Sport history and culture

These notes combine advice from 78 reviewed passages across 45 workouts.

Overview

Sport history and culture covers how disciplines such as gymnastics, breaking, street workout, and parkour developed, how they are organized, and how training trends and physique ideals change over time. Different sports reach their current level of development at very different rates. Gymnastics developed more slowly than some other sports but has consistently maintained its quality, and it advanced over roughly a century to reach its current level while other sports can reach comparable points in 20 to 30 years. [7] [35] [63]

Gymnastics

Formalized gymnastics dates roughly to the 1800s rather than directly surviving from 2,000 years ago. Its difficulty and standards have changed substantially over roughly a century. In the 1920 Olympics, routines were simple, such as rolling forward on the floor and getting up as a series, or jumping from the pommel and completing back movements and a twist. Movements evolved through increasingly difficult flips and continuing innovation in flare and other dynamic movements. Gymnastics has emphasized sharpness, tension, and strength more, while its development is slower than it was a century ago. [3] [15] [21] [36]

Many calisthenics and other athletic techniques have roots in gymnastics. In gymnastics, the elbows-on-floor plank posture is called “gorbet”. Gymnasts perform a formal finishing pose, while trickers jump and spin before finishing. [1] [2] [33]

Countries have particular strengths across gymnastics apparatus, with Japan described as broadly strong and Spain holding a strong international reputation, particularly on pommel horse. Gymnastics coaching is organized in five levels, from assistant coaching to preparing Olympic athletes. The four women’s gymnastics apparatus are uneven bars, floor, vault, and balance beam; the beam is a narrow apparatus used for balance and tumbling. [4] [5] [16] [58]

Gymnastics is newly developing in Turkey, while in Europe and Russia it is an established elite sport treated as normal. Soviet countries encouraged varied sports, including gymnastics, rather than only football. Some gymnastics communities try to keep the sport inside like a family and do not want certain techniques and training methods to spread. Advanced gymnastics and many national teams run camps every two or three months, with each camp lasting two or three weeks and demanding heavy work. [25] [26] [68] [76]

A particular push-up variation is uncommon even among good athletes and is used more by national-team gymnasts. A body-tension movement series is used frequently across gymnastics-related disciplines and aerobics. [57] [59]

Acrobatic gymnastics has circus origins and has been accepted as the sixth gymnastics discipline. It ranks third in difficulty, after artistic and rhythmic gymnastics. It uses pairs or groups of two to four and includes skills such as throws and handstands. It has world-level champions, but it was not yet an Olympic event; there was an expectation it would be added the next year, given its quality and difficulty. [49] [50]

The movement known as Fly is called Thomas Flair in gymnastics. It was developed by Kurt Thomas, who is credited with performing it first. The date is uncertain, possibly 1980, 1975, or even the 1960s. The movement is considered one of the world’s hardest. [56]

Different disciplines develop different landing patterns for the same skill. In gymnastics, a single high backflip is thrown with a clean landing, while a street practitioner who learns the skill will at least land on all fours, even when the landing is rough. [62]

Coach’s claim

In the teacher’s view, women’s gymnastics excludes rings because women do not have enough strength for the apparatus. [17]

Breaking

Breaking is about 50 years old while formal gymnastics is about 100-110 years old, and breaking elements are much weaker than a standard gymnast’s abilities. Breaking developed on the streets partly because some groups were not admitted to discos. People from poorer neighborhoods and Latin youth, among others, were turned away, so they took to the streets, where breaking developed further and they formed their own culture. [24] [66]

Breaking is more open to individual variation than capoeira. A breaker works as an individual and can develop new variations freely, while capoeira is tied to a fixed system of fighting and acrobatic techniques. As breaking developed, its tricks became stronger, more difficult, and better, but some of the cultural spirit was lost. [55] [65]

Breaking has a distinct vocabulary. Toprock is the standing or upper-body movement, footwork is the movement done down on the floor, and floor movements such as CC and pressure are also called floor work. Beyond footwork, breaking has a power category that includes handstands, air, flare, and windmill. Six-step is a foundational breaking floorwork element. It is done with the feet turning on the floor, and it belongs to a family of step patterns that runs up to twelve steps, including CC, four-step, and twelve-step. Six-step is the most basic of them, and it comes from the flare. [51] [52] [53] [54]

A cypher is a group training gathering that combines practice, dance, and power moves. In movement culture, biting means copying another athlete’s original move and claiming to have invented it. Power moves combine artistic and sporting purposes, with competition emphasizing the sport side. [11] [13] [37]

Street workout and breaking were historically noncompetitive, with commercial companies later introducing competition. [8]

