What is gymnastics?

What Does gymnastics Mean

The idea of gymnastics , from the Greek term gymnasia , refers to the activity 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 , on the other hand, is that related to sports : 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.
With these ideas clear, we can advance in the definition of sports gymnastics . This is the name of the gymnastic discipline consisting of the deployment of choreographic routines that may include the use of different devices and musical accompaniment. It is about the fusion of aesthetics and athletics to delight the spectators in 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 worked bodies and that they perform demonstrations of agility, strength and postures difficult to perform without years of hard training , the sports gymnastics exhibitions are authentic spectacles in which both the beauty and the dexterity of the human being can be appreciated in one place.
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 it was only after Amsterdam 1928 that female athletes began 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 came 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 developing physical and mental, Greeks getting a balance that 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 sports or artistic gymnastics emerged to distinguish it from soldier-oriented discipline.
Certain gymnastics apparatus, such as parallel bars , were devised by Friedrich Ludwig Jahn , a German teacher, in the second half of the 19th century. At that time, the first competitions between schools and clubs from all over the European continent also began to take place.

We must not forget that physical training was not always part of the general education of the towns, but was originally used to train soldiers. Over the centuries, notions of health and wellness 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, in its competitive mode, can be individual or group, with individual competitions being more popular. According to the rules set by the International Gymnastics Federation , each gymnast has between thirty and ninety seconds to execute their routines, which are qualified by a jury through scores based on the analysis of various criteria.
As for the devices that can be used in sports gymnastics, there are the trestle ( colt jump or horse jump ), the rings and the high bar ( fixed bar ).