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Similar relationships exist in sport. Gymnasts can take up nearly any sport and excel. Swimmers can barely walk :) Gymnasts are the physicists of movement.

by trapper 17y ago

forensic 17y ago
That's not because swimmers aren't physically fit though (physical fitness being the comparison to intelligence) it's because swimming is more specialized than gymnastics. You really can't say gymnasts are more fit than swimmers, just that gymnastics is a more versatile sport so you learn a wider range of abilities.
- trapper 17y ago
  It's nothing to do with fitness or being specialized. It's about "movement IQ" or "coordination capacity" for lack of a better term. Gymnasts typically have a huge talent reserve, and move to other sports and often dominate. It's why many national talent programs use gymnastics as their foundations. Swimming tends to attract the less talented for some reason, and these people don't adapt well to other sports. To paraphrase pg: Take some swimmers and gymnasts and tell them they have to learn each others discipline or be executed. Who's the most worried? Funny anecdote: a recent olympic swimming team failed to ride to the stadium in Beijing because most of them couldn't ride bikes.
  - giardini 17y ago
    The best gymnasts are short people; the best swimmers are not. There are always exceptions (Janet Evans). Short people have certain advantages in gymnastics due to the physics of motion. Years ago tall men and women did compete in Olympic gymnastics but do so rarely today. In today's increasingly competitive world, we find only short gymnasts in the top tier. Competitors will go so far as to change birthdates to get younger (ergo smaller) gymnasts into competition. "to paraphrase pg: Take some swimmers and gymnasts and tell them they have to learn each others discipline or be executed. Who's the most worried?" I don't think the gymnasts swim times would be nearly as good as the swimmers. Nor do I think the swimmers would perform as well as the gymnasts at gymnastics. Each sport has evolved to the point where body type must be taken into account. But consider a more realistic hypothetical: Put a swimmer and a gymnast in a room and tell them only one of them can come out. My money's on the swimmer!8-)) Finally, as Randy Newman once sang: http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Short-People-lyrics-Randy-Newman/3244F1D30051F75E48256A370048B6FA http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Short-People-lyrics-R... "Short people got no reason to live. They got little hands Little eyes They walk around Tellin' great big lies They got little noses And tiny little teeth They wear platform shoes On their nasty little feet"
    - nostrademons 17y ago
      "In today's increasingly competitive world, we find only short gymnasts in the top tier." That is less true now than it was 10 years ago. Nastia Liukin and Svetlana Khorkina are both of above-average height (5'4" and 5'5", respectively), as is Sandra Izbasa (5'5"), the reigning Olympic gold medalist on floor. You still see some very short gymnasts (eg. Shawn Johnson or the Chinese), but tall women can actually be competitive now.
    - trapper 17y ago
      You still seem to be confusing the issue. This isn't about fitness which is trainable. This is about coordination. I'm also talking about the general case, not a specific case. People who do gymnastics tend to be much more gifted with coordination than swimmers. Also, your money would be on the swimmer in a fight? Are you serious? Perhaps you are thinking of rythmic gymnastics? http://www.verticaljumping.com/images/male_gymnast.jpg http://www.verticaljumping.com/images/male_gymnast.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Dhs0-1T9VXw/SC-0HhRMdEI/AAAAAAAAB90/tyxx6Tny5kk/s400/olympian-beijing-bound.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Dhs0-1T9VXw/SC-0HhRMdEI/AAAAAAAAB9...
      - giardini 17y ago
        No, I wasn't talking about fitness. And is "coordination" indeed not trainable? Perhaps people who do gymnastics are, as you say, more "coordinated" because they "coordinate" more (i.e., train more)? Swimmers are, on average taller/bigger than gymnasts. In a fight, the bigger guy/gal usually wins. That's a lesson you should have learned in the first grade. Schools these days!
        trapper 17y ago
        Coordination is trainable absolutely, but people also tend to self select sports which they excel at naturally. What does that tell you? Who would your money be on to learn baseball, weightlifting and cross country skiing: a swimmer or a gymnast? You also may be interested in: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?section=swimming&id=3135624 http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?section=swimming&id=... Key quote: "I don't remember what it was, but I have scars all over my body just literally from falling all over the place" The assertion about size in fights only holds when all else is equal, which is rarely the case. Gymnasts are extremely strong due to spending most of their training holding up their entire body in strange positions. Swimmers on the other hand are extremely weak (look in the literature if you don't believe me) due to the amount of time spent training supported by the water. Plus there are huge speed and explosiveness differences as well. I know where my money would be.
xiaoma 17y ago
It sure didn't play out that way on my high school cross-country team. We had a gymnast who couldn't even manage a 25min 5k by the end of the season and three swimmers who beat that by a big margin in the very first meet. A lot of gymnasts made good cheerleaders, though.
- nostrademons 17y ago
  Cheerleading is another very physically demanding sport. A lot of cheerleaders could easily move into other sports and do very well.
  - scott_s 17y ago
    Modern cheerleading with "stunting" is basically group gymnastics. Hence xiaoma's comment.
Quarrelsome 17y ago
They can't dance for shit though. A gymnast moving into breaking stands out by a mile. It's as if they've left their clothes hanger inside their clothes.

