Gymnastics training

The origin of gymnastics dates centuries before the ancient Olympic game. Acrobats have entertained the Egyptian royalties about 7000 years ago. This can be deduced from the drawings on the ancient frescoes which depict that acrobats have jumped over the backs of bulls on the island of Crete during the Minoan civilization during 2700 B.C. In China, ritual mass gymnastics were practiced as part of the art of ‘Wushu’.





The word ‘gymnastics’ is derived from the Greek word which means naked. The reason behind this is that in ancient Greece, the male athletes trained and competed completely nude. The activities included under gymnastics at that point of time included running, jumping, weightlifting, wrestling, throwing and swimming. The athletes trained and practiced in the ‘palestra’ which was a square open area that was completely walled and equipped with changing rooms and baths.

The Romans were not far behind and followed the Greeks to a point. The concept of gymnasium came into place where the Roman legions trained themselves. matter of fact, the wooden horse was a Roman innovation used to train the soldiers to mount and dismount horses quickly. However, the Romans never looked at gymnastics as a form of sports and also viewed the Greek practice of nudity and gymnastics with great distaste and as leading to the vice of homosexuality.

Then came the fall of the Roman Empire. Fortunately though, acrobatics survived and during the medieval times, the traveling minstrel shows included songs, stories and a lot of tumbling. Modern gymnastics was brought into picture by Johann GutsMuths from Germany who developed a complete program consisting of exercises that were designed to improve balance and suppleness and also the muscular strength of the body. Johann’s follower, Friedrich Ludwig Jahn who was a gymnast teacher by profession developed three apparatus which are used till date. The apparatuses developed by Jahn were the high bar, the parallel bar and the rings.

Gymnastics became popular in Europe primarily as physical training for the military. Over years gymnastics was limited to the military federations. But in the late 1800s civil federations were formed across Europe. the first gymnastics club, the German Gymnasts club was formed which was the first of its kind. The European Gymnastics Federation was founded on July 23, 1881 and included representatives from Belgium, France and Netherlands. years later, this federation became the International Gymnastics Federation and had sixteen members.