This has wound me up. Aibu? (Gym class men/women)

[FredAstairesChair]

I'm looking for a new adult acro/gymnastics club to join.

Why the need for this? It's put me off.
For what It's worth I weight train and do aerial sports and have had men 'destack' machines after I've been on, but this isn't really the point. I'm worried it will be a sort of sexist vibe or I won't be permitted to learn things I may want to learn because I'm a woman (although written down this seems ridiculous).
Aibu?

As pp have said those are the official equipment - but also there’s probably nothing stopping you from trying the men’s’ if you have the strength. You’re being over sensitive

Is it not just because those are the competition disciplines?
That's a bit of a circular argument. We don't offer it for women because women don't do it in competition – well, women won't ever do it in competition if training isn't offered, will they?

I'm interested to know – can women simply not do rings, pommel etc because of strength differences? Or is it just that the standard would be 'lower' (or different) if women did it? If the latter, it doesn't matter if women compete against women.

@Newkitchen123

Exactly what I was going to say! Hate this with a passion

It sounds like fun, I'm sure they'd let you try it but being strong with weights in the gym is different to body strength as needed in gymnastics. Just because you can lift heavy weights in the gym doesn't mean you have great upper body strength for bodyweight exercises, ie people who can't do pull-ups but can lift weights.

Its probably not the right gym for you. You could ask them for the reasons.

As PP have said, these are the competition categories. But I don’t see why you couldn’t try the other disciplines.

@FredAstairesChair why not ask them? Go to the gym for a trip class and tell them you’re strong and a weight lifter, but want to learn the moves and agility of gymnastics.

Get them to explain why there are these different categories and ask if you can try a range of disciplines and equipment to see what you enjoy and have an aptitude for.

It might be that the people who run the classes know from experience that women’s general tendency to lack upper body strength means that some of the gymnastic categories or use of apparatus is difficult for them.

@IntermittentParps

Is it not just because those are the competition disciplines? That's a bit of a circular argument. We don't offer it for women because women don't do it in competition – well, women won't ever do it in competition if training isn't offered, will they?

I'm interested to know – can women simply not do rings, pommel etc because of strength differences? Or is it just that the standard would be 'lower' (or different) if women did it? If the latter, it doesn't matter if women compete against women.

It means that when tested the majority of female athletes will not be able to perform as many manoeuvres as the men. This prevents the building of routines of sufficient difficulty to achieve completion standards as candidates are scored on both execution and difficulty.

weightlifting trains for bursts of strengths + static endurance (correct me if I’m wrong) and uses the most common ‘workhorse’ muscles with the rest as supporting. Gymnastics requires a high degree of strength in various muscles not all of which are not used to doing the work (such as the rear delts).it’s easier for a men with higher base upper body strength than men.

Of course I could be wrong and maybe women currently can do as many hard moves as men. But this is my experience from years of gymnastics and pole dancing (casual of course).

ChainJane
YANBU because there shouldn't be divisions in sport based on gender at all. There shouldn't be "men's" and "women's" competitions, it should just be one big contest where anyone who is good enough can enter. The best should prevail and the average should just do it on an amateur basis

The argument that some sports are suited to men, others to women, is offensive. The argument that a woman can't beat a man in a sport is also offensive. Look at Fallon Sherrock, took on a man and beat him at the World Championships. And I reckon Nicola Adams could take down plenty of men in the boxing ring too

😂 that’s right, and men could get pregnant too if they just tried harder!

This is adult artistic gymnastics rather than a fitness gym, although there’s a lot of conditioning etc usually involved as well. This is a good link to what’s involved:

In WAG (women’s artistic gymnastics) athletes compete on four pieces of apparatus - vault, beam, floor, asymmetric bars - and MAG (mens artistic gymnastics) compete on six - vault, floor, pommel, parallel bars, high bar and still rings. I’d recommend these YouTube channels: m.youtube.com/channel/UCLCdArjcyZ3LFt9OxO_wOwg/videos
m.youtube.com/channel/UCvbEh3JVVCqkn-4NwnT9cWg

I’d also suggest following Chellsie Memell on Instagram and YouTube. She’s a former Olympian and World Champion whose returned to gymnastics after eight years and two children. She’s been documenting her journey over the last eighteen months. She also puts her conditioning workout on Instagram every week.

