Soft Landing (Flyer Landing)

On a dismount the flyer's own landing decides the impact peak — measurably far more than how well the base catches. Landing soft is trainable.

What matters

This is the lever most squads look for in the wrong place. In measurements of pop-off dismounts, the flyer's landing ability determines the impact peak with high statistical significance, while the base's catching ability barely registers — between individual flyer-base pairs at similar drop heights, differences of more than twelve body weights showed up. Two things you can change in your very next session: land over the whole foot instead of stopping on the balls of your feet, and genuinely give way — a landing with less than 90 degrees of knee flexion counts as a risk marker for the ACL. Use the sound as feedback: the quieter, the softer. And the uncomfortable part: rested and fatigued flyers measured almost the same. This is not a question of freshness but of technique.