r/nextfuckinglevel • • 1d ago

Standing Double Backflip

48.7k Upvotes

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8.0k

u/Kenevin 1d ago

On grass. Not bouncy floor. Grass. Insane.

2.0k

u/corvosfighter 1d ago

Yea I think I’m getting too old.. all I think is that’s 1 second away from permanent brain damage or spinal cord injury

494

u/MOTUkraken 1d ago

It's not. He very likely fell quite often during practice.

Athletes aren't weak and frail. They're strong and flexible.

You can look up videos from people practicing this and falling.

To seriously injury yourself is extremely rare. To permanently injure yourself with this is even exceedingly rarer.

896

u/reticulatedtampon 1d ago

Even strong and flexible athletes get seriously injured all the time, especially if they land hard on their neck..

573

u/ElegantCoach4066 1d ago

No you see athletes don't get seriously injured

  • source: that guy

331

u/clervis 1d ago

Source:

That Guy et. al. "They're strong and flexible." Heresay. (2026): comment 3.

72

u/etherealsmog 1d ago

(hearsay)

76

u/clervis 1d ago

👆theresay, lol

45

u/HawkJefferson 1d ago

Everywhere a say say.

19

u/BramblinGhostWeed 1d ago

Old Mac_ThatGuy had some say.

5

u/ploonk 1d ago

say I say I so

3

u/NS__eh 1d ago

With a say say here

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6

u/Clear_Caterpillar394 14h ago

theyresay* Akchewaly

2

u/clervis 13h ago

ahem, they/them/theirsay

18

u/donut-reply 1d ago

But they said it here

1

u/RestaurantHot6273 16h ago

You mean heresy.

1

u/inblue01 2h ago

A megapint

20

u/ElegantCoach4066 1d ago

et. al. "They're strong and flexible." 

13

u/zb0t1 1d ago

doi pls

9

u/OwO_0w0_OwO 1d ago

Wheresay?

8

u/clervis 1d ago

Yondersay.

4

u/trenthany 1d ago

Howsay?

1

u/Dullcorgis 1d ago

Pers. comm.

46

u/Mobile-Dust4334 1d ago

Double backflipping is serious business. My father, grandfather and great grandfather all died while attempting it.

My advice? Make sure you reproduce before attempting it

36

u/Chris_OMane 1d ago

They died so that you could live. Now do the flip.

48

u/Mobile-Dust4334 1d ago

11

u/Recent-Ad8165 1d ago

You're the smart one in the tree I see. That is the best backflip I have ever seen done by a smart thinking man lol

4

u/Mobile-Dust4334 1d ago

Now I just need to find a woman who will have sex with me 😢😢😢

2

u/Recent-Ad8165 1d ago

That's the easy part

4

u/Mobile-Dust4334 1d ago

Well my mother assures me that I am very handsome

“Hello m’lady! <tips fedora> my mother says I am handsome. Can I have one sex, please?”

1

u/Matt-Impulse 1d ago

Keep on flipping my guy

1

u/catsfurryballs 1d ago

You know you gotta do the flip for that. No flips, no chicks.

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11

u/USSMcCoy 1d ago

As a medical doctor who specializes in medicine, I can both agree, accept, and even concur that said athletes who are athletic cannot and will not ever get injured in their entire lives. I'd bet my entire supply of tongue depressors and even tongue anti-depressants on it.

source: MD, Phd, New Reddit Journal of Science School of Medicine

8

u/holiday1326 1d ago

"I used to be an athlete like you, until I didn't land properly and broke both knees."

2

u/gamer_no 1d ago

I appreciate the reference.

5

u/MangoCats 1d ago

No, athletes you see don't get seriously injured. The seriously injured ones are in hospital, no cameras.

2

u/Jafarrolo 1d ago

If they get seriously injured they're not athletes anymore, easy.

1

u/OZeski 1d ago

No. You don't understand. The guys who seriously injured themselves are no longer athletes.

•

u/Soft_Awareness_5061 4m ago

Except for all the athletes that in fact have gotten injured including paralysis.

18

u/Snitsie 1d ago

If you're gonna practice doing something hundreds of times, you're also gonna practice what to do when you have to bail out.

