Would this help backwalkover strength?

[Neal Winkler]

I just had an idea for a modified verion of a body lever that seem like it would be good for increasing ab strength for backwalkover and also increasing thoracic mobility.

Ok, so here is the regular version:

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Now imagine that instead of stopping parallel with the floor the kid just kept going lower. You could further increase the the ROM by elevating the pad so that the feet had more room to fall. This would require a good amount of thoracic mobility.

What do you think? Could this be a decent assistance exercise for backwalkover? Has anyone already done this?

[Blairbob]

Bridging should be about opening the shoulders and a side effect is affecting the lower back, especially shoulder or head/neck bridging.

It sounds like you are describing something like a dragon flag where you end up arching. There is a fundamental difference between the dragon flag and body lever. Similar but not the same.

You could also try to straight body pull out of a german hang. Generally this is done at first in a tight arch because it's fairly difficult. Many would work the straight body lower from invert or back lever to german hang first, but not typically arched.

[Neal Winkler]

Blair, I changed the application to backwalkovers. Does that change your thoughts?

I know there is a difference between body lever and dragon flag. I just used the video to illustrate. This move should be way harder than drangon flag since you are going as low your thoracic mobility will allow you.

[Razz]

I played around with this before, but not enough to comment on the benefits. It's hard as hell though!

[Neal Winkler]

How high did you do the exercise from? It should be really hard since you'll get a wicked stretch in the abs. I haven't tried it yet.

[Razz]

About 1 meter, very hard. I can try to film it one day, it's about time I upload another training video anyways..

[Neal Winkler]

That would be cool, Razz.

I tried this today, my abs were feeling it! I was about 4 feet high (1.2 meter).

At a certain point of lowering, my low back started to feel it was coming under pressure. I wonder if you could just stop right before that point and adapt, then over time gradually lower without feeling the low back pressure?

[Cole Dano]

Yes you should stop when you feel the pressure. You could also tuck to take out some of the strain, but do be cautious.

Have you tried drooping your feet down out of a headstand in the same way? This might give more control in the chest opening as there is less strain. This looks like it really loads the lower back, but i'd have to verify it for myself.

[Neal Winkler]

Yes you should stop when you feel the pressure. You could also tuck to take out some of the strain, but do be cautious.

Have you tried drooping your feet down out of a headstand in the same way? This might give more control in the chest opening as there is less strain. This looks like it really loads the lower back, but i'd have to verify it for myself.

No, I haven't tried that, but I will. Let me know what you think of the exercise when you try it.

[Joshua Naterman]

This is exactly what I did on my ship. I was sore for a week straight the first time I did it and I only managed 5-6 reps. By sore, I mean I almost couldn't get out of bed facing up.

I do not think there is any way to completely alleviate the lower back pressure without holding a hollow at the hips. I just arched a lot back then, and pulled into a hollow as I came back above horizontal. Sometimes I would just hold myself straight out and move from a big arch to a big hollow. I didn't have any particular reason for doing this besides it was harder than doing regular reps once I got used to it.

These do work for ab strength, but I am not sure of their usefulness for back walkovers since I am not anywhere remotely close to being that flexible. Personally I think that a combination of heavy weighted inverted sit ups and hollow body levers would be a better combination for strength overall, but there may be something in this as far as walkovers go. I do not know if the lower back pressure is worth whatever impact this exercise may have.

I did find that as I got stronger the pressure eased up but never went away entirely.

[Razz]

Yeah, the lower back pressure is quite brutal when it's like this, I'll do my best to film stuff tonight.

[Blairbob]

Ideally, Backwalkover on floor is mostly about shoulder opening. That's what I would focus on. I have seen boys be able to kickover with poor shoulder flexion mainly because they support through the HS with a planche like angle. Of course, those boys will probably not be able to back walkover to save their life.

Having a strong back would be something critical for girls, especially doing BWO on balance beam as they seem to require a lot more spinal flexion than on floor or would require so if said girl does not have good or optimal shoulder flexibility. Fortunately, in L6 they pretty much have to do a BWO though they can do a back extension roll. With such a kid, I'd figure on taking the deductions on beam and continue to work on the shoulder flexibility. To note, working BHS on BB is not as hard on one's back as BWO if their shoulder flexibility is poor and working an excessive amount of BWO without shoulder flexibility, especially on Balance Beam is probably a surefire path to ruining many a girl's back.