A question of health & safety: who should attempt backflips?

Hi everyone. I have been asked to comment on a rather tragic story that has come out of Singapore today - that of a 90 kgs poly student Lai Qing Xiang who died as a result of injuries incurred whilst attempting a backflip during cheerleading practice.  My reader who pointed that story out to me has noted that I have posted photos of myself recently doing backflips on my holiday and I have even posted photos of myself performing backflips on concrete surfaces, without any safety mats. I can see that this is a story that has been discussed in the forums as well. As a cheerleader herself, she was very concerned had some questions for me:

"Was this a tragedy that could have been prevented? Was it madness to allow someone who is clearly overweight to even attempt a backflip like that in the first place - as that is what some of my friends are saying. Or is this the kind of accident that could have happened to say a skinny girl as well? Is a backflip really that difficult or dangerous? Who should be allowed to do tricks that have an element of risk? Whose fault is it in this case?" 

Limpeh performing a back somersault on the set of Which Is Witch in Belgium.

Firstly, my condolences to the family of the deceased - they must be going through a terrible time right now after the tragedy and my heart goes out to them. Allow me to answer my friend's questions as a former national champion gymnast, a diver, a qualified gymnastics coach and someone who performed gymnastics for various shoots (music videos, commercials, TV programmes etc) on concrete floors without any safety mats. In fact, if you want to have a look at me doing a back somersault down a school hallway from the shoot in Belgium earlier this year, go to www.which-is-witch.com, click on the trailer and look out for me at 0:50 (look out for the hideous yellow trousers).

Before we go any further, let's look at two Youtube videos. One showing the back handspring (ie. backflip with hands) and one showing the back somersault (ie. backflip without hands). I am assuming that the deceased was learning the back handspring as the back somersault is a much more advanced skill.

Could this tragedy have been prevented? 

Let's be fair. I don't think it is a a preventable tragedy, the only way to prevent all kinds of sports accidents is for everyone to stop participating in sports altogether. When we participate in sports, we can always make sure we be very careful and not take unnecessary risks by doing a risk assessment before any lesson. In the context of gymnastics this involves allowing the gymnast to learn new skills only when there are plenty of safety mats and the presence of a coach (or two coaches) to support the gymnast. Nonetheless, accidents can still happen even when you have all the right equipment and highly trained coaches as it is really down to the student doing exactly what s/he is told. You can plan it down to every last detail but human error may still occur - be it on the part of the gymnast or the coach. If it is the gymnast who makes the error, then it is up to the coach to protect the gymnast from injury.

Thus by that token, yes it could happen to anyone, even a skinny girl. It's just that if a skinny gymnast makes a mistake, it is far easier for a coach to catch her and break her fall as she is light. But if a 90 kgs student falls, then it may take two coaches to try to catch that student and I hope those two coaches are very strong. It is far easier to support a lighter gymnast than a heavy one. Heavier students can still learn gymnastics - they just have different needs.

Should an overweight person be allowed to even attempt such a skill?

I have actually seen some pretty fat gymnasts over the years who have performed really difficult skills - sure the coach would look at the gymnast and say to me, "sigh, if only she would lose about 10 kgs, it would make so much difference. She would improve so much more and find everything a lot easier. " But being fat per se doesn't automatically render a person hopeless at sports - it is far more complex than that. Of course. being overweight doesn't help, it simply makes everything a lot more difficult but not impossible. Some sports naturally attract bigger athletes (shot put, hammer throw, judo, wrestling etc) but gymnastics tend to favour smaller, lighter bodies.

I have been 175 cm tall (the same height as the deceased) since the age of about 20 and I was about 60 kgs until the age of 24 when I was training about 5-6 times a week as a gymnast. Today, at the age of 37, my weight about 74 kgs (72 kgs on a good day!). So I definitely look and feel far less fit than before - I lost a lot of muscle definition and this has affected my fitness levels and stamina (plus I am getting old). However, this change to my body has not affected my ability to perform the gymnastics tricks I used to be able to perform ten years ago.

A recent photo: I am a lot fatter and bigger today compared to when I was 20.

I used to get away with all kinds of bad habits and poor techniques when I was 60 kgs as I was light and my body would simply float through the air as long as I had enough power. Now at 74 kgs, I am so much heavier - I no longer float and I have to use much better technique to execute the same skills - which actually results in nicer, better looking skills. I still have the muscle power, it's just that I have a lot more fat as well on my body today. When people look at me today, they don't expect me to be able to still perform gymnastics like before, I just look too big/fat but looks can be deceptive. So in the case of the deceased, it's not his weight per se that caused the accident, but probably the way he was training or the lack of proper equipment/coaching support that caused it.

