Sports gymnastics is an Olympic discipline.
The idea of gymnastics , coming from the Greek term gymnasía , refers to the activity that is carried out with the aim of improving and maintaining good physical condition through various exercises. The concept also refers to the set of movements that are developed for this purpose.
Sports , for its part, is something related to sport : physical activity that is carried out according to certain rules and as a competition or game. A sport can also be a hobby or recreation.
What is sports gymnastics
With these ideas clear, we can advance in the definition of sports gymnastics . This is the name given to the gymnastic discipline consisting of the deployment of choreographic routines that may include the use of different apparatus and musical accompaniment. It is about the fusion of aesthetics and athletics to delight spectators within the framework of the Olympic competitions; In fact, it is one of the most important disciplines of the Olympic Games .
Given that the participants have very well-worked bodies and perform demonstrations of agility , strength and postures that are difficult to perform without years of hard training , sports gymnastics exhibitions are authentic spectacles in which both the beauty and skill of the human being can be appreciated. in the same place.
Sports gymnastics involves the development of choreographic routines.
Its origins
Also known as artistic gymnastics , sports gymnastics is done on a surface with defined measurements according to a regulation. The origins of this discipline are at the end of the 19th century : since Athens 1986 it has been an Olympic sport. It must be clarified, however, that only after Amsterdam 1928 did women athletes begin to participate, since until then only men competed.
To be more precise, we must go back around three millennia, a time in which the ancient Greeks created the "gymnasium", a space for social and cultural exchange where men went to exercise their bodies and participate in discussions about art, politics and music. As mentioned above, women were excluded from these activities for a long time.
Thanks to the harmonious combination of physical and mental development , the Greeks achieved a balance that they considered ideal. The Chinese, Persians, and Romans also promoted intense gymnastic activities, but they focused primarily on military training. And this brings us to the 19th century, the point in history at which the concept of sporting or artistic gymnastics arose to distinguish it from the soldier-oriented discipline.
Certain gymnastics devices, such as parallel bars , were devised by Friedrich Ludwig Jahn , a German professor, in the second half of the 19th century. At that time the first competitions between schools and clubs from all parts of the European continent also began to be held.
We must not forget that physical training was not always part of the general education of the people, but was initially used to train soldiers. Over the centuries, notions of health and well-being have changed and are still developing; For this reason, the incorporation of physical exercise into life as part of daily activities is relatively modern.
Sports gymnastics competitions
Sports gymnastics, in its competitive form, can be individual or group, with individual competitions being more popular. According to the standards set by the International Gymnastics Federation , each gymnast has between thirty and ninety seconds to execute their routines, which are rated by a jury using scores based on the analysis of various criteria.
As for the devices that can be used in sports gymnastics, there are the easel ( pont jump or horse jump ), the rings and the high bar ( fixed bar ).