Gymnastics Now vs. Then

I love Gymnastics. By love I mean I am addicted to it like a Drug. In the past couple of days I have taken a look at the evolution of Gymnastics and how Gymnastics was in the 1920s. Boy, was I impressed! After doing research, watching videos, and viewing pictures I personally think that hands down the old school Gymnastics is 10 times that the present day Gymnastics. Old school gymnastics meaning the 1920s to 2000s. Gymnastics back then was way more free style. Of course there were the rules and regulations but I think the dare devil level of their routines were top notch compared to the Gymnasts now. I watched a video on YouTube of old school gymnastics and lets just say that I seen gymnasts doing thing that I don't EVER see gymnasts doing now a days. But I know, no matter what Gymnasts are doing I will always love gymnastics, artistic and rhythmic, and will always enjoy participating in gymnastics.

Mens Gymnastics

The first international gymnastics competition outside of the Olympics was held in 1903 in Antwerp, Belgium, where gymnasts from Belgium, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands competed in what is now considered the first World Championships. At St. Louis in 1904, the men’s team combined competition was added to the Olympic program. The U.S. men swept all three team medals.

When did Women's Gymnastics come around ?

        Women first started to participate in gymnastics events in the 1920s and the first women's Olympic competition was held in the 1928 Games in Amsterdam. However, the only event to compete was synchronized calisthenics. Combined exercises for women were first held in 1928. Then, in the 1952 Olympics the first full regime of events for women was in competition. Typically men compete on six events: Floor Exercise, Pommel Horse, Still Rings, Vault, Parallel Bars, and High Bar, while women compete on four: Vault, Uneven Bars, Balance Beam, and Floor Exercise.

Image Above: Former 17 Year old Gymnast Olga Korbut. The first women's gymnastic team debuted during the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam. The first wom en's event during 1928 Olympics was the team combined exercise, where it was dominated by Netherlands. The first U.S. women's gymnastic team competed in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany.

Background on Gymnastics!

Gymnastics as a sport has been around for about 2,000 years. Gymnastics evolved from exercises used by the ancient Greeks that included skills for mounting and dismounting a horse, and from circus performance skills. They also used Gymnastics as a way to prepare for war. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries two pioneer physical educators, Johann Friedrich GutsMuth and Friedrich Ludwig Jahn created exercises for boys and young men on several apparatus they had designed. Friedrich Jahn became known as the "father of gymnastics". He designed and introduced the horizontal bar, parallel bars, balance beam, side horse with pommels, ladder, and vaulting horse.