Gymnastics was developed by the ancient Greeks around 500 BCE as a method to prepare men for warfare. During the Greek Hellenistic period (c.323 BCE – 31 BCE), the sport became popular with everyday citizens, and it was eventually included in the Olympics.
After the Romans invaded Greece, the Roman army adopted gymnastics for training purposes. When the Olympics were outlawed in 393 AD, interest in gymnastics declined and the sport was almost lost.
Interest in gymnastics was revived in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when two German doctors – Johann Friedrich and Friedrich Ludwig John – created exercises for boys and young men including modern pommel horse, horizontal bar, parallel bar, balance beam, ladder, and vaulting horse
Gymnastics is another popular world sport today that has been in existence since the earliest days of athletic competitions. The Greeks were the first to exhibit this sport which combines all the physical traits of strength, dexterity, and concentration; and gymnastics has been practiced by humans continuously across the world since the Greek Hellenistic period. After the Roman invasion of Greece in the second century BC, gymnastics was adopted by the Roman army for training exercises, and the practice was spread across the ancient world through Roman conquest. When the Olympics were outlawed in AD 393, the sport of gymnastics was lost to the common citizen, and with the destruction of the Roman army in 476, the art of gymnastics was all but lost to the world.
Gymnastics was developed by the classical Greeks in the fifth century BC as a means to develop the muscles necessary for hand-to-hand combat. The sport was expanded throughout the Hellenistic period where it transcended military exercise and was incorporated into everyday civilian life, thanks to its inclusion in the Greek Olympics. Activities such as rings, pommel horse, and the floor exercises were all first exhibited at the Greek Olympics. Gymnastics was coveted so much in ancient Greek culture that it was made mandatory for all Greek students. The modern word gymnasium made its first appearance in the Hellenistic Greek period as open-air arenas where gymnasts could practice. The fourth Macedonian War of BC 150 brought the whole of the Grecian states under Roman control. This event brought much of Greek culture into the scope of Roman society, and gymnastics was one of the cultural aspects absorbed by Rome. The ever-expanding Roman Empire used gymnastics to keep its troops in peak fighting condition. Through its conquests, Rome was able to spread the seeds of gymnastics throughout the ancient world, from Africa to England. In AD 393, Emperor Theodosius outlawed the Greek Olympic Games. This decree was a major hit to the sport of gymnastics, and the art was all but lost to the average Roman citizen. Gymnastics continued its practice by the Roman army for the next century, until the collapse of Rome in 476 brought about the European dark ages, and aesthetic sports such as gymnastics nearly died out completely.
When the US military brought gymnastics training to America in the late 1800s, the sport quickly caught on as a popular mental and physical exercise among the civilian middle and upper classes. This popularity among the citizenry led to the formation of the first organized gymnasiums and gymnastics teams in the early 1900s. By 1954, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had laid down a series of rules and a scoring system to be followed in all organized gymnastics competitions. Gymnastics captured the hearts of Americans and became one of the games’ most popular sports in the United States when Mary Lou posted a perfect score and won the gold medal in the all-around competition at the 1984 Summer Games.
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