A somersault (also flip, heli, and in gymnastics salto) is an acrobatic exercise in which a person's body rotates 360° around a horizontal axis with the feet passing over the head.^[1] A somersault can be performed forwards, backwards or sideways and can be executed in the air or on the ground. When performed on the ground, it is typically called a roll.

Types

Body positions

Somersault may be performed with different positions, including tucked, piked (bent at the hips), straddled, and layout (straight body).^[2]

Direction

The sport of tumbling does not require participants to combine both front and back elements, and most tumblers prefer back tumbling as it is easier to build momentum.^[3]

Arabian saltos begin backwards, continue with a half twist to forwards, and end with one or more saltos forwards. They can be trained by beginning with an Arabian dive roll and adding a front salto to it.^[4] They are counted as front tumbling in women's artistic gymnastics^[5] and back tumbling in men's artistic gymnastics.^[6]

Twists

Somersaults are often completed with twists.^[7]

Multiple rotations

By 2003, the tucked double back salto had become common in women's gymnastics.^[7] The triple back salto exists in men's gymnastics but was rarely competed until 2017.^[8]

In 2019, American gymnast Simone Biles was the first woman to compete a back triple double: two saltos backwards with three twists in a tucked position.^[9][10]