Parallel bars

History

Johann Christoph Friedrich GutsMuths created an apparatus with bars and beams, though the first edition of his book, Gymnastics for the Youth (German: Gymnastik für die Jugend), published in 1793, did not include drawings of parallel bars. A later edition published in 1847 did. Another early German gymnast named Friedrich Ludwig Jahn is considered to be the inventor of the parallel bars. He created the first known set of parallel bars, based on the vaulting horse with extended handles and no body between them, and installed them in his open-air gymnastics exercise ground, which opened in Berlin in 1811. At the time, they were meant to strengthen the arms for exercises on the vaulting horse, then a substitute for exercises on a real horse.

Jahn later came into conflict with Hugo Rothstein, a proponent of Swedish gymnastics, over the use of the bars. Rothstein, director of the Central Gymnastics Institute founded in 1851, removed both the parallel bar and the horizontal bar from German gymnastics curricula. Emil Heinrich du Bois-Reymond, a German professor of physiology, recommended returning the parallel bars to German gymnastics. They were reinstated into curricula in 1862 or 1863.

The first parallel bars could not be adjusted and were bolted into the ground. They sometimes had three bars, particularly in schools focused on health care. In 1819 the first transportable parallel bars were created by a Swiss educator, Phokion Heinrich Clias. However, they were not very popular. Later, Hermann Otto Kluge, a pharmacists, created adjustable bars that used tubes, which he used in his own gym, built in 1856. Others developed new models that emphasized ease of adjustment as well as safety.

In the 1920s, the bars were shorter than modern bars, with their height adjustable from 120 centimetres (3.9 ft) to 170 centimetres (5.6 ft), and up to 3 metres (9.8 ft) long. Various types of bars were available, and exercises easily performed on one set of bars might be impossible on another. Bars made out of wood frequently became damaged and cracked; at the 1952 Summer Olympics, the bars cracked four times. Richard Reuther proposed a new design in 1953 that included elasticity, and he introduced his new type of bars two years later. They could also be adjusted slightly taller and were longer at 3.5 metres (11 ft) long. In 1963, Reuther incorporated fiberglass into the bars, which significantly improved both the flexibility and the durability in the bars; only minor changes have been made in their construction since.

Routines

Routines involve swinging both backward and forward, static holds, turns in handstand positions, and somersaults performed while between the bars. Each routine ends with a dismount from either the end or the side of the bars.

International level routines

The gymnast must mount the bars by jumping from both feet; a springboard may be used. A routine should contain at least one element from all element groups:

• I. Elements in support or through support on both bars
• II. Elements starting in the upper arm position
• III. Long swings in hang, on 1 or 2 bars, and underswings
• IV. Dismounts

Scoring and rules

Deductions are taken for lack of form and precision of elements performed. There are specific deductions for adjusting the hand position in the handstand and not controlling swing elements; many swing type elements should momentarily show handstand.