Gymnastics takes guts and commitment. You're not competing on just one playing field, but performing on up to six pieces of equipment, called apparatuses. While each apparatus is different, you need the same three key skills -- strength, flexibility and balance -- whether you're swinging high in the air or tumbling across the floor.
Men's Equipment
Men compete on six apparatuses in gymnastics. The male gymnast tumbles across the 40- by 40-foot exercise mat. He uses his hands to travel the length of the 5-foot-high pommel horse, swinging his legs in different directions. He uses his strength skills on steel rings that hang about 9 feet in the air. He vaults by running to the 4-foot vaulting table, hitting the table with his hands and twisting in the air. Supporting his entire body with his arms, the gymnast performs swing and flight elements on the two 6-foot high parallel bars. On the 9-foot high horizontal bar, he swings his body around the bar before releasing his hands for a sky-high twist or flip and then catching the bar again.
Women's Equipment
Women compete on only four apparatuses: the uneven bars, balance beam, floor exercise and vault. The female gymnast swings around the uneven bars, holding handstands and executing flips and twists while moving from the 5-1/2- foot low bar to the 8-foot high bar. She tumbles and dances across a balance beam that is 4 feet wide, 4 feet tall and 16-1/2 feet long. Like her male counterpart, the female gymnast twists in the air from the vault, hoping to achieve tight form and good height. She performs a variety of tumbling, acrobatic and dance elements on the floor exercise.
Strength
Gymnasts are strong. Male or female, you cannot succeed in gymnastics without muscle strength. Even a skill as basic as a handstand takes strength; if you are not strong enough to hold yourself in place, you will fall right out of your handstand. Your legs must be strong in order to power you down the runway for a vault. In women's gymnastics, you need arm strength especially on the uneven bars; otherwise, you cannot pull yourself around the bars. If you've ever watched the steel rings event at the Olympics, you've seen the male gymnast's muscles bulge as he attempts to hold himself completely still while in the iron cross position.
Flexibility and Balance
Gymnastics takes supreme flexibility and balance. The split is the classic example of flexibility. Your legs must extend in ways that are not normal for most people. Obviously, you need balance to tumble across a 4-foot-wide beam without falling off, but you also need balance on the floor exercise. If you cannot find your center of balance, you cannot execute a dance turn or a scale, required balance elements in women's and men's gymnastics, respectively.
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