one of the first things you learn in gymnastics is a forward roll now it might seem easy
but to get the perfect technique takes a lot of hard work so i'm going to show you some top tips
to make your forward roll olympic standard so when starting with forward rolls it's good to
start with the basics so we're going to show you some other roll alternatives which you can begin
before the forward drill come on then girls so mia's going to show us the log roll
hands up nice and long very nice and then freya is going to show us the egg roll
these can be done either down a ramp or they can be done on the floor so once you've mastered those
we can now move on to our four drawers so mia's going to start on the top of here she's going to
put her legs out nice and wide in star position hands down on the floor and now the first top tip
your chin must always be on your chest her chin is on her chest she then bends her arms
and rolls now once they've mastered that we can go and pop our legs together this time so bend down
chin on your chest very nice then once you've got really good at that there's no need for the ramp
and we can go on the floor very nice mirror so when you get really good you can look at doing
different forward roll variations so let's start with the forward roll through straight legs marker
and kick straight and bend and stretch very nice
freya through to pike stand nice stretch fryer arms round keep those legs straight push
very nice i like that one that was a good one and then a big stretch through a star
push legs open and start good girl mia go very nice so there's some different
variations that you can try whether at home or in your gym to make your forward rolls
brilliant in gymnastics we do lots of big tricks flips and skills so it's really important that
we learn how to land safely to protect us from injury and make sure we get those winning points
so in gymnastics when doing our landing positions it's really
important that our knees are soft and we're anticipating the landing before it happens
but it's also important that our legs are strong enough to withstand the landing
so we don't topple over let's look at these girls having their attempts
you can see firstly that they're working on sprung floor so make sure you do this
in the comfort of your gym with your coach when they go to their landing positions we
can see that their knees are shoulder width apart their hips are pressed back
and their arms are forwards to counteract the balance from the hips pushing back from here
they circle their rounds behind them and this is the stretch that the judges will see
high five fabulous and you guys make sure you keep working hard and i'll see you next time
cartwheels can be super spectacular and i'm going to show you some top tips on how to make your
cartwheel super neat and super special so we're going to start at the beginning and the beginning
stages of a cartwheel is being able to transfer weight on your hands across a line so you can see
here daisy's jumping her feet from side to side whilst moving her hands forwards we call this a
bunny hop and with more confidence they can then jump a little bit higher and jump their feet up
as lillian's showing us so once you've masked the bunny hops we're then going to go on and
introduce a slightly higher block or you can even use a small beam and here you can see that we're
starting to incorporate the straddle position that we need in the cartwheel so daisy is going
to show us she points her foot out her hands go down onto the block and she goes round the
sides and that's the beginning of a cartwheel that's it there you go very good and lillian
yep and they're very good first attempts it may not look like that on your first attempt but
with practice you'll definitely get there now you're confident going over a raised platform
it's going to be about taking the platform away and trying on your own so let's see daisy
she's got a lovely stretch to begin with nice fingers too
nice straight legs and a nice stretch at the end very nice having a cart that goes in a
straight line is also the best way to do it so when you've got really good at your cartwheels
you can then move on to different variations of cartwheels now don't forget these girls have
learnt them in a safe gym so i wouldn't recommend trying them at home sophie's here with a round off
lillian with a one-handed cartwheel and daisy with a no-handed cartwheel so it's not easy
for everybody but just keep taking those little steps and it'll become easy one day
so i'm sure lots of you have been practicing your handstands already with your friends
but i'm going to show you a few top tips to get a really impressive handstand
so the first step of learning a good handstand is making sure you can hold the position lying
down so girls what we're going to start with today is we're going to lie down on our stomachs
and we're going to show that nice tight shapes ready for our handstand so our arms up nice and
tall you can see freya's got her flat hands girls look at this freya's got flat hands as if she was
on the floor and they're pushing away from the floor which creates a very nice what we like to
call turtle back so once you've mastered that it's then about moving on and putting some weight on
the hands through a tuck position and the girls are going to pop their knees up on the side and
this really can be done on a step on the side of your sofa and their hands on the floor and
again what you can see they're doing really nicely at is they're shrugging all the way
up and pushing the floor away from them which creates a very stable platform to them balance
it's really important when you're first learning a handstand you find a space that's big enough and
safe enough to complete it georgie's going to kick up to a handstand and i'm going to
act as either a parent or a friend and hold her i'm just helping her find her imbalance
