GYMNASTICS
What is Gymnastics?
Gymnastics is a sport in which a person can excersise and present his/her flexibility, poise, strength and balance. There a few types of gymnastics. One type is Rythmic gymnastics which requires extra flexibility and uses balls and ribbons as tools for their art. Another type is Artistic gymnastics which for the girls includes aesemetric bars, vault, floor and beam, and for the guys the high bar, rings, pommel horse and also floor and vault. A third type of gymnastics is Team. In Team gymnastics you do some of the things from Artistic gymnastic but instead of being by yourself, you are in a team that consists of six to twelve members.
What are the benefits?
Gymnastics improves one's flexibility and strength aswell as balance. All these qualities are useful when doing almost any other sport. Gymnasts are required to have a lot of commitment. This means that they learn true commitment early in life which will help them later on. Also gymnastic is an impressive sport which gives a lot of confidence to those who can do it. Gymnastics is a sport in which medals are reward of achievement so it is always nice for a gymnast to recieve a gold medal as reward for all of his/her hard work and effort.
What are the disadvantages?
Gymnastics is a sport which requires constant streching of the muscles. This causes growth to slow down or stop. For female gymnasts, another side-effect is that it reduces the growth of breasts. In gymnastics gymnasts are prone to injuries. The injuries are usually at the feet and ankles aswell as the knees. Also, the aesemetric bars and the high bars cause the skins on the palms of the hands to rip. Although after every recovery from a rip, the skin gets stronger and stronger. Something particular about gymnastics for teenagers is the the average age of gymnasts competing for top gymnastics competitions such as the olympics, is about 16. This means that the guymnast has little or no time for a proper education. Also there is a lot of pressure and hard work that can cause stress.