There are many sports, but the hardest one physically, mentally, and commitment wise is gymnastics. Gymnastics is a competitive sport in which the athletes preform acrobatic feats on four different types of apparatus. The first event female gymnasts compete in is the floor exercise. The athlete preforms a routine choreographed to music of her choice, and must complete three to four tumbling passes as well as leaps, jumps, and dance moves. The second apparatus is the vault. This piece of equipment is set at the end of a runway with a springboard in front of a 4-foot-tall vaulting table. The gymnast must run down the runway, propel herself off of the table, and flip several times in the air, then land on her feet. The third event is the
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Unlike many sports, gymnasts have a team, but must compete on their own. All of the pressure is on them. Their teammates can encourage them, but as they compete, everything they do is up to them. They have to perform in front of whole stadiums of people with everybody watching just them. This differs greatly from other sports where people watch whole teams rather than just one person. There are many other sports that are less stressful, like soccer. They are all one team and can rely on each other to help win the game. Another part of gymnastics that is mentally difficult is the fear that they have to overcome. The skills gymnasts do are extremely difficult. One mistake while doing a skill can cause what is called a mental block. A mental block is where the athlete is afraid of doing a specific skill because of something that happened to them while doing that skill, or something they saw somebody else do on the same skill. Every gymnast goes through these, and they are hard to overcome. Not very many other sports include fear of injury or fall like gymnastics. Just think about how frightening it is to flip two times in a row across a four-inch-wide surface without painfully falling, compared to kicking a ball across a field or swimming across a pool several times. Most people would have a hard time flipping on the floor let alone the balance beam! Another mental side of this sport is the injuries. If someone were to get injured while playing a team sport, they could just sit out and let another player play for them. However, in gymnastics, if they were to get injured in a competition, the gymnast would have two choices. Number one to tape it up and push through the pain, or if the injury was bad enough, not finish the competition. If gymnasts get injured there is no one to compete for them because it is an individual sport. Gymnastics is the hardest sport
Unlike many sports, gymnasts have a team, but must compete on their own. All of the pressure is on them. Their teammates can encourage them, but as they compete, everything they do is up to them. They have to perform in front of whole stadiums of people with everybody watching just them. This differs greatly from other sports where people watch whole teams rather than just one person. There are many other sports that are less stressful, like soccer. They are all one team and can rely on each other to help win the game. Another part of gymnastics that is mentally difficult is the fear that they have to overcome. The skills gymnasts do are extremely difficult. One mistake while doing a skill can cause what is called a mental block. A mental block is where the athlete is afraid of doing a specific skill because of something that happened to them while doing that skill, or something they saw somebody else do on the same skill. Every gymnast goes through these, and they are hard to overcome. Not very many other sports include fear of injury or fall like gymnastics. Just think about how frightening it is to flip two times in a row across a four-inch-wide surface without painfully falling, compared to kicking a ball across a field or swimming across a pool several times. Most people would have a hard time flipping on the floor let alone the balance beam! Another mental side of this sport is the injuries. If someone were to get injured while playing a team sport, they could just sit out and let another player play for them. However, in gymnastics, if they were to get injured in a competition, the gymnast would have two choices. Number one to tape it up and push through the pain, or if the injury was bad enough, not finish the competition. If gymnasts get injured there is no one to compete for them because it is an individual sport. Gymnastics is the hardest sport