gymnasts must learn increasingly difficult skills
continues to accelerate, placing a higher value on
curtailing adolescent body changes that could
inhibit the gymnastics learning curve. To make
matters more difficult, the means commonly
used by gymnasts to attain a desired body com-
position is counterproductive in several ways.
Restrained eating, besides being associated with
inadequate energy intake, is also associated with
a lowering of metabolic rate and a lowering of
nutrient intake. A lower metabolic rate makes it
more difficult for the gymnast to eat normally
without increasing fat storage, and consumption
of less energy is associated with inadequate
nutrient intake, just at a time (adolescence) when
nutrient demands are high. For instance, there is
ample survey evidence that gymnasts tend to
consume an inadequate level of calcium, a nutri-
ent critical for proper bone development. This
malnutrition may predispose gymnasts to stress
fractures, and may also increase the risk for early
development of osteoporosis. Inadequate energy
and nutrient intake may also reduce the benefits
gymnasts derive from training, because the con-
ditioning benefit from intense activity is likely to
be minimized when working muscles have
insufficient fuel and metabolites to work at an
optimal level. Since the same primary fuel
responsible for muscular work (glucose) is also
the primary fuel for brain and nervous system
function, there is also good reason to suspect that
injury rates may be higher when there is a failure
to provide sufficient energy to support the
activity.
Background
Elite level gymnastics has four separate disci-
plines, including men’s gymnastics, women’s
artistic gymnastics, women’s rhythmic gymnas-
tics, and women’s rhythmic group gymnastics.
- Women’s artistic gymnastics: Competitions
include four different events, including the
floor exercise, vault, uneven bars and balance
beam. - Men’s artistic gymnastics: Competitions
include six different events, including the floor
exercise, side horse, horse vault, parallel bars and
horizontal bar.- Rhythmic sportive gymnastics (women):
Competitions include four different routines,
each performed as a floor exercise, with four of
the five rhythmic apparatus (rope, ball, hoop,
clubs and ribbon). The four apparatus to be used
are determined by FIG every 2 years following
the World Championships. - Rhythmic group gymnastics (women): Com-
petitions include two different routines per-
formed by teams of six gymnasts. Each routine is
performed with a combination of rhythmic appa-
ratus. For instance, at the 1996 Olympic Games,
the rhythmic group teams performed one routine
with two ribbons and three balls, and another
routine with hoops. The apparatus combinations
to be used is determined every 2 years by FIG fol-
lowing the World Championships.
Gymnastics training at the elite level takes
place 5 or 6 days per week, for 3–5 h each day. In
some cases, gymnasts have two practices each
day, a morning practice that lasts for 1 or 2 h, and
an afternoon practice that lasts for 2–3 h.
Although the total time spent in gymnastics
practice is high for elite gymnasts (up to 30 h
of practice each week), the actual time spent in
conditioning and skills training is considerably
less. Gymnasts begin practice with a series of
stretches, and then initiate a series of basic skills
on the floor mat as part of the warm-up routine.
Following warm-up, each gymnast takes a turn
practicing one of the events. The time perform-
ing a skill in practice never exceeds that of the
competition maximum, and is usually a small
fraction of it. Because practice involves repeated
bouts of highly intense, short-duration activity,
gymnasts rest between each practice bout to
regenerate strength. With the exception of the
group competition in rhythmic gymnastics, none
of the competition events within each of these
disciplines has a duration longer than 90 s. This
duration categorizes gymnastics as a high-
intensity, anaerobic sport (Table 45.1).
As anaerobes, gymnasts rely heavily on type
IIb (pure fast twitch) and type IIa (intermediate
fast twitch) muscle fibres (Bortz et al. 1993). These