Posted on September 30, 2022 by Courtney Williams

Good afternoon my beautiful audience. With the start of our Functional Fitness Classes, comes a series of blogs which go through the different techniques we use. Today – as you can see from the heading – I will be explaining the different techniques for tyre flipping and just like everything, some may find one technique easier to use than others – my advice is to give all the techniques a go!

I’ve found that the two most commonly used techniques for tyre flipping are “sumo” and “shoulders against the tyre”.

Sumo

The sumo-style flipping technique was seen by authors as the safest and typically used technique in tyre flipping. It uses a traditional wider sumo deadlift stance coupled with the arms positioned in a narrower grip. This type of technique is typically used by powerlifters when deadlifting. With this technique, once the tyre has been raised to hip or chest height, the hands are rotated so that a forward pressing action can be performed with the arms to flip the tire. Although the leg muscles do assist with the lift, because the spine is virtually horizontal to the legs being relatively vertical, the lower back muscle has a lot more to do, forcing it to engage in the exercise a lot more than other techniques. Let’s call this the deadlift tyre flip.

Shoulders against the tyre

My theory is farmers, truck garages and manufactures etc are the ones who developed this technique because of the regularity in working with huge tyres. Not everyone is a strong man competitor, so for a man/woman who works with truck tyres and has average strength, needs this to help avoid injury and to do the job a lot more efficiently. This technique differs from the other two. Leg power is primary over back and glutes. It is quite difficult to explain without a demonstration but here we go…

With the tyre lying flat, kneel behind it. Place your feet in a hip-width position with the toes and balls of the feet on the ground. Place the chin and shoulders onto the tyre. The tyre is gripped with a supinated/underhand grip with a width that is largely dependent upon the size of the tyre (i.e. wider tire = narrower grip). Start to push through the balls of the feet while raising the knees from the ground. Move your centre of gravity towards the tyre, lift your chest and extend your knees. Drive through your hips and feet which will push the tyre forward and up.

The main benefit of tyre flipping is that it enhances your explosive power from head to toe, great for building muscle and working cardio at the same time. It’s also a way to work on your posterior muscles such as hamstrings, glutes and back.

Please make sure to try both techniques so you can determine your most comfortable tyre flip, then practice to achieve perfection. And until you’ve ‘flipping’ perfected it. I don’t want you to flipping anything else. Even a pancake.

Until then, have a good’n