Young Brunette Girl Doing Gymnastic Exercises

Artistic gymnastics is usually divided into Men's and Women's Gymnastics. Typically men compete six events: Floor Exercise, Pommel Horse, Still Rings, Vault, Parallel Bars, and High Bar, while women compete four: Vault, Uneven Bars, Balance Beam, and Floor Exercise. In some countries, women at one time competed on the rings, high bar, and parallel bars (for example, in the 1950s in the USSR). Though routines performed on each event may be short, they are physically exhausting and push the gymnast's strength, flexibility, endurance and awareness to the limit.
Artistic gymnasts participate in competitions which use a standardized level system ranging from Level 1 to Level 10. Levels 1 through 6 compete using compulsory routines. In Levels 7 though 10, athletes may use their own routines created from a set of skills which must be included. Elite competition, open to skilled younger athletes in lower levels, is typically reserved for athletes who have aged out of the junior program; for example, in the United States, Junior Olympic competition ends when the athlete reaches age 18. Elite gymnasts compete for team slots, which allows them access to international competition. It is accepted practice at the compulsory and optional level to use standardized routines in the training of young gymnasts.
In 2006, FIG introduced a new points system for Artistic gymnastics in which scores are no longer limited to 10 points. The system is used in the US for elite level competition.