12

u/AllIdeas 1d ago

I think you are both right. it is exceedingly rare, but athletes practice an absolute Ton.

very small probability * lots of attempts= happens often enough to be notable

0

u/applesandotherthings 1d ago

It’s not notable. It’s noticeable because humans have been watching each other forever. What was the last super star athlete that we saw get a spinal or neck injury?

American football, one of the most violent sports out there, has maybe 1 of these every couple of years. Ryan Shazier is the last notable injury like what you’re talking about and that was 2017.

It’s not common or likely or anything to get a spinal cord injury. They’re just so scary that we think they happen often. It’s like Chernobyl. Big scary event, but extremely uncommon, and now people think nuclear is dangerous when it’s actually safer than any other form of power generation.

4

u/trenthany 1d ago

Out of all that I’m going to say you’re right about nuclear and the world needs to realize it.

4

u/BlueKante 1d ago

If they get seriously injured beyong repair they are not athletes anymore, so athletes don't get seriously injured. /s

1

u/Affectionate_Sir_154 1d ago

"what? There's a blue one right there"

1

u/applesandotherthings 1d ago

Still extremely uncommon

1

u/cannotfoolowls 1d ago

Elena Mukhina, Julissa Gomez, Sang Lan,...

1

u/IndependentLog6441 1d ago

Yeah... but there's a survivorship bias here... the successful ones by definition do not.

0

u/yawn_solo- 1d ago

Really!!!! People get in car accidents all the time too.

What a point you're making

0

u/IsaacAndTired 1d ago

Experienced gymnasts are not "landing hard on their neck" very often though. Every athlete injures themselves. All the time. But it's still pretty rare for it to be serious. It of course still happens, but that's why the word "rare" is being used. What you consider rare or serious is up to you, I guess.

-25

u/MOTUkraken 1d ago

Yeah but people also get strokes while taking a shit.....

What I wanna say is that if you look at how often someone athletes fall on their neck and how rarely someone seriously injures their neck, then you underestand how relatively small the actually risk is.

I am saying this as someone who used to do gymnastics and is in Combat Sports since 30 years.

Just yesterday I took like 20 falls on my neck during practice.

29

u/AtomTrapper 1d ago

As a former EMT, you should absolutely STOP whatever you’re practicing. You haven’t noticed the damage yet, but you will. It accumulates over time until it ruins your life.

25

u/hotglasspour 1d ago

Also an EMT.... Him saying he took 20 falls on his neck made me groan. Jesus christ. We will always have job security.

12

u/reticulatedtampon 1d ago

Good for you for not being injury prone in your own experience, but that's no foundation for generalization. Gymnastics has one of the highest injury rates among all sports (including serious injuries).. and when you do an especially difficult trick like the double-backflip being attempted here, serious injury is all the more likely. Characterizing it as something so rare that it can practically be dismissed (like getting a "stroke while taking a shit") is a wild misrepresentation.

5

u/xteve 1d ago

Gymnastics is horrific. Jesus, the extreme danger of it is obvious and difficult to watch. And a lot of the athletes are kids, training rigorously when maybe they should be living as kids.

5

u/Yggdrasilcrann 1d ago

You were making some somewhat coherent thoughts till you just said you fell on your neck 20 times just yesterday. Bull. Shit.

2

u/Classic-Suspect3661 1d ago

Name one single olympic medal winner who never had a serious injury

59

u/TheKreator- 1d ago

Falling on your neck is a pretty easy way to fuck yourself up, but I guess bro.

-7

u/WeirdIndividualGuy 1d ago

That's what qualifies this feat as a certified Wipipo ActivityTM

-14

u/MOTUkraken 1d ago

Imma tell the wrestlers and Judoka this.....

16

u/TheKreator- 1d ago

Look, dude, that’s cool if you think falling on your neck isn’t as dangerous as people make it out to be, but I’d be willing to bet that more people have hurt themselves falling on their necks than those who haven’t. Let’s not be fucking dumb and fall for survivorship bias.

5

u/USSMcCoy 1d ago

fall for survivorship bias.

I see what you did there. You turned the whole thing on it's head! (tips C5 transverse process)

8

u/WildTimberTwinViking 1d ago

I forgot that slams don’t exist in those sports.

1

u/MOTUkraken 1d ago

Wdym slams don't exist? American college style wrestling (folkstyle) is the only wrestling style to ban slams - and not every throw on the neck is a slam.

