Who practices more each day, and who practices more over a typical career…a female Olympic gymnast or a female Olympic figure-skater?
The gymnasts are often finished when they hit puberty. The skaters are a good few years older, so I’d say the skaters.
As an aside, I’d like the sport to be women’s (as in post-puberty) gymnastics, not female gymnastics.
You answered who lasts LONGER over a career, and I tend to agree with you, but if a gymnast practices more each day, then their total career practice time could be higher than a figure-skater.
So, who practices more each day, a gymnast or a figure-skater? If a gymnast practices more each day, will they have a higher total practice time than a figure-skater?
It depends how you are defining ‘practice’. Do you mean total hrs spent in the gym vs on the ice rink? Because a gymnast can ‘practice’ her sport at home.
I was a gymnast way back when and would constantly be doing cartwheels in the family room or walkovers down the hallway, etc. So do you count that in as practice? IF so, then gymnasts spend more time practicing.
I was a gymnast, and at times in the summer I was in the gym 8 hours a day. This was not unusual. I worked out four hours at the highschool in the morning, then went to a club for another four in the afternoon. I was not anywhere near an olympic quality gymnast. On the otherhand, I suspect the same is true of skaters.
Gymnastics is not an endurance sport though. A lot of time is spent waiting for your turn on the equipment. Your on the equipment for about a minute, then you wait five minutes for your next turn. A minute would be a long time. That’s basically running through your entire routine. Floor exercise is a bit longer than the others, but there you would typically only work on one tumbling pass at a time. Only about a half hour to an hour at the end of the session is spent on solid strength training. You usually can’t get back up on the equipment once your arms are jello from strength.
The olympic gymnasts would of course have the equipment to themselves most of the time. They still aren’t on the equipment nonstop.
I don’t think there can be an answer to this, it’s like asking, who studies more hours per day, laws students or med students? I think as with any sport or skill that people dedicate their lives to, there will always be some people who spend every waking moment practicing in some way, and people who spend much much less. And the top few people in the world in any given field might sometimes be the ones who practice most, or ones who practice much less
It’s tough for skaters to get all the ice time they need. Much more than 4 hours a day becomes prohibitively expensive.
You can put 50 gymnasts in a gym.
Consider that the figure skaters may also be training in gymnastics and ballet. Do the gymnasts learn to skate?
I don’t know the answer but it’s not a one dimensional question.
Considering that you have to be at least 16 to legitimately compete in the Olympics, or any “senior” level event, I doubt this whole bunches.
Male gymnasts are just getting good at puberty.
I am now leaning towards the Olympic figure-skater practicing more each day and having more career practice time, but before I state my three reasons, let me re-iterate…I specifically asked about OLYMPIC gymnasts and OLYMPIC figure-skaters. All others need not apply. Anyways, here are my three reasons why I think Olympic figure skaters practice more than Olympic gymnasts.
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Olympic figure skaters typically have longer careers.
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If you are an Olympic quality figure-skater, then you are not having any problems whatsoever paying for, nor finding all the time you want on the rink.
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Gymnasts can practice almost anywhere, but when you think about it, so can figure-skaters. Figure skaters lift weights, do ballet, stretch, watch film, etc. Just like gymnasts.
Someone said earlier, there is no one dimensional answer (and I agree), but if you limit your thinking to only Olympic athletes (which is what I asked in the first place), the question becomes somewhat easier.
Sorry, I was speaking purely of the women.
They retard the onset of puberty of the girls through diet. There was a TV program a year or so back about this where they showed two twins. One was a national-level gymnast and the other wasn’t. One was small and still a child, the other fairly fully developed. You would not have believed that they were identical twins, but they were.
Really? I was a small-time competitive roller skater. While I’d only have the floor to myself if I came in very early or late with my coach, I had no problem practicing for 4-6 hours several times a week. You don’t need that much space to work on individual jumps and spins, and you can easily do your routine with other people on the floor- they know if they hear your music, they need to get out of the way. We had a pretty high level skater in our rink- he won the National Championship several years in a row- and he had no problem practicing this way.
I’m still not certain why this makes you lean towards the skaters, since everything you say here is equally true about gymnasts except 1, and I don’t see how 1 has any effect on how their daily practice goes. Also, are you limiting your discussion of gymnasts to women? Because men have significantly longer careers than women, and they can be competitive well into their twenties. I think one olympic gymnast in 1988 was 27. Kurt Thomas was trying to make the team in '88 and he was 32. He actually worked out at my gym from time to time, and when he did it was non-stop.
Let’s not use TV programs for our science.
The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism Vol. 84, No. 12 4525-4530, Growth and Pubertal Development in Elite Female Rhythmic Gymnasts
N. Georgopoulos, K. Markou, A. Theodoropoulou, P. Paraskevopoulou, L. Varaki, Z. Kazantzi, M. Leglise and A. G. Vagenakis
There is a significant effect on menarche because a minimum body fat percentage is necessary. However, while menarche is delayed it is not removed entirely, and not for all gymnasts.
Again, Olympic gymnasts have to be a minimum of 16 and some are older. Some compete in more than one Olympics. You can’t say that none of them have gone through puberty,
I am limiting the question to FEMALE OLYMPIC figure-stakers and FEMALE OLYMPIC gymnasts. I did this on purpose (helps limit the criteria, and the female version of each sport is more popular than the male version, so hopefully we will get more people with more experience on the topic.) Please stick to female Olympians.
Good cite, but do you really believe those Chinese girls last year were post-pubertal?
I think I just read something that might relate. In “Outliers,” Malcolm Gladwell contends that to become a “master” of anything, 10,000 hours of practice is pretty much the benchmark. In a discussion of musicians, he claims that research found that after 10,000 hours a musician has complete mastery…there’s no one who practices that much who does NOT achieve master status, and no one who practices less who does. He then goes on to point out others, such as professional athletes and even computer programmers who managed to get their 10,000 hours in early.
I bet research would show the same for both sports – that they’re elite athletes once they reach peak practice hours and that it’s about the same for whatever sport you’re talking about.
Though, I suppose if the gymnasts quit engaging in their sport at 20 and the skaters continue into their 40s, the skaters would rack up more hours total.
Seriously? An Olympic-level gymnast cannot practice their routines at home, unless they have a floor beam for choreo practice or a mat for conditioning.
Generally, female Olympic gymnasts are in the gym 40 hours a week, though as mentioned some of this time is spent waiting for equipment.
Figure skaters reach the top at later age & have longer careers. Ergo, they practice longer. 