Gymnast Hut Balance Beam

The gymnast hut balance beam is designed to be a great practice piece for beginner to intermediate level gymnasts looking to perform jumps, leaps, front and back walkovers, cartwheels and more. This beam is constructed with a solid core of cross grain laminated wood to prevent warping or twisting. It is then covered with a heavy grade, synthetic suede material to provide a smooth and consistent work surface. This is the same material used by competition beams and provides a very realistic training experience. The padding on this piece is made of closed cell polyethylene foam and has been shaped to the same size and shape as competition beams for a more realistic training experience.

The final component of a gymnast’s routine is the balance beam. A top-performing gymnast’s balance beam routine will include a combination of acrobatic skills, dance elements and poses, as well as flight series and multiple aerial skills. The difficulty of the balance beam began to increase dramatically in the 1970s, after Olga Korbut and Nadia Comaneci pioneered advanced tumbling combinations on the apparatus. By the 1980s, balance beam routines were incorporating more advanced, complex aerial elements and were being performed on safer, less slippery beams with suede surfaces.

In order to win a gold medal in the women’s individual all-around, a gymnast must place in the top three in the competition’s four events. The first two gymnasts from each National Olympic Committee (NOC) that qualified will also earn a team qualification place. A total of 98 quota places are available in the women’s all-around.

A gymnast’s performance on the balance beam is a crucial factor in her overall score for a routine. The judges will look at several aspects of her performance on the balance beam, including her difficulty, her execution of all required elements, her speed, her handstand and mount, her leaps and her dismount. In addition, the judges will note all errors in her performance and calculate a deduction for each one.

This composite photograph of Sunisa Lee shows the end of her winning routine on the balance beam at this summer’s Olympics in Tokyo, Japan. A mathematical technique called a connected scatterplot graph can be constructed from the photo, using the position of one part of Lee’s body in each of the seven photographs (shown on the horizontal axis) and the height of this position from the balanced beam (shown on the vertical axis). The points for these positions are then plotted on a graph to form the image shown here. This image is a perfect example of how connecting scatterplot graphs can be used to identify patterns and trends in data.