Similar relationships exist in sport. Gymnasts can take up nearly any sport and excel. Swimmers can barely walk :) Gymnasts are the physicists of movement.

by trapper 17y ago

Similar relationships exist in sport. Gymnasts can take up nearly any sport and excel. Swimmers can barely walk :) Gymnasts are the physicists of movement.

forensic 17y ago

That's not because swimmers aren't physically fit though (physical fitness being the comparison to intelligence) it's because swimming is more specialized than gymnastics. You really can't say gymnasts are more fit than swimmers, just that gymnastics is a more versatile sport so you learn a wider range of abilities.

trapper 17y ago
It's nothing to do with fitness or being specialized. It's about "movement IQ" or "coordination capacity" for lack of a better term. Gymnasts typically have a huge talent reserve, and move to other sports and often dominate. It's why many national talent programs use gymnastics as their foundations. Swimming tends to attract the less talented for some reason, and these people don't adapt well to other sports. To paraphrase pg: Take some swimmers and gymnasts and tell them they have to learn each others discipline or be executed. Who's the most worried? Funny anecdote: a recent olympic swimming team failed to ride to the stadium in Beijing because most of them couldn't ride bikes.
- giardini 17y ago
  The best gymnasts are short people; the best swimmers are not. There are always exceptions (Janet Evans). Short people have certain advantages in gymnastics due to the physics of motion. Years ago tall men and women did compete in Olympic gymnastics but do so rarely today. In today's increasingly competitive world, we find only short gymnasts in the top tier. Competitors will go so far as to change birthdates to get younger (ergo smaller) gymnasts into competition. "to paraphrase pg: Take some swimmers and gymnasts and tell them they have to learn each others discipline or be executed. Who's the most worried?" I don't think the gymnasts swim times would be nearly as good as the swimmers. Nor do I think the swimmers would perform as well as the gymnasts at gymnastics. Each sport has evolved to the point where body type must be taken into account. But consider a more realistic hypothetical: Put a swimmer and a gymnast in a room and tell them only one of them can come out. My money's on the swimmer!8-)) Finally, as Randy Newman once sang: http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Short-People-lyrics-Randy-Newman/3244F1D30051F75E48256A370048B6FA http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Short-People-lyrics-R... "Short people got no reason to live. They got little hands Little eyes They walk around Tellin' great big lies They got little noses And tiny little teeth They wear platform shoes On their nasty little feet"
  - nostrademons 17y ago
    "In today's increasingly competitive world, we find only short gymnasts in the top tier." That is less true now than it was 10 years ago. Nastia Liukin and Svetlana Khorkina are both of above-average height (5'4" and 5'5", respectively), as is Sandra Izbasa (5'5"), the reigning Olympic gold medalist on floor. You still see some very short gymnasts (eg. Shawn Johnson or the Chinese), but tall women can actually be competitive now.
  - trapper 17y ago
    You still seem to be confusing the issue. This isn't about fitness which is trainable. This is about coordination. I'm also talking about the general case, not a specific case. People who do gymnastics tend to be much more gifted with coordination than swimmers. Also, your money would be on the swimmer in a fight? Are you serious? Perhaps you are thinking of rythmic gymnastics? http://www.verticaljumping.com/images/male_gymnast.jpg http://www.verticaljumping.com/images/male_gymnast.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Dhs0-1T9VXw/SC-0HhRMdEI/AAAAAAAAB90/tyxx6Tny5kk/s400/olympian-beijing-bound.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Dhs0-1T9VXw/SC-0HhRMdEI/AAAAAAAAB9...
    - giardini 17y ago
      No, I wasn't talking about fitness. And is "coordination" indeed not trainable? Perhaps people who do gymnastics are, as you say, more "coordinated" because they "coordinate" more (i.e., train more)? Swimmers are, on average taller/bigger than gymnasts. In a fight, the bigger guy/gal usually wins. That's a lesson you should have learned in the first grade. Schools these days!
      - trapper 17y ago
        Coordination is trainable absolutely, but people also tend to self select sports which they excel at naturally. What does that tell you? Who would your money be on to learn baseball, weightlifting and cross country skiing: a swimmer or a gymnast? You also may be interested in: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?section=swimming&id=3135624 http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?section=swimming&id=... Key quote: "I don't remember what it was, but I have scars all over my body just literally from falling all over the place" The assertion about size in fights only holds when all else is equal, which is rarely the case. Gymnasts are extremely strong due to spending most of their training holding up their entire body in strange positions. Swimmers on the other hand are extremely weak (look in the literature if you don't believe me) due to the amount of time spent training supported by the water. Plus there are huge speed and explosiveness differences as well. I know where my money would be.

xiaoma 17y ago

It sure didn't play out that way on my high school cross-country team. We had a gymnast who couldn't even manage a 25min 5k by the end of the season and three swimmers who beat that by a big margin in the very first meet. A lot of gymnasts made good cheerleaders, though.

nostrademons 17y ago
Cheerleading is another very physically demanding sport. A lot of cheerleaders could easily move into other sports and do very well.
- scott_s 17y ago
  Modern cheerleading with "stunting" is basically group gymnastics. Hence xiaoma's comment.

Quarrelsome 17y ago

They can't dance for shit though. A gymnast moving into breaking stands out by a mile. It's as if they've left their clothes hanger inside their clothes.