Have you ever been to a gymnastic competition? If you have, you probably heard it being called a “meet”. Come and check our five gigantic facts about Gymnastics.
Almost all gymnastic events are performed on special equipment. This equipment is called apparatus. In 1811, a German named Friedrich Ludwig Jahn invented much of the apparatus that is used today in modern gymnastics. Some apparatus he invented were the parallel bars, the horizontal bar, the balance beam and the rings.
Jahn also set up a school to teach gymnastics to others. He is considered as the father of gymnastics.
Have you ever been to a gymnastic competition? If you have, you probably heard it being called a “meet”. A meet usually takes place in a gymnasium and it is where gymnasts compete against each other. In a meet there are men’s teams and women’s teams.
A gymnast competes both with their team and as an individual. In a meet a gymnast will perform a routine, which is a series of movements. Judges then score gymnasts on their routines. routines.
Gymnastic events were a part of the first Olympic Games in 1896. Gymnastics was once a male only event. Women gymnasts had to wait until the 1928 Olympics to compete. The three gymnastic events held at the Olympics are artistic gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics, and trampoline.
Artistic gymnastics involves six men’s events and four women’s events. The men’s events are rings, floor exercise, vault, pommel horse, horizontal bar and parallel bars. The women’s events are uneven bars, floor exercise, vault and balance beam.
Rhythmic gymnastics is a mixture of ballet, acrobatics, and juggling. At the Olympics rhythmic gymnastics is for women only. Gymnasts perform to music while using items such as hoops, balls and ribbons. This isn’t as easy as it looks! On the trampoline gymnasts must bounce up and down on the trampoline and perform acrobatic moves while in the air.
Men and women do not perform in the same events at the Olympics and the apparatus they use can differ. The men perform on the parallel bars. This apparatus has two long bars raised 2 metres above the ground. The bars are around 42 centimetres apart.
Women gymnasts perform on the uneven parallel bars. In the women’s event, the two bars are not set at the same height. The top bar is over 2 metres in height, while the lower bar is roughly 1.65 metres in height. Gymnasts are expected to do handstands and swings from each bar.
Gymnastic uniforms can come in many different colours and designs. The French acrobat Jules Léotard invented the leotard, he named the clothed a maillot. It wasn’t until after Jules’ death that the gymnastic clothing was named after him. The leotard makes it much easier for gymnasts to move around as it is made of flexible stretchy material.
We hope you enjoyed learning more things about gymnastics as much as we loved teaching you about them. Now that you know how majestic this sport is, you can move on to learn about other sports and activities like: Table Tennis, Swimming, Diving, Resistance Training, Hiking, Alternative Movement and Exercise Videos.
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