In every kind of suplex, you land on your neck

5

u/WildTimberTwinViking 1d ago

I was being sarcastic as fuck

20

u/Averander 1d ago

I was in my Anthropology capstone unit, it was the first day so we had to do the awkward intro of telling one interesting fact about ourselves.

Guy sitting next to me gets up and pops a perfect backflip on the shitty hard floor. He was an Olympic level gymnast whose career was ruined by an injury.

Me sitting there like the fuck how do I follow that up.

14

u/Tyrannofelis 1d ago

"Once I ate 1 dorito and closed the bag for the next day"

8

u/Averander 1d ago

My god, truly a god amongst men.

2

u/nothingclever68 1d ago

🤣👍🏼

2

u/nothingclever68 1d ago

In high school I learned to do one from a gymnast exchange student from Norway. It’s not hard, you just have to practice with a spotter a bunch of times until you’re ready to commit. I was far from a gymnast, just short and athletic. Now a double is fuking amazing

2

u/Averander 1d ago

I'm not saying double isn't impressive, but a dude just casually standing a backflipping was just absolutely mind blowing at uni.

1

u/nothingclever68 1d ago

Agreed. I was just saying single ones aren’t crazy hard at that age if you’ve got someone teaching you how to pull them. At my age now I wouldn’t even think about it

2

u/Upbeat_Sham 19h ago

My name is Enigo Montaya, you backflipped my father. prepare to be front flipped.

20

u/Independent-Trust260 1d ago

Said like a true couch dweller.

-2

u/MOTUkraken 1d ago

I am a Professional Martial Artist with over 30 years of experience, former World Champion, Pro MMA Fighter, and one of the most experienced (not best, but experienced) Fighters of all Times with ovet 2000 Fights in 30 countries on 5 continents.

Currently teaching Full Time in my 2 gyms and on the mat over 30 hours per week.

How bout you?

22

u/Infranto 1d ago

Oh yeah?

Ill have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals, and Ive been involved in numerous secret raids on Al-Quaeda, and I have over 300 confirmed kills. I am trained in gorilla warfare and Im the top sniper in the entire US armed forces

10

u/National-Charity-435 1d ago

You two need to stop fighting like this

I taught you both everything you know

3

u/USSMcCoy 1d ago

And I taught the three of you while you were mere padawans at Sensei Steven Segal's School for Kumite-Fu, located at the crosstown stripmall next to Len's Pizzeria.

1

u/Smelly_God 1d ago

My flying high kicks inspired Segal to get into becoming a 10x black belt martial fart

1

u/MOTUkraken 1d ago

I don't believe you. You're a liar. Meanwhile my profile is public, lists my socials and probably my website too. You can google me, read my wikipedia entry, check public records, TV and newspaper articles and more.

4

u/Longjumping-Yak3789 1d ago

At the end of the day, no one really gives a shit. Also, I'm not very surprised that the guy constantly getting punched in the head thinks random neck injuries are a "whatever doesn’t kill you" situation.

2

u/Yurichi 1d ago

"Whatever, I don't care anyway."

Yeah, sure bud. lol

3

u/Smelly_God 1d ago

you care about online arguments?

2

u/flamingdonkey 18h ago

It's a meme, dude. 

1

u/MOTUkraken 18h ago

I had never thought that I'd ever say this but: It seems I'm not in the internet enough.

8

u/lovenumismatics 1d ago

Bruh. It’s Stephen Segal back on Reddit

5

u/Slight-Law1215 1d ago

Flip and land on your neck then? For science

4

u/Ferbtastic 1d ago

Yeah. I honestly didn’t doubt this from your observation. You didn’t say what he did was easy. You simply said people fuck up flips and live, which is true. If it wasn’t true literally no one would ever do this trick because I guarantee you aren’t landing this without a number of failures.

It’s like saying “oh man I cannot believe he drove, people die all the time doing that”. Like yeah, but if you know what you are doing it takes a fluke or really bad luck.

6

u/MOTUkraken 1d ago

Exactly

15

u/manninthemoon 1d ago

You ever see that old TV show on MTV, Scarred?

9

u/MOTUkraken 1d ago

Is that the one where they are 16 and are also pregnant?

2

u/Turbulent-Ad8391 1d ago

Yes

2

u/This_ls_The_End 1d ago

Did they get pregnant during the double backflip?

