Learn About the 7 Types of Gymnastics

Women compete on four events: vault, uneven bars, balance beam and floor exercise, while men compete on six events: floor exercise, pommel horse, still rings, vault, parallel bars, and high bar.

Tumbling (Acrobatic skills)This is the most important phase of the gymnastics program, because the ability ofthe performer is tested as he rolls to and fro, twists, turns, and springs about on themat, floor, and in the air.

• Women’s Artistic Gymnastics.
• Men’s Artistic Gymnastics.
• Rhythmic Gymnastics.
• Trampoline.
• Tumbling.
• Acrobatic Gymnastics.
• Group Gymnastics.

In Artistic Gymnastics, men and women compete separately. Men compete on six apparatus: Floor Exercise, Pommel Horse, Still Rings, Vault, Parallel Bars and Horizontal Bar. Women compete on four apparatus: Vault, Uneven Bars, Balance Beam and Floor Exercise.

It helps build self-morale, determination, and better communication skills. It also improves quality of sleep, fights depression, and aids weight loss in the most effective way. Participating in gymnastics from a younger age is important. It targets all muscle groups for total-body strength and flexibility.

Life Skills Learned From Gymnastics

• Discipline. Discipline is taught very early within the sport of gymnastics.
• Toughness. Many gymnasts experience injuries throughout their career.
• Balance. Balance is key to having success within the sport of gymnastics.
• Determination.
• Consistency.
• Nutritional Values.
• Respect.
• Dedication.

Level 1 gymnasts must perform a beam routine with the following skills:

• jump to front support mount.
• arabesque to 30 degrees.
• needle kick.
• relevé lock stand.
• stretch jump.
• cartwheel to 3/4 handstand dismount.

Gymnastics is a high-impact sport, and one misstep can cause serious injuries. Broken bones and serious sprains are common among gymnasts. When children break bones along a bone’s growth plate, the bone may stop growing. Breaks that do not heal correctly can cause crooked posture, difficulty moving and long-term pain.

ELI5: Why are Gymnasts careers so short? Because you have to be in prime physical shape (15-18 years old when your body is much more limber and flexible) to be a gymnast. It is so hard to compete once your body starts giving out on you even just a little bit.

Missing or irregular menses means the body can’t produce eggs due to the lack of estrogen supply. Runners, ballet dancers, gymnasts, and swimmers usually starve themselves and end up with low body fat. Our body needs 22% body fat to ovulate and become pregnant.

By moving their arms in, they’ve decreased the amount of weight that’s far away from the axis of rotation and they’ve decreased their moment of inertia, making it easier for them to spin at high speed. The smaller a gymnast is, the easier it is for her to rotate in the air.

The unfixed nature of gymnastic rings mean that your body has to work harder to move and perform exercises. This process recruits more muscle fibres – particularly the smaller, stabilising muscles. It’s the transition of moving through all these exercises without faltering that recruits so much muscle tissue.

Artistic gymnasts are not expected to perform tumbling runs or use apparatus like the balance beam. Hence, their hip development is less pronounced. Additionally artistic or rhythmic gymnasts are taller by a good 4 – 6 inches. It’s part of the reason they don’t compete in regular gymnastics.

At 5 feet 7 inches tall in 2008, Hindermann is the tallest female gymnast to ever compete in the Olympic Games, followed by Belarusian gymnast Kylie Dickson and German gymnast Sophie Scheder at 5 feet 6 inches.

Nadia Comaneci , the 1976 Olympic all-around champion, was just 4 feet 10 inches tall and 1984 champion Mary Lou Retton was 4 feet 9 inches tall. Speaking to “The Miami Herald” in the early 1990s, Comaneci and Retton’s coach Bela Karolyi said the ideal size for a gymnast was 4 feet 7 inches to 4 feet 10 inches.

While big feet are an asset to swimmers, gymnasts need tiny feet to stay on the balance beam. It is estimated that her feet are a size 5 or 6. Nastia Liukin’s feet are described as “dainty“. While feet can give an Olympian the winning edge, they can also take away the chances of a medal.

According to many gymnasts, they stick with the bare legs for several reasons: they like competing in those; the gymnasts they grew up watching wore leotards showing bare legs and they like them; in many cases, they don’t get to choose the leotards, their countries’ gymnastics federation chooses and designs the …

Weight is so volatile, can fluctuate 2-5 pounds in a given day, and gymnasts are almost always 5-15 lbs more than they “look” due to lean mass.

Most of this is upper-body work. The routines gymnasts do, particularly on the rings, are extremely demanding on almost every single muscle in the upper-body, including small stabilizer muscles. Training this way for many years forces their muscles to grow in order to bear the demand placed on them.