a backflip. It surely needs practice, but we assure you, you’ll get there!

The 6-Step Guide to Doing a Backflip

The key to learning how to do a backflip with minimal risk of injury is to learn the technique first. Once you have a good grip on the intricacies of doing a backflip, you can actually attempt to do one.
Here are six steps to follow that will result -after a whole lot of practice- in a perfect backflip.

Step 1 - Stand Right

The first thing you have to do in a good backflip is to stand correctly. Spread your feet into a shoulder’s width and stretch your arms overhead. Balance your core and make sure you’re stable on your feet before you move on to the next step.
Don’t look to the ground, as this might make you lose balance. Keep your head in a neutral position and look at anything that’s in your level of sight.

Step 2 - Bend Your Knees

Now you’re ready to be in a position to actually jump. Bend your knees so that they’re pointed up to your chest while maintaining good posture. Your back should remain straight through this and your arms should be still raised overhead. This is to keep your balance; arching forward while bending your knees will definitely throw you off balance.
No need for a deep-squat knee-bending here. The position of a high squat will do.

Step 3 - Swing Your Arms

Nope. It’s not the time to fly yet.
After you bend your knees, you should extend your arms and swing them behind your back, where your palms should be facing up.

Step 4 - Jump

Now you’ve got to swing your arms forward, going over your head. Then, leap upwards into the flip while bringing your arms back to help thrust you into the air. Your arms should be straight this whole time to provide you with momentum for the jump.
Keep in mind that you have to jump up then push through your thighs and arc your arms back to go backward. Jumping backward directly will probably end in a handspring.

Step 5 - Tuck

Pull your knees towards your chest when you’re peaking to tuck. Then, grab your knees with your hands to balance yourself. Keep your eyes open during that to spot your landing place.
Yet, while you’re flipping, look at a distant object so that you don’t lose your balance.

Step 6 - Land

When you’re about at ¾ of your rotation, untuck and release your legs. Bend your knees slightly for landing to absorb the shock from hitting the ground. Don’t try to lock them, though, as you might injure them that way.
The ideal landing position is one with your knees aligned to your ankle and your hips aligned to your chest with a slight bend of your knees. This way, you’ll land safely, balanced, and without hurting your knees.
If you feel like you’re leaning forward, hold your chest and shoulders back and extend your arms in front of you to balance.

Tips and Tricks to Perfecting the Backflip

Here are some dos and don’ts that you should follow to save yourself some failed attempts at backflipping.

Don’t Improvise

Looking at videos of people attempting backflips might intrigue you to just go and try it out. We assure you, this is not gonna end well.
As you’ve seen, there’s a specific technique to the backflip that requires focus, balance, and training. Going out and trying to jump into the air and flip your body will end with you hurting yourself or falling down in the best scenario. You don’t want that.

Don’t Go Backwards

One technique to do a non-jumping backflip is to start with throwing your upper body backward like you might do when you jump in a pool. This might work, but it won’t result in a backflip.
As we said before, you need to jump upwards first to gain momentum, then flip your body. This is how you get in the air and tuck, not the other way round.

Practice

We’re not talking here about practicing the whole routine. Yes, it might sound like an exaggeration, but a backflip is more of a routine rather than a sudden move. Anyway, we mean practicing the essential aspects of a backflip separately before you integrate them into a whole flip.
This includes practicing high jumping, swinging arms and locking them, tucking your body against rotation, stabilizing your body before the takeoff, and landing safely.

Tucking

Good tucking is vital to a successful backflip. To practice, you need to lie on the floor with your hands next to your hips, then deflect your shoulders with your arms behind your head and roll your body back using the momentum generated. That’s how you attempt an explosive tuck. Your head should be touching the ground in all these steps.
Another variation of this exercise is to use a mat to reduce pressure on your upper body and use an object, like a big box, behind you to try to attempt to reach for it with your legs. In this case, the goal of your tuck would be to get your legs on that box.
To practice the compressed tuck, you need to lie on the ground, hands to hips, and then roll your knees up and try to reach for them with your upper body—Head between the knees.

Be Careful & Take Your Time

You can get severely injured if you do a backflip the wrong way. So, you’ve got to be super careful when you’re practicing. Going hard on yourself isn’t really a clever strategy here. It’s not cardio.
Mastering a backflip will take time; it’s going to be several weeks probably. While it’s doable, it is as hard as it looks. Keep that in mind when you start practicing to adjust your expectations as to when you’ll be able to make this move.