Gymnastics For Boys and Girls
By Robin Airhart
Gymnastics is one of the sports that exist for both men and women. While they do not compete with each other, the sport is geared for both with different equipment and apparatus for each. Women perform on uneven bars, balance beam, vault and floor, while men perform on parallel bars, high bar, vault, still rings and floor. Each compliments the musculature of their bodies.
Still bars tend to be the most physically demanding. Men compete on rings that are suspended from a wire cable about 5.75m of the floor. The gymnast hangs freely and is able to swing, hand stand and perform a variety of strength and power moves. The static strength move is the most difficult and is most typically performed when the gymnast extends his arms straight out to each side suspending his body at shoulder height between the rings as his body hangs straight down. This routine is exclusively for men.
The vault is for both genders and a gymnast sprints about 25m onto a spring board and up and over the vault. Twists and somersaults are added before the landing on the other side on a mat. Speed in getting to the spring board and the strength of the spring action from the gymnast’s legs are key in a successful hurdle.
Both men and women perform floor routines on a 12m x 12m square mat made of hard foam over plywood supported by springs is the sprung floor used in floor routines. The springs underneath are key in allowing the gymnast to reach the heights they need to hit while flipping. Women perform a 70 to 90 second routine accompanied by instrumental musical. Tumbling, dance moves, acrobatics, jumps and flips are included in the routine with three of four tumbling passes. Men perform about 60 to 70 seconds long without music. They are required to touch all four corners of the mat at least once during their performance, which is not required by women. Men are also required to do four tumbling passes as well as press handstands, scales, and circles.
Gymnastics is a sport of strength, flexibility and agility and serves a gymnast for his or her entire life.