and i can even just lightly tap her so she's doing most of the work and i'm just helping
so it's really important when holding a friend that you stand side on to them
and you hold them up near the top of their legs so once you've mastered that step
it's now about trying to hold it on your own and hold it for a long time
it's all about the fingers we like to call these spider fingers
what we're doing is the girls hands are out nice and wide the fingertips are spread and then they
grip the floor with the top of their fingertips this helps them really grip and stay in control
so here you have it three beautiful handstands
so splits are a really important part of all gymnast repertoire no matter the discipline
boys they'll be using it a lot on their pommel horse and their flares and girls they use it
on the beam in all their split jumps change legs and all their split elements so the box
splits are a different way to stretch your splits they use different muscle groups and they focus
more on the hips the hamstrings and the groin here we've got a demonstration of the stretches
that we'll be looking for to open up the hips ruby starts on one side opening up her groin
and her hip area and then she goes over to the other side doing the other side stretches
and then from there she can go up into a straddle position and again slowly work to your maximum
she can slide down until she feels her furthest point so these girls are demonstrating where you
can get in the end with lots of practice and hard work they can be this amazing
if you are impressed by the gym stars challenge strategy to handstands i've got some tips for you
to practice in the gym this is a really great example of a very complex skill that's used a
lot in men and women's artistic gymnastics and acrobatic gymnastics so to start on this very
complex scale what you need to do is strengthen the hip flexors and all the muscles around the
legs these girls often start with their leg taps on their right leg and you can see their hands
are nice and low working all the muscles up near the top of the hip they can also do this into a
hold where they hold their legs nice and high again replicating the straddle lever position
this is done both sides and then they also do have their hands in the middle they can do the taps
and the hold once you've mastered the leg taps you then can move on to the shadow lever hold
from here the hands go into the middle you can lift your feet up for a bit of counterbalance
before pushing down and lifting the bottom off the floor so the next step is to then progress
up into the handstand it's really important that you do this in a gymnastics facility
with a coach but don't worry i'll be back with some more tips on how to master your handstand
today i'm going to teach you how to skip skipping is a great cardiovascular activity
it gets your heart racing and it also builds coordination so when starting to skip you have
to start slow motion the girls are going to show you the rope starts behind your heels
it goes over your head and then you slowly jump over the rope
and you can repeat this several times slowly we're introducing the skipping in a slow-motion version
it helps build coordination but also at a pace that children can find comfortable
so the rope we're using today it's just a standard rope it's not fancy
it's sized appropriately to the child but if you have a rope that's a little bit long you
can always wrap it around the hand before skipping so the next step is learning to
put all of what we've learned together and a little bit quicker i learned to do this on a
trampoline so if you have a trampoline at home it's a really useful tool to get you skipping
what they're going to do now is they're going to same as before but they're going
to anticipate the rope coming in and jump before the rope lands on the floor this is what we call
skipping and they can do it with bent legs or they can do it with straight legs and point their toes
like gymnasts so once you've mastered skipping there's then lots of different alternatives you
can use georgie's going to demonstrate the boxers skip here you can see she's
bringing her knees up high a bit like a running motion and she's even got those pointed toes
now indie's going to show us the cross skipping this is quite complicated on the arms although
the legs do the exact same thing so you can see here with indy her hands go forwards they
then cross over for the second skip before they come back round and straighten up essentially a
figure of eight with the hands the final skipping we're going to show you today is the double skip
so here you've got to have strong legs and jump really high so the rope can pass your feet twice
and this is how you get skipping hey gem stars courtney taluk here and i do gymnastics as you
can see my favorite apparatus is the rings and i recently won a gold medal at the commonwealth
games so i think i'm pretty good at it to be a master at the rings you need a good strong upper
body here's a few exercises i'm going to show you which you can do in your gymnastics club
remember to warm up and stretch properly before you try these exercises my next skill
is a tuck top planche for me this is a very important skill on rings because as you guys know
you see it everywhere in gymnastics so the first tip towards doing this skill
have your arms straight nice in front of you shoulders try get it past your hands and lift
your legs up in a tuck position up and down just holding it for one second at a time and do sets
of five so if you've been doing this skill already try push yourself as much as you can see how long
you can hold it for but remember keep the correct shape knees locked together and your arms straight
when you guys feel stronger and you feel like you can push yourself even more try this skill
that's called a straddle top planche have a try
you