Is a backflip really that difficult?

That is a hard question to answer. Allow me to share a memory from 1989 - my friend Mark brought his kid brother Matthew to the gym one day, Matthew watched the older boys try to learn a backflip and asked, "can I try?" He did and performed it perfectly on his second attempt without any help. The coach was surprised, "You have done gymnastics elsewhere, right? You have learnt this before, right?" Matthew said no, it was his first time trying gymnastics and his brother Mark confirmed it - Matthew was just incredibly talented. It took Matthew about... 20 seconds to learn a backflip, or at most half a minute. Yeah, some people are just that talented - uncanny but true.

Yeah this comes more naturally for some people like Matthew...

Then there are others who struggle for years but never ever perform a backflip on their own despite having the best equipment and coaches money can buy. It really boils down to a question of talent - some gymnasts are just born with such innate talent like Matthew, he barely had to think about it. His body naturally knew just what to do to perform a backflip. Some gymnasts can learn how to do this with some instruction and practice, whilst others never will.

For those on the opposite end of the spectrum from Matthew, I would usually be honest and tell them, "look you are never going to be able to do a backflip, but how about if I teach you something that you can do - like a handstand or a headstand? Would you like to try the rings, the pommel horse, the parallel bars or the high bar?" I would much rather teach them something easier that they can achieve, so they won't quit the spot thinking it is all impossibly difficult.

Limpeh doing a little yoga at home.

Is a backflip really that dangerous?

Again, that is a complex question. It is not dangerous for me as I can do a backflip easily with my eyes shut as it is something I have done for over 25 years (crikey am I that old). But it can be dangerous for a beginner to attempt it on his own if s/he isn't quite sure what to do or how to perform it safely. The golden rule is to never allow a gymnast to attempt a skill like that on his/her own until his/her technique is very good. Sure accidents may occur when gymnasts get it wrong, but usually a gymnast can walk away with little or no injury even if they crash a backflip. A backflip per se isn't that hard or dangerous, it is only stupid or irresponsible behaviour (eg. doing a backflip on a crowded dance floor where you may crash into someone) that results in accidents and injuries. Have a look at the youtube video below - as I watched it, I was aghast at how any of these people were under the impression that they could even execute a backflip without hurting themselves badly. Don't blame the sport - blame the people involved who act irresponsibly.

And as I've mentioned before, it is so important that you have a competent coach on hand who can support the gymnast's body weight. Now I can easily support a gymnast who weighs up to 50 or even 60 kgs, but any heavier, I would make sure I get two coaches to share the weight and if a gymnast is 90 kgs, then I would get the strongest coach in the gym to help me support that gymnast. It is not a precise science, it's not like, oh the gymnast is 90 kgs, each coach has to take 45 kgs - it does not work like that. Depending on how the gymnast takes off, where we place our hands, the angle of take off etc, one of the coaches could very well end up taking a lot more than 45 kgs in weight.

Who should be allowed to perform backflips then?

It's just a question of mastering the technique and as long as you are taught properly and the student is physically capable of putting it together, it is then the coach's call to decide when the student is ready to perform the skill on his/her own without help. Some people get to that 'you're ready' stage sooner than others - and before they actually get there, they must be taught in a safe environment without being rushed. There are many drills that one can make the learner do before one actually gets to performing the backflip, these drills isolate each aspect of the take off (or the second half of the backflip) so as to break it down for the gymnast to learn. If a gymnast is not ready to put it all together, s/he shouldn't be rushed into performing it - stick with the drills until you're ready.

Is a backflip (or backhandspring in British English, backflip is American English) a routine cheerleading manouvre? Was it essential for the deceased to have learnt it? 

Yes it is a common skill. Male cheerleaders are expected to perform a standing backflip with and without hands (ie. a back somersault) and combine the two, often with other jumps like the straddle jump (which do not involve any kind of somersault). In this case, Lai was a 'tosser' - the strong man at the base of the pyramids responsible for tossing lighter females into the air (when they will execute somersaults) and then catching them.

But even tossers will dance and tumble (ie. performing gymnastics skills like the backflip) as part of any cheerleading routine - such are the rules of cheerleading. By that token, it is a demanding sport for the male cheerleaders.

Why do you know so much about cheerleading? Were you a cheerleader? 

No, I am a gymnast and diver - but not a cheerleader. Many cheerlreaders train in my gym, that is why I know so much about it as I have been watching them practice for years and am close friends with some cheerleaders as well. Let's just say I am a fan of the sport, but between gymnastics and diving, I have enough on my plate as it is. I would have loved to have pursued figure skating competitively as well (another one of my passions) but there were just not enough hours in a day for my talent and desires. Such is life.