@IntermittentParps

Is it not just because those are the competition disciplines? That's a bit of a circular argument. We don't offer it for women because women don't do it in competition – well, women won't ever do it in competition if training isn't offered, will they?

I'm interested to know – can women simply not do rings, pommel etc because of strength differences? Or is it just that the standard would be 'lower' (or different) if women did it? If the latter, it doesn't matter if women compete against women.

Womens has 4 apparatus, 3 are lower body focused (vault, floor, and beam), 1 of which is focused (uneven bars)

Mens has 6 apparatus, 2 are lower body focused (vault, and floor), 4 are upper body focused (parallel bars, high bar, pommel horse, rings)

So you can see if the mens disciplines were included into women's it would change the sport massively as the focus would be on building huge amounts of upper body strength to perform high level routines on all those extra upper body apparatus. I'm sure athletes would be able to do routines with the right training but I expect it would take a long time to see it come through it routines that are actually world class.

As a PP mentioned the Rings guys have super extreme bodies as it is so strength focused they are often the oldest gymnasts as it takes a long time to build that strength, the best rings workers also aren't typically good on other pieces since their body type doesn't work for them, even within mens (e.g. their shoulders are so big they can't do pommels properly as they can't reach behind to grab the handles).

Worth noting even the two 'same' apparatus are different.

• In women's the vault it 10cm lower, and the the difficult scores for the equivalent vault is typically higher, the idea being that men find it easier to perform vaults with more twists/rotations.

-In floor men don't have music, dance, and choreography requirements (which I would personally love).

@SummaLuvin brilliant explanation! That’s what I was trying to get across 😂

@HeartIess

Op just tell then you identify as a man

Job done

Please don't get me started on that

@Beamur

Why don't you just ask the gym if you could also try the other equipment as you do have good upper body strength? Fwiw if you think about professional/elite gymnasts they still tend to do these events, and they have immense upper body strength compared to most women.

That is true but this is a little gym in a bog standard city with no links or affiliations with any competitions etc

@IntermittentParps

Is it not just because those are the competition disciplines? That's a bit of a circular argument. We don't offer it for women because women don't do it in competition – well, women won't ever do it in competition if training isn't offered, will they?

I'm interested to know – can women simply not do rings, pommel etc because of strength differences? Or is it just that the standard would be 'lower' (or different) if women did it? If the latter, it doesn't matter if women compete against women.

This^ is totally the sort of thing I'm getting at.

@anon12345678901

It sounds like fun, I'm sure they'd let you try it but being strong with weights in the gym is different to body strength as needed in gymnastics. Just because you can lift heavy weights in the gym doesn't mean you have great upper body strength for bodyweight exercises, ie people who can't do pull-ups but can lift weights.

I hear you. I can do more than a fair number of pull ups though.

I do adult gymnastics. If a female wanted to have a go on the male apparatus I can’t imagine anyone would stop them. But honestly (and I’m in decent shape for my age,45) the rings and parallel bars are hard for men. I have no desire to do them!

@FredAstairesChair you now seem to be cavilling at all sorts of things. I don’t do gymnastics, I do various forms of extremely technical dance (ballet mostly). I am very strong (lift heavy in the gym) and very fit, but they are only a start to learning ballet. There’s so much more more, that is about control of tiny things.

So don’t try to run before you can walk. Just go to a class, and try stuff out. Be guided by experts and learn from them.

Just go!

"Mostly of course,men are largely stronger and they'd usually put more weights on after me so was never the need to de-stack at all, it would save them work to leave mine on. Once I noticed certain men wanted fewer weights I would do it myself if they were on after me."