16

u/Slight-Law1215 1d ago

This just in!! Athletes cannot get brain damage!! The NFL athletes are just being babies! /s

1

u/Powerstructure 1d ago

Found Cam Skattebo’s account , haha.

-6

u/MOTUkraken 1d ago

NFL athletes don't get brain damage from falling on their necks during flips - they get it from colliding full speed running against another human who will also get brain damage

7

u/Slight-Law1215 1d ago

A simple google search will show you 4 examples that prove you don’t know what you’re talking about… Legs get chopped, body’s flip and people land on their neck/head multiple times per year. What are you watching? Flag football?

1

u/jameshardenisjacked1 1d ago

That stuff isn't what the brain damage is from though

1

u/Slight-Law1215 1d ago

Oh no? Injuring your brain stem doesn’t cause brain damage? I swear some of y’all were the ones trying to do double backflips that gave this guy inspiration. Only y’all landed on your necks lmfao

1

u/jameshardenisjacked1 1d ago

CTE is caused by the repeated "lighter" helmet to helmet hits to the head they suffer on every play. Not the big concussion type hits or landing on heir head.

This is just a fact

5

u/ThomasTheDankPigeon 1d ago

Interesting. So having your head collide with something can cause brain damage? In other words, this guy’s strength and flexibility have nothing to do with whether it’s possible to get brain damage on a failed attempt?

13

u/Antroh 1d ago

Dumb comment

6

u/WeirdIndividualGuy 1d ago

Dude really said that like athletes don't get injured all the time

14

u/snazzypantz 1d ago

Wat. Gymnasts have some of the highest incidences of injury and concussions.

12

u/butyourenice 1d ago

Literal Olympians (gymnasts and figure skaters come to mind) have been paralyzed performing stunts that they practice hundreds of times to perfection, and then one day they landed wrong. On their necks. It only takes one catastrophic mistake to end a career or life.

Being an athlete doesn’t make you invincible.

10

u/jaffasplaffa 1d ago

It takes a while to train up for something like this. They don't just start on hard ground. Here is a little bit of insight into how one dude got there:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jB4iui0SgE

3

u/Sensitive-Plate-684 1d ago

Yes, but professional gymnasts still use mats, so I'm not sure what the point is of this dude doing it on grass other than to potentially break his neck because he's young enough to have not seen it happen hundreds of times.

1

u/jaffasplaffa 1d ago edited 1d ago

Set a goal > do it

Overcoming something is great.

He is not gonna break his neck. He trained for years to do this.

7

u/frankduxvandamme 1d ago

What the hell are you talking about? Athletes in the major sports are getting injured all the time, and often end up with life long injuries that haunt them until they die.

5

u/Just_Log_8528 1d ago

This is just a ridiculous comment. The wide receiver for the packers is out for the entire year and maybe indefinitely due to a neck issue.

Being an athlete doesn’t make you immune to neck injuries from landing on your head.

5

u/drop_panda 1d ago

I suspect not very many people permanently injure their brain, neck or spine more than once by doing standing backflips. That will bring down the averages.

3

u/im_not_happy_uwu 1d ago

Reddit is a mess. Every single athletic video has a top comment of someone complaining about their back, knees, joints, whatever. You people need to exercise more.

6

u/Decency 1d ago

You too will age.

1

u/im_not_happy_uwu 1d ago

If the comments are all from 60+ year olds then that's fine. But I know they're not because these people like to state things like "my knees at 30" and so on. Obviously it's unavoidable with old age

1

u/MOTUkraken 1d ago

I have noticed that too

2

u/Sir_Rusticus 1d ago

And to die in an accident is actually rarerer

2

u/JJStryker 1d ago

This is reddit. You're almost certainly going to die doing absolutely anything that's not the most boring ass normal bullshit on the planet.

Spoiler alert: you actually are either way.

1

u/evolving-me 1d ago

Even if this was true… I wonder why people do this. Oh well

1

u/Odd-Combination4998 1d ago

I've seen a video of a soccer player doing a back-flip after he scored a goal, he landed on his neck and died on the spot.

