What is Gymnastics?
Have you ever watched the Olympics and been in awe by the males and females that do flips on the floor, or watch people tumble on sliver of wood. That awesome sport is called gymnastics. Let’s first take it back to when gymnastics really started. Gymnastics is the world's oldest sport. It was developed in Australia. The first national competition was in the 1950’s for the Olympics. It has been a competitive sport for more than 100 years. Gymnastics is an active sport in which people move their body smoothly and gracefully. It tests a person's strength, balance, flexibility and coordination. A gymnast needs to be strong, good at stretching their body and have good balance. There are small differences between male and female gymnasts. The first difference between the two genders is the events they compete in and the second difference is their body shape and strengths. A female’s body is small, lean, and strong compared to males. The males who have strong arms can bend and stretch easily.
Along with the shape differences in male and female gymnasts, they also use different equipment. The men’s equipment consists of still rings, high bars, parallel bars and pommel horse. Many people know “still rings” as just rings. They are two parallel and separate rings that are 50 centimeters apart, and are suspended from a cable and straps. The male gymnast holds a ring in each hand and does exercises without taking a break or stopping. A high bar stands 2.75 meters high and is also sometimes called the “horizontal bar.” Here the men do many hard release moves while trying not to touch the bar with their hips. Parallel bars are used in men's artistic gymnastics. These two bars are wooden rails on uprights. They are adjustabl...
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...ng sport of gymnastics. Gymnastics is a strict sport because of how the gymnast and the routine are performed for the judge. Girls have to have their hair put up and spray it down with hairspray so they don’t have flyways.
The way gymnasts present themselves is very important; no one wants to watch a gymnast that looks sloppy and unclean. When someone first starts this sport, it is hard and painful. The more a person practices, the more she/he can build stability to do the core exercises and warm-ups. The gym that gymnasts work in is very spacious and usually organized for specific events. The events in gymnastics all fit together in some way. This sport is fun to learn and experience for any young child or anyone wanting to propel themselves into the air.
Works Cited
http://shrike.depaul.edu/~vbard/histpg.html
http://www.athletesedge.info/gymnastics.php
... activities differently. For example, females knees are more turned in towards the midline of the body. This is because they have a wider pelvic bone than males. Furthermore, females bend their knees a lot less than males when jumping and landing. When running and jumping, it is important to bend at the ankles, knees, and hips. This provides the body with a rigid support system. Females get ACL injuries because when they land, they “lock out,” that is, they straighten instead of bend their knees.
Lastly, these two sports have two different uniforms. Cheerleaders must wear a long sleeve, tight top and a skirt. This allows them to move their legs freely. Gymnast must wear a leotard, which is a long sleeve, tight uniform that looks like a one-piece bathing suit. These uniforms are totally different because gymnast basically is wearing a bathing suit and cheerleaders wear a skirt and bloomers to cover their underwear. Cheerleaders also wear hairbows to get the “all-American” look, especially for the collegiate level cheerleaders. Gymnast can easily be transferred to cheerleaders, but cheerleaders cannot be transferred to gymnast without multiple days and hours of
...rtant physical fitness is for just an "activity." The fact that major injuries occur, even with proper training is incredible. The risks involved in cheerleading make this sport important and impossible to ignore.
We believe the arguments in the article to be unfounded and therefore view the claim that cheerleading is a sport to be untrue. There is more supp...
Ever since sports has been introduced into our society it has always been gender specific. Today, sports are still gender specific but not as much as before due to the change in social norms. Many people enjoy playing sports. For some it may be the competition, for others it may be for the love of the game. It has been difficult for individuals who enter non-traditional sports for their gender. Women have especially struggled with this matter until the Title 9 was issued. Before Title 9, many women were not allowed to participate in track and other sports that were not considered feminine. During the Victorian Times, women were only allowed to play sports that didn't make them look sweaty, tired or just messy. They had to stick to the norm of being conservative and looking proper. Can you imagine, they had to even wear skirts for baseball and other sports? How can you be comfortable and play well in that kind of an outfit? When it came to tennis, they had to look graceful like a ballerina. The main concern in playing a sport is enjoying it and playing it well. It never had to do anything with being part of a beauty contest. Women were given limitations into what sports they could participate in. However, realistically women were just as good as their counterpart when it came to playing sports in which they were not allowed to play.
Dedication throughout hardships. Discipline in body and mind. These are the qualities this sport has engraved into my being. There is not a time I can remember when I was not involved in gymnastics. When I reflect on the milestones of my life I don’t reminisce on the loss of my first tooth or a move to a new house, but instead I recall my first trip to nationals and mastering my back tuck.
