Gymnastics Floor Exercise

In womens artistic gymnastics there are four apparatuses: gymnastics floor exercise, uneven bars, vault table, and balance beam.
Gymnastics floor exercise is one out of two events that are competed by both men and women. Out of all the events, floor exercise is favored by most. Floor takes a vast amount of strength, power, endurance, flexibility, grace, and gymnastics dance.

The floor exercise has springs underneath, for this reason many people refer to them as spring floors. The standard size for a spring floor is 12 meters by 12 meters. This size makes it a perfect square.




A spring floor is made out of tons of small springs that are covered by plywood, the plywood is covered by thick foam padding, and the foam padding is covered by carpet. The carpet has four taped lined along the outside, these are called the boundary lines. A gymnast must stay inside these lines when performing his/her routine. If a gymnast steps outside these lines they will receive a deduction.

Levels one through six all have the exact same choreographed gymnastics floor routine. Once a gymnast becomes a level seven they get to pick their very own floor music and have a gymnastics floor routine choreographed to fit her skills and style.

Floor Exercise is where the gymnasts get to express who they are as a gymnast. A gymnast expresses her character and ability through the tumbling, leaps, jumps, skill, turns, etc. she puts into her routine. Her personality also gets expressed though the music she chooses, and the type of gymnastics dance she selects and puts in her routine.