Street workout and calisthenics

Original street workout used public structures such as traffic lights and bus stops, created by young people who could not afford a gym. Later, street workout bars were developed and the discipline entered competitions, which organized it; the original form was different. [30] [31]

Old-school calisthenics emphasizes static skills, contrasting with swing-based bar work. Static power is an old-school calisthenics group; athletes such as Hannibal work the whole body. [14] [28]

Parkour

Parkour is fundamentally an outdoor discipline focused on overcoming obstacles and moving aesthetically from point A to point B. David Belle is considered a founder of parkour. [20] [47]

A single person is credited with getting parkour added to the Olympics. A strong, well-made presentation can be enough to get a discipline you love added. [46]

Capoeira

Mokako is a Brazilian capoeira movement with a simple entry. Capoeira is regarded as an ancestor of several later movement practices, and many movements were taken directly from it. [12] [38]

Yoga

Yoga was traditionally a simple daily exercise for Indians and is now presented alongside Pilates, incense, and advertising. Yoga is described as a 5,000-year-old exercise program that is currently popular worldwide. [23] [42]

Ancient and Olympic history

Organized athletic competition is traced to an initiative around 700 to 800 BCE, when a group of men decided to have people compete through sport. The ancient Olympics centered on athletics, with events such as discus throwing, stadium running, long jump, and javelin throwing. The early Olympics emphasized athletics, with heavier sports added later. [70] [71] [72]

The 1896 modern Olympics added athletics, gymnastics, wrestling, swimming, fencing, cycling, and weightlifting, which is why weightlifting is counted among the first Olympic sports. Wrestling was the first Olympic sport, and Greco-Roman wrestling is part of that tradition. Oil wrestling is said to have existed for 664 years. [70] [73] [74]

Persistence hunting is sustained human running that can outlast prey over long distances. [6]

Coach’s claim

The traditional first-marathon story is a roughly 42-kilometer run followed by the messenger’s death from a heart attack. [10]

Coach’s claim

Gladiators were typically fat, even close to overweight, and did not have shredded, sharply defined muscles. A layer of fat could block some effects of a sword strike. [77]

Olympic programs change every four years, and the changes are made partly with popularity in mind. The programs are repeatedly revised and tested, and events may be removed or reconsidered based on their character and suitability. When skateboarding was added, it resembled no other sport, somewhat like snowboarding but a different field. Breaking was removed because it contained too much art, and it may return in a later cycle. Bar-related events are considered close to gymnastics, possibly because gymnasts commonly perform them. Cheerleading has a world championship but is not in the Olympics. [43] [44] [45] [69]

Adding a discipline to the Olympics can come down to initiative more than to current competitive level. The five B-boys who got breaking added were all below even the middle of the existing level; the process looks at entrepreneurship. [48]

Bodybuilding, strength, and physique

The movement called Arnold was simply named after Arnold and was not created by him. Mr. Olympia is a famous bodybuilding competition. [9] [29]

Physique ideals change over time, with flexible, dynamic, movement-capable bodies becoming more valued than size alone. Physique preferences change with cultural and fashion trends. In the 1980s, larger builds were the trend; now a more defined, tighter physique is preferred. [19] [60]

A past strongman was described as the strongest person of the last 100 years. The strongman was enormous, with his nose bleeding, and his deadlift record was cited at 500 kg. Strength performance improves across generations. Today’s 300 kg deadlift is comparable to an old-day 200 kg deadlift, because more people train, technique is better, and training approaches have improved. [39] [40] [75]

Coach’s claim

Comparisons between historical and modern wrestlers are uncertain because strength, technique, and supplementation differ. [22]

Training trends

Bodyweight training is increasingly popular worldwide. CrossFit has fallen out of trend, with participation declining. Mobility is becoming more popular. [61] [64] [78]

Training techniques are sometimes rebranded and presented as new despite being longstanding practices. Spending most of one’s time on elite training and competition can limit schooling and broader self-development, even when athletes are intelligent. [18] [34]

The wall-based weighted hold is used in taekwondo and similar sports to strengthen the legs. In circus bar acrobatics, the back lever is favored over the front lever. It allows one-arm variations and attractive poses, and it looks better visually, while the front lever is used less. [32] [41]

Ballet is upright and graceful, but some people found it too rigid. That reaction contributed to modern dance, with its more downward movement, and contemporary dance, which began to embrace the floor. [67]

Coach’s experience

In his own training, the teacher holds level three in the gymnastics coaching hierarchy, which prepares competitors. He competed with kids in Mersin’s street-workout scene. He used the wall-based weighted hold in fighting. He has followed a particular bearded athlete for about two years, drawn to his style, and considers the man strong because he avoids standard pressing. [5] [27] [32] [61]

Related pages

• Exercise comparison and equivalence: Often discussed together

Sources

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