A Brief History of Gymnastics

Gymnastics is a graceful and artistic sport that requires a combination of strength, balance, agility, and muscle coordination, usually performed on specialized apparatus. Gymnastics as we know it dates back to ancient Greece. The early Greeks practiced gymnastics to prepare for war. Activities like jumping, running, discus throwing, wrestling, and boxing helped develop the muscles needed for hand-to-hand combat. Additional fitness practices used by the ancient Greeks included methods for mounting and dismounting a horses and a variety of circus performance skills.

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 sseveral apparatus they had designed. This innovation ultimately led to what is considered modern gymnastics. As a result, Friedrich Jahn became known as the "father of gymnastics". Jahn introduced the horizontal bar, parallel bars, side horse with pommels, balance beam, ladder, and vaulting horse.

By the end of the nineteenth century, men's gymnastics was popular enough to be included in the first modern Olympic Games held in 1896. The sport was a little different from what we currently know as gymnastics however. Up until the early 1950s, both national and international competitions involved a changing variety of exercises the modern gymnast may find a bit odd such as synchronized team floor calisthenics, rope climbing, high jumping, running, and horizontal ladder just to name a few.

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, although the only event was synchronized calisthenics.These days gymnastics is a household name and many children participate in gymnastics at one time or another as they grow up. Olga Korbut, Nadia Comaneci, and Mary Lou Retton, along with all those gymnasts since, have helped popularize women's competitive gymnastics, making it one of the most watched Olympic events. Both men's and women's gymnastics now attract considerable international interest, and excellent gymnasts can be found on every continent.