The Importance of Safety Features in Gym Equipment

The Importance of Safety Features in Gym Equipment

Gymnastics is a sport that consists of difficult acrobatic movements that require a high level of skill and fitness. During practice, gymnasts often make mistakes in refining their skills, and sometimes these mistakes can lead to serious accidents. That is why modern gymnastics equipment is equipped with safety features as standard. While surfing the web, I came across a banner titled “Tumble Track for Sale” and, of course, being curious, I clicked on it to see what safety features tumble tracks have.

Layers made of foam or other shock-absorbing materials

According to the gymnastics rules for tumbling, only the hands and feet should touch the surface of the tumbling track. However, in the event of a failed skill or error, a gymnast may fall to the surface, head first or on his back. The tumble track material is padded with two layers of foam or other material that cushions the gymnast’s fall. This part of the tumble track surface is very important because it makes it less likely that gymnasts will break their wrists or sprain their joints when they try a skill and fail.

End Decks with Padding

The end decks of a tumbling track are padded because this is the part of the trampoline where athletes are at high risk of falling off. The end decks ensure that even when an athlete misses the trampoline by just a few inches and part of their body touches it, they won’t get scratched. The padding of the end decks also cushions an athlete’s fall when they bump into it, reducing the impact of their fall when they hit the floor mat.

Padded springs

A feather is certainly something that is very well known. Imagine an exposed spring and during its stretching and contracting action, your skin comes into contact with it. Absolutely, it would hurt you and probably not only cause a lot of pain, but it could tear your skin. To prevent such incidents, tumble tracks have all their springs stuffed. The padding on the springs is designed in such a way that it does not alter the performance of the springs and makes the trampoline stiff. Instead, the trampoline keeps all of its spring capacity, which also makes it safer.

A mat for dismounting skills.

When a gymnast tumbles on a tumble track, he or she gains momentum in the process. Momentum is energy collected by a moving object, and that energy will be transferred to the surface upon landing at the end of a tumble sequence. If the landing surface is hard, this means that the transfer of energy when the gymnast’s body loses force on landing will result in a force that can be so high that even leg bones are broken. As a safety measure, a mat is placed at the end of a tumbling track. This mat makes sure that when a gymnast lands at the end of a tumble, all of the energy is absorbed and there is no chance of getting hurt.