The New York Times states that cheerleading is the fastest growing girls’ sport, yet more than half of Americans do not believe it is a sport. A sport is defined as “an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature” (dictionary.com). Cheerleading at a competitive level is physically demanding and requires team work to be the best. The misconception of cheerleaders being weak, nonathletic crowd entertainers makes people believe cheerleaders are not athletes and that cheerleading is just a hobby but cheerleaders that compete at a competitive level are in fact athletes because it meets the standards of what a sport is, which includes rules and regulations, and overcoming air resistance.
The definition of a sport is “an athletic involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or other for entertainment.” (google.com). Modern cheerleaders practice couple times a week. In the article Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, “The various lifts, throws, catches, tumbling runs, and jumps that comprise most performance routines require a high degree of athletic skill. Cheerleading is no longer a spontaneous activity; it involves tryouts, lengthy practices, and specialized training camps similar to ...
Gymnasts use physics everyday. As a gymnast I never realized how much physics went into every motion, every back handspring, every mistake on the bars. If gymnasts were physicists (or at least knew more about physics) they would be better equipped to handle the difficult aspects of gymnastics. As a gymnast I learned the motions that were necessary to complete the tricks that I was working on, and as a coach I taught others the same. I never truly understood why a particular angle gave me a better back handspring or why the angle that I hit a springboard at really mattered when completing a vault. We are going to explore some of the different apparatuses in gymnastics and a few of the physics laws that are involved in them. We will not even barely scratch the surface of the different ways that physics can explain gymnastics.
In summary, Despite opponents argue, fans want to see thunderous dunks and incredible athleticism over the lesser abilities of females, male competitions is more intense and there is more at risk, and male driven associations produce more revenue than female driven associations. It is apparent that male and females are built differently therefore they have different abilities, females go through the same types of events and often have more on the line, and female athletics aren 't given the same recognition or praise. Then, maybe one day female will receive the same amount of pay as their male counterparts. As, Vera Nazarian once implied, “A woman is human. She is not better, wiser, stronger, more intelligent, more creative, or more responsible than a man. Likewise, she is never less. Equality is a given. A woman is human.”
The sheer energy of a gymnast alone can be felt by audiences of all ages, but what the spectators lack the ability to feel is the pounding of the bodies that bear the impact of the athletes in action. Gymnastics consists of a mixture of acrobatic performances of four different events for females, and six different events for males (Gianoulis 1). Gymnastics is demanding in a multitude of ways, including: physically, emotionally and mentally. It requires countless hours of dedication. The concerns of most gymnasts are moving up to the next level, or getting a more advanced skill, while the concerns of the doctors, coaches, and parents revolve mostly around the athlete’s health, which is put at stake for the adored yet dangerous sport. Injuries are common among both male and female gymnast alike, but due to the fact a female gymnast’s career peaks at the same time of major growth and development, a female gymnast’s body as a whole is more likely to undergo lifelong changes or affects (Gianoulis 2). Among the injuries of the mind blowing athletes, the most common ones affect the ankles, feet, lower back, wrist, and hands of individuals (Prevention and Treatment 1). From sprains, to the breaks, the intriguing sport of gymnastics is physically demanding on a gymnast’s body.
Sports become stereotyped as gender-neutral, feminine, or masculine based on conceptions regarding gender, gender differences, and beliefs about the appropriateness of participation due to gender (Colley et al., 1987; Csizma, Wittig, & Schurr, 1988; Koivula, 1995; Matteo, 1986). Sports labeled as feminine seem to be those that allow women participants to act in accordance with the stereotyped expectations of femininity (such as being graceful and nonagressive) and that provide for beauty and aesthetic pleasure (based on largely male standards). A sport is labeled as masculine if it involves the following: 1) attempts to physically overpower the opponent(s) by bodily contact; 2) a direct use of bodily force to a heavy object; 3) a projection of the body into or through space over distance; and 4) face-to-face competition in situations in which bodily contact may occur. These characteristics are believed to be appropriate expressions of masculine attributes such as aggressiveness, effectiveness, and power (Metheny, 1965; Koivula, 2001).
Gender barriers have always existed in the field of sports. I will be focusing specifically on women in the field of bodybuilding and men who enter synchronized swimming in order to illustrate the social and cultural costs and benefits of these individuals entering their given sports.
The mission of Gymnastics Canada is stated on their website as follows: “We lead and govern the Canadian gymnastics system, direct High Performance in pursuit of international excellence, and guide and /or partner in the development of quality and innovative gymnastics programming”. Their mandate is
Women are physically weaker. Their genetic structure is made differently than the males. Susan Brownmiller wrote in "Femininity" that "Men were straight-edged, sharply pronged and formidable, women were softly curved" (126). When I go to the weight room there are never any women lifting free weights. When they do, it is usually the bar only. Males generally lift at least forty-five pounds on each side of the bar. My friend was in the military for over thr...