Whose fault is it in this case?

Gosh, I hate to be the one to start dishing out blame and that's a difficult question to answer - but I will attempt to answer it anyway. Firstly, I think the coach is to blame because the poor guy fell on his head - there should have been two very strong coaches there to have caught him and cushioned his fall before his head hit the floor that hard. It was said in the report that he was "guided through the move by two others" - were these two trained coaches who knew how to support a 90 kg man? I feel really bad for those two as well because they will have to live with the fact that they had inadvertently caused the death of a friend when they failed to stop him landing on his head. If these two were students, then should they have been allowed to support their friend in the first place when they were not trained coaches?

All coaches need to do a risk assessment when it comes to students learning new skills: within this risk assessment, the coach needs to decide if it is possible to teach the students the new skills without a major risk of injury and this will depend on all the factors as discussed above. It seems like the coach made a huge error of judgment in this case and I feel sorry for the coach - after all, there is a fine line between being encouraging ("come on you can do it, it's easy!") and taking just a bit too much risk. I love being encouraging to my friends in the gym, but it is also important to recognize when someone is going to hurt himself/herself.

Secondly, there is the question of equipment - a spokesman from the poly said, "the students were practicing on safety mats and supervised by their coach." Now there are a whole range of safety mats and equipment that we can use when teaching students backflips - ideally, I would like to use a foam pit: imagine a swimming pool but instead of water in the pool, there are pieces of sponge cubes. Gymnasts use the foam pit to practice new skills, so that no matter how they crash, they are very unlikely to hurt themselves. Foam pits are fairly common in Singapore now and can be found in practically all gymnastics clubs as well as a number of schools (I know that RI, SJI and Chinese High had them even back in the 1990s). If the poly wants a high level cheerleading squad, then they have to provide adequate training facilities for their cheerleaders to learn such new skills in the safest possible manner.

If there wasn't a foam pit available at Ngee Ann Poly, then they could have easily organized a trip to one of the many gymnastics clubs or schools in Singapore to use their facilities and teach their cheerleaders how to do a backflip safely into a foam pit, before trying to do it on less forgiving safety mats which may do little to cushion a fall if a gymnasts crashes straight onto his head. If such a trip to a gymnastics club couldn't be organized, then the coach should have focused on teaching their squad other skills instead of insisting on the backflip. A lot of it depends on how talented your students are and it takes a coach to exercise judgment based on the students' ability - remember my encounter with Mark's little brother Matthew back in 1989 (LOL, Matthew would be in his 30s today, I hope he's still backflipping away)? Well Matthew didn't need a foam pit to learn a back flip - he barely needed a mat or a coach! If you don't have the luxury of a foam pit, then only your more talented students should be allowed to attempt these more challenging skills because you know they are far less likely to hurt themselves.

Thirdly, there is the rest of the Ngee Ann Poly cheerleading squad "Magnum Force". Cheerleading is a team sport, you do not compete as an individual. So there could be peer pressure from the rest of the team from a choreography point of view: if all the other guys are doing a backflip at this particular point of the routine, it would not only look strange if one person didn't do it, it cost the team points in their overall score during the competition. I don't know if there was any peer pressure to make the deceased keep up with the rest of the team who were all able to perform backflips or if that pressure came from the deceased himself to want to do that backflip for his team. There must be a stage when one has to make that choice - what is more important to the team? The safety of the members or the choreography? Of course, you must always put safety first - get your priorities right.

Fourthly, it sounds like a terribly cruel thing to say, but we must all take responsibility for ourselves when we participate in sports. If you're not sure about something or if you feel unsafe, you must stop and ask questions. This is not some North Korean military camp where you simply have to do as you're told without any choice - you can ask to progress at your own pace in the sport and if your team mates or coach are unreasonably putting undue pressure on you, you can simply walk away from the situation and go do a different activity. You do have that choice.

So there you go, that's it from me on this rather sad story. I just want to say to the stupid idiots who are leaving nasty, cruel remarks about his weight on social media: stop it, the poor guy died. Show some respect, spare a thought for his grieving family. It is in very poor taste to make fun of someone who has just died.

I know there will be some parents out there as well as other young people who are involved in sports like diving, cheerleading and gymnastics who may have questions concerning your health and safety in the sport - I hope I have answered some of the questions on your mind following this tragic accident. But if you have any other questions, please leave a comment below and I will try my best to answer them.

I am still training but have stopped competing in 2000. .