Mens' Team

Team Ladders

Men's gymnastics offers two different "ladders" to achieve the highest level of competition. The Junior Olympic ladder, progresses the athletes through the compulsory and then optional routine program; the Future Stars program goes through the levels as well, but adds in testing competitions on specific Future Stars skills and routines. Both progressions have proved very successful for the young man who chooses gymnastics as "his" sport. The Future Stars program offers the opportunity for early National Team recognition.

Unlike women's gymnastics, a young man's career can carry over well past college graduation. Differing anatomical development between the female and male athlete, gives the men a much longer and more successful long-term opportunity. Many Elite male gymnast compete into their 30's and 40's with great success.

Competitive Team

Compulsory Gymnastics covers Levels 4-7 in Men's gymnastics. Each level has it's own pre-defined routine for the 7 apparatus events. Competitors range in age from six years old to thirteen. Level 7 contains compulsory skills, however coaches are allowed some flexibility for bonus skills and routine composition. Judging for Men's gymnastics at all levels is based upon the FIG scoring, rather than the 10.0 system. All Level 4-7 routines begin at a 15.0. Special bonus skils, stuck landings and flawless execution can, at times, raise the Compulsory score to a 16.0 for all events except vault.

Optional Gymnastics includes Levels 8-10. No specific skills are required at these levels, although difficulty, strength, balance, flexibility and/or element group requirements exist. Optional routines have an "open-ended" scoring system where 10.0 is used as the pinnacle score of a perfectly executed routine, and difficulty scores can range from 10.5 to beyond 17.0. These two scores are then combined for a final composite score.