Why are you assuming it's men who would be using the weights after you? Are you the only woman in your gym?

Regardless, you should de-stack the weights after you use them. It's just basic politeness. There's a sign in our gym that says 'If you are not strong enough to put any weights away after use, please don't use them in the first place.'

I've done a bit of gymnastics and IME for the majority of females (even very fit ones) p bars/ rings etc are a bit of a waste of a class due to different body composition, for the average woman it's very frustrating and unattainable.

That's why m/f traditionally have different disciplines. If you're carrying ANY extra weight as a woman those things are nigh on impossible too as you don't have the upper strength to balance it out.

I'm sure if you asked they would let you swap though?

Op have you tried CrossFit ?

Ime adult gymnastics classes are unstructured generally and a bit fo what you like.

I doubt they’d insist you stick to “womens” apparatus if you wanted to try mens.

Tbh adults training a couple of times a week are unlikely to be able to train enough to learn many skills on any apparatus. Mostly you will be learning skills that work up to that, and it will take a while. Much is crossover- high bar for example will be used to train single bar skills before you transfer them to the asymmetric bars. Vault is the same for both, so is floor.

Rings and pommel are pretty specialist and I doubt there’s even many men not training full time or ex competitive gymnasts that can do much there.

Parallel bars too you could probably have a play on, but unless you have the basic high bar skills that will be tough to.

It’s about skill and technique as much as strength.

So to summarise, bars, vault and floor are pretty much the same for both sexes. Which is what adult classes will work on mostly.

@ChainJane

YANBU because there shouldn't be divisions in sport based on gender at all. There shouldn't be "men's" and "women's" competitions, it should just be one big contest where anyone who is good enough can enter. The best should prevail and the average should just do it on an amateur basis.

The argument that some sports are suited to men, others to women, is offensive. The argument that a woman can't beat a man in a sport is also offensive. Look at Fallon Sherrock, took on a man and beat him at the World Championships. And I reckon Nicola Adams could take down plenty of men in the boxing ring too.

Fallon Sherrock is a darts player. I suspect one of the reasons why they have men/women divisions in darts is probably to try and encourage more women into it rather than because they're seen to be inferior. A bit like chess, dh used to play and he said there was normally a best girl prize, rarely were there more than a couple of girls for 50+ boys.

If you erase women competitions you effectively will be removing women from the opportunity to compete professionally in many sports.

Just email and say you’re keen to join but would be interested in learning the basics of the men’s disciplines too, would that be possible. It’s a fun adult class, not elite squad training, no one’s going to bat an eyelid if you want to have a go on other apparatus. It’s literally just a brief advert for a class, you’re reading way too much into it.

I coach an adult tumbling class so purely floor work, none of the other apparatus. Mixed ability so some complete beginners, some who trained as children. The vast majority of what I teach is exactly the same regardless of sex but different body types (not whether male or female but muscle mass, weight, and range of flexibility) have a bearing on what’s physically possible for each individual.

The males in my class, whether beginners or experienced, generally don’t have the range of shoulder flexibility to perform a walkover for example, some of the females are the same. You might find that since you’ve done a lot of weights you might need to work a lot on your flexibility for certain skills. Where people have less shoulder flexibility but have a lot of strength and power they generally find learning somersaults easier than those who are more flexible. I let my class choose the skills they want to work on, in my view it’s better to spend a couple of months achieving a somersault than a couple of years trying a walkover and not managing but it’s up to them. I would expect your class will be the same.

Just go to the class and try to enjoy yourself! You’re definitely projecting your experiences in the gym on this class and don’t need to. At the risk of causing more upset - in artistic gymnastics “women’s artistic” and “men’s artistic” are different disciplines and as a coach you tend to specialise in one or the other after your Level 1 qualification. My reading of that advert is that a mix of women’s and men’s artistic coaches lead the session. As others have said, some of the equipment is pretty specialist (hence the separate qualifications) so it’s prob unlikely that much is being done on pommel, parallel bars or beam by anyone at beginner level.