Round Off

Welcome to the one tumbling skill every gymnast, cheerleader or acrobat thinks they can do well, yet in reality, that’s hardly ever the case.

Now believe me, I’m not making this statement as if I’m the best round-offer in the World. Far from it actually; when I first joined Power Tumbling back in the day, I was sentenced to 6 months of pure round off (RO) training.

And even after all that work, I’d say my RO became decent at best. But hey, considering my starting point was something that looked like dumpster fire, I guess I should be pretty proud of myself. It’s also a testament to my coaches who took the time to help me out.

So my goal is to pay it forward by making sure the athletes I work with (and my readers) perform round offs that are at least 10x better than I ever could.

As you can probably guess, to me the round off is literally one of the most important tumbling skill in you arsenal. It’s also one that will take you the longest to master, so be prepared to spend lots of time on it.

No drill listed on this page should be considered as temporary. My suggestion is to bookmark this page. This way you can revisit the drills to refresh your memory, and train them as often as possible. Do this regardless of how much tumbling experience you have!

In fact, I tell athletes that when it comes to the RO, there will never be an “end” to the journey. There will always be something they can do to make it better and thus, they should always be working it. Athletes that I personally work with don’t really have a choice; every tumbling clinic, class or private lesson of mine usually has some sort of mandatory RO work embedded in there.

There’s no escape.

Your tumbling pass will live and die by the quality of your round off. So it’s a good idea to make sure it’s as awesome as possible.

Prerequisites Needed

  1. Power Hurdle Lunge

  2. Needle Kicks

  3. Handstand

  4. Cartwheel

  5. Handstand Block

The Main Round Off Drills

  • Drill 1: Cartwheel Step Together

  • Drill 2: Round Off to Belly

  • Drill 3: Round Off to Elivated Stomach Drop

  • Drill 4: Half Round Off to Wall Handstand (Belly to The Wall)

  • Drill 5: Round Off to knees (Hips Up)

The Following Drills are for BHS +

  • Drill 6: Round Off to L-Sit (+Optional Arm Slam + Open Arch)

  • Drill 7: Round Off to L-Sit + Fall (Scoop Drill)

  • Drill 8: Round Off Rebound Jumps to Back (Elivated Crash)

  • Drill 9: Round Off Up Hill

A Few Words On Where To Place Your Hands

Technically speaking, you (or anyone else working round offs) should have already learned proper arm placement when learning cartwheels. But for the sake of completeness, take a look at the image below for what I recommend.

This is the famous “upside down T” method. It isn’t the only way, but I do find that it’s the most efficient way. That’s because it allows each arm to do a specific job; the one on the same side as leading leg acts as the stability arm, while the arm opposite to the leading leg acts as the turning arm (e.g, the right arm for an athlete with a “righty” RO will be the stability arm, which bears most of the weight).

Few things to keep in mind:

  • Make sure you (or your athletes) are landing straight down the middle. If not, fix this issue now otherwise you’ll have trouble tumbling straight later on.

  • One way to keep yourself straight is to “foolproof” the drill. This is done by changing the environment in such a manner that the body has no choice but move in the way it’s supposed to. As you can see from the animation above, I’ve put different blocks in her way to force her into the proper, tight body position.

  • Be sure the head is tucked in-between the shoulders.

  • Focus on getting the feet together as quickly as possible. Ideally at 12-o-clock (near the handstand position). Later on, you won’t have to worry about this too much, but for now, it’s worth the effort due to the tightness it promotes.