A wider Balance Beam?

This week the bloggers discuss the idea of widening the Balance Beam. There were some mixed feelings on the idea of it. The idea came from a interview that legendary Russian coach Leonid Arkayev did with Gym Media at World 2010 where he examined a balance beam prototype whose ends were slightly wider than four inches. The idea behind the prototype is that it could allow gymnasts to get greater punch for dismounts, thereby allowing for harder skills done off the end of the beam.

I’m all for a wider beam or bench when a young gymnast is first learning a skill but once achieved, straight away I move them onto the floor beam and gradually raise the height of the beam but I’m not for widening the competition beam. I could actually see it causing more injuries. Blythe brings up a good point that she feels it “somehow may invalidate the wonderful history of beamwork that’s been developed over the past 50 years”. She also points out that everyone in the gymnastics world are marveling Katelyn Ohashi’s fantastic beam routine from the WOGA Classic at the weekend but if she had performed on a wider beam, would we all be as impressed?

Click through to the discussion to read the bloggers views and opinions.

The picture above is courtesy of Romila from GymNiceTic – always love the images you come up with for each discussion Romila!Make sure to subscribe to GymNiceTic is you haven’t already done so.