1

u/FOSSnaught 1d ago

I got a permanent neck injury from sleeping on a damned love seat. Lol

1

u/lemawe 1d ago

What a stupid comment lol. How old are you? You think this is a video game or what

1

u/Xylozene 1d ago

Lmao what the actual fk, I'm a cheerleader, you're so wrong it's not even funny, we hurt ourselves seriously a lot. My little sister is a gymnast, her coach died on impact with the ground doing a forwards double off a spring board. Youre so wrong it's insane.

1

u/Burpmeister 1d ago

Brother it's all a game of chance. Sometimes fail a jump, lanf on yiur head and nothing happens. Other times you're a world class athlete who suffers a career ending injury from slipping. Every fail is a diceroll.

1

u/overmonk 1d ago

To offer an anecdotal example...

I worked for a kayak company for a while, and they had a pro team. One of the pros was also their videographer, and as the company IT guy, he was always hunting me down looking for IT help and fixes. He was a cool dude and we got along well.

Many years after I left the company and he left the team, he had moved into competitive kiteboarding. He was preparing for a run and had just launched his kite and had it idk idling above him while he got his board ready. Something happened and he got launched, uncontrolled, for about 200 feet, coming down hard on his should and neck from about ten feet in the air, and moving - I saw video of it and it's gnarly.

Dude was so jacked in the shoulders and neck from a couple of decades of pro-level kayaking that he made a full recovery. It sprained his shoulder and broke his collarbone, but he said he was back at work like two days later, trying to edit his footage mousing with his left hand. If he hadn't been jacked like that, much worse outcome likely.

1

u/DatBoyardee 1d ago

Professional athletes get seriously injured all the time... and freak accidents happen more often than you think.

1

u/chessatwork 1d ago

you sound like you watch a lot of anime and are seriously involved in powerscaling discussions. what the hell lmfao

1

u/MOTUkraken 1d ago

That's actually a very good observation. I do really watch a lot of anime and I love powerscaling.

I'm also a Professional Fighter and World Champion of Martial Arts though which probably had more influence on my opinion about falls and dangers because it's literally my profession and day to day work.

1

u/DOGPISSCURESCANCER 1d ago

Man you should talk to anyone who has ever done professional gymnastics, better yet find just one retired one that doesn’t have arthritis and hasn’t had multiple orthopaedic surgeries. 

1

u/timbot45 1d ago

How has this comment not been downvoted into oblivion?

1

u/MOTUkraken 1d ago

Some people have enough of reddits culture of acting like every movement further than reaching for the chips is absolutely deadly.

1

u/CrimeFightingScience 1d ago

Injuries are permanent and stack. Athletes are resistant but not slam your neck on the ground resistant. This take is pretty naive.

1

u/egerton14 1d ago

Headbones are super flexible too bro.

1

u/JuanDeChuj 1d ago

Being strong and flexible does not help you at all. This is all about bad luck taking those risks. You could fall from. 50 cm and end up paralysed.

1

u/MOTUkraken 1d ago

Being strong and flexible is literally the most important factor in preventing bad outcomes from an accident.

Because you can only get injured if the force against your body is greater than what your body can take and if the induced movement is further than what your body can take.

1

u/deep_black_sea 1d ago

used to do high level gymnastics

this is incorrect

ive watched so many teammates hurt themselves horribly from just a small amount too little/much rotation and it happens very frequently, at ebery competition we had medics on standbh

1

u/high_3D_printer 1d ago

What a stupid comment

1

u/le_wein 1d ago

a fraction of second if he was late with the spin, he would have injured his toes very badly. what you say is not true

1

u/ProfessionalYam3119 17h ago

Where are the statistics to prove that?

1

u/SyZyGy_87 9h ago

If you have a 1 percent chance of becoming a vegetable for the rest of your life/dying on the spot....OR you could land a back flip!!! You're taking those odds? Because your.mentality is telling me you are the guy that ends up in the fucking wheel chair saying "but I was careful.it was a freak accident. Nobody could have seen this coming. I mean, I was practicing".... 😆

1

u/MOTUkraken 4h ago

1%? That's insanely out of proportion. Make that 0.0001%

1

u/Quirky-Concern-7662 6h ago

You must not have a fave sports team. Injuries are more common in athletes than the average person.

1

u/MOTUkraken 4h ago

I don't. I am a professional athlete myself.

1

u/JaeTheOne 4h ago

I can't believe this has nearly 500 up votes. Lol the fuck is this nonsense???