Skip to content
Gymlab
Create your personal plan

Calisthenics · Gymnastics

Cartwheel

The cartwheel is a sideways rotation through your hands with your legs split overhead. It trains whole-body coordination, balance, and the strength to support your weight through your arms.

Higher injury risk. Read the safety notes before adding weight.

  • Intermediate
  • Compound
  • Higher injury risk
  • Rest 1 min 30 sec

How to do it

  1. Stand in a lunge facing your travel direction, with your arms overhead.
  2. Place your front-leg-side hand on the floor ahead of your front foot, with your fingers pointing sideways.
  3. Kick your rear leg upward.
  4. Place your other hand farther along the same travel line.
  5. Pass your legs overhead in a wide split.
  6. Land on your starting rear foot beyond your hands.
  7. Lower your starting front foot to the floor.
  8. Rise into a balanced lunge facing opposite your starting direction.

Form cues

  • Push the floor away.
  • Keep your elbows straight.
  • Look between your hands.
  • Reach long through your toes.

Common mistakes

  • Kicking forward instead of upwardDirect your first leg toward the ceiling rather than throwing it across the floor.
  • Rushing the hand placementReach far enough forward to make room for each hand to support you in sequence.
  • Landing with stiff kneesLet each knee bend slightly as its foot takes your weight.

Safety

A missed hand placement or collapsing arm can cause a fall onto your head, neck, or shoulder. Poor control and fatigue can also overload your wrists or cause an awkward ankle landing.

  • Use a firm, padded gymnastics surface with clear space along your entire travel path.
  • Build control with low sideways hand-supported weight shifts before attempting the full inversion.
  • End the set if your arms buckle or your landings become uncontrolled.

Choose a low, non-inverted progression or get advice from a physiotherapist or doctor first if you have wrist, elbow, shoulder, or neck pain, or dizziness when inverted.

Muscles worked

Front
Back

Primary muscles

  • Glutes
  • Quadriceps

Secondary muscles

  • Calves
  • Front Delts
  • Hamstrings

Equipment

  • Gymnastics Landing Mat
  • Spring Floor

Sets and reps

Sets
2–3
Target
2–4 reps per side
Rest
1 min 30 sec

Reset fully between repetitions rather than linking them together.

Variations

Harder