Improving my bridge skills

[parabola]

Hello,

I am 24 years old, 6.4' and been practicing the art of

for the past 3 years. For those who don't know Capoeira is an art that combines fight, dance, music, etc.

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There are lots of acrobatic/gymnastic movements in Capoeira that I have a lot of difficulty in executing due to my height, stiffness in muscles and flexibility. Mainly because Capoeira was the only sports I ever got into during my life. However, I have been working a lot on my strength and flexibility though a lot of work has to be done still.

One of the movements I am really struggling with is the bridge. I can do it from the floor but not from a standing position. I was wondering if there is a routine I could follow in order to improve my bridge and eventually be able to do the back walkover.

Hope that you can help me.

cheers,

parabola

[Karri Kytömaa]

Bridge wall walks. Focus on keeping arms and legs straight for whole time. You should do sets where you only descend where you can raise yourself back up with only back strength hands only assisting slightly for support and ones where you go all the way down and help more with hands. Once you can do whole range with back muscle, start learning to shift your weight on your ankles and knees to balance it.

(This is coming from a guy flexible as 2"4" so there might be something essential I'm missing)

[Joshua Naterman]

You will need the hip flexibility to keep your feet under your center of mass as you lower into the bridge.

The bridge wall walks are a great tool for this, check the thread out here:

viewtopic.php?f=17&t=160&hilit=bridge+wall+walk#p581

Make sure your bridge is great before you focus too hard on walkovers. Having a spotter will help you more than anything you can imagine. Youtube has videos teaching you how to spot back walkovers. You could use them to train a friend to spot you if you can't learn spotting from a coach in real life! Just be safe.

Great bridge =

1) straight arms with hands under the shoulders.

2) #1 + fairly straight legs

3) #1 and #2 + hands and feet on the same surface.

As you may be able to tell, and may have experimented with, it is best to learn #1 with feet elevated. From there you will drop the elevation some and build #2, with the legs becoming straighter each time you drop the elevation.

Once #3 is fairly easy and solid you should be able to learn walkovers without a huge amount of difficulty.

[Aaron Griffin]

1) straight arms with hands under the shoulders.

2) #1 + fairly straight legs

3) #1 and #2 + hands and feet on the same surface.

As you may be able to tell, and may have experimented with, it is best to learn #1 with feet elevated. From there you will drop the elevation some and build #2, with the legs becoming straighter each time you drop the elevation.

Do you recommend this in addition to bridge wall walks, or after wall walks are mastered?

[Cole Dano]

I would say that one should be able to at least do a bridge and be comfortable with it.

The wall walks can also help develop active flexibility. At first it can be enough to to push the hips forward and actively arch the spine and extend the arms back until you can touch the wall. From there gradually staring to walk down part way down and back up to stand. I like to make sure there is a feeling the movement is reversible, that you can always get up the same way you came down. This helps ensure that one doesn't overly rely on the wall.

Done this way, will help simultaneously develop the bridge.

[parabola]

Thanks for the advices guys. When I first started doing the bridges I started doing the wall walks - should definitely go back to doing them. On the thread Joshua recommended coach Sommer mentions weighted pike stretching; what are they exactly and how do I incorporate them into my routine?

What else should be added in the routine? How often should I do the wall walks and how many repetitions?

Cheers,

parabola

[Blairbob]

The bigger your active front split is during the kickover/backwalkover in HS will make the movement much easier. If your split is less than 90 degrees, the backwalkover will more difficult than if it's 135 degrees. Yes, 180 is nice; but let's get realistic here. Shoot for 90-120.

[parabola]

The bigger your active front split is during the kickover/backwalkover in HS will make the movement much easier. If your split is less than 90 degrees, the backwalkover will more difficult than if it's 135 degrees. Yes, 180 is nice; but let's get realistic here. Shoot for 90-120.

Noted. Though before as mentioned above before getting into the backwalkover, better work harder on the bridge itself. However, what are the exercices for the backwalkover progression?

[Blairbob]

Backwalkover?

Basically Back bend to bridge immediate kickover. Then maybe do it one leg slightly in front. Then do it spotted.