Blood, Drugs, & Cheating: 5 R-Rated Realities Of Gymnastics

Jesus. Two decades? That's practically dead. Enjoy your HGTV in peace, Grandma, and leave the real athletics to the prepubescents.

Pretty much every joint-related injury happens in gymnastics. Gymnasts almost single-handedly dominate Osgood-Schlatter disease -- a condition that affects kids who overuse their joints. "I have terrible joints, specifically my wrists, thanks to years of rings and the [pommel] horse," said Charles. "I've also gotten rips [calloused hands being ripped open] a few times. It's really jarring and really painful."

Rips, by the way, look like this:

On the less gross but actually more horrible side, getting paralyzed totally happens, and the accident rate is pretty high. In fact, the 4.8/1,000 injury rate is about the same as "rougher" sports like soccer and hockey. And all this in a sport dominated by kids who haven't lost all of their baby teeth yet.

A single positive test is enough to thoroughly wreck a career -- prominent 15-year-old gymnasts who were clearly innocent and had tons of evidence against drug use have been banned during their prime. That's not to say that real performance-enhancing drugs aren't out there. Lexi remembered hearing about it at her last few competitions:

"European countries and the Americans were pretty thorough, but one of the gymnasts from Hungary suddenly pulled out right before the drug and gender testing -- seriously, they test your gender in bigger competitions. ... My [Russian] coach just shrugged it off. It was no surprise to him."

It happens at the international level a lot. Gymnasts from Uzbekistan to Romania have been banned from the Olympics and had their medals stripped for steroid use or not being completely one sex. And that's nothing compared to the North Korean team. "During those big competitions, the North Koreans were never there," Lexi remembered. "Not because they didn't want to go, but because the entire team was banned."

It turned out that the entire team had lied about their ages. They were banned from international competition for several years, including the 2012 Olympics, and some are still banned here in 2015. It's a common occurrence for gymnasts from the wackiest lil' horrific dictatorship around to get banned, because they frequently put severely underage kids in competition. Frankly, we're surprised there aren't more wee super gymnasts tumbling through the DMZ to freedom.

Lexi didn't realize this when she was younger, and got yelled at for it. "When I was around 6, I started doing the rings," she remembered. "One of the coaches wasn't teaching me -- it was a few of the boys. They taught me the rings, and I showed them how to balance on a beam well. These rings were inches off a thick mat, so they weren't dangerous, but once the male instructor saw me, he yelled at me and sent me crying back to the girls' side. A few years later, I asked to do it formally and was denied -- it wasn't part of the routine. I forget exactly what my instructor told me, but she said something like, 'Muscle adds weight, and you have enough.'"

This is the reason why young female gymnasts are so slight -- it's the body type that can do the events. And if you start young enough, gymnastics training can ensure that you stay small. Bone development and natural growth occur in the early years, and by training to be as small and light as possible, well, you'll get your wish. Possibly for life.

"You don't learn [that stunted growth is] a possibility until you are 8 or 9. I learned it in third or fourth grade science class," said Lexi. "At that point, it already started to stop my growth."

The weird thing is that women used to compete in the exact same events as the men, including the rings. What happened? It's been all but openly said, but the events likely separated to show off what people associated with each gender, or as the BBC put it, "peacocking for both sexes."

Which is strange, because it means ...

All three of the gymnasts we interviewed agreed: Women have the harder and more intense events.

How so? For one, there is flexibility. While men certainly need it for events, it is actually one of the things being judged for women. Due to the women's lighter frames, they have to push their bodies over the limit, upping their chances of injury and the need for tighter focus. Remember, these are teenage girls who don't yet have the foresight to see that Chad really likes Madison instead of them, let alone that they're at a higher risk for paralysis.

Because women are used to harder events, it's easier for them to switch roles and do the men's stuff very well. In a more modern context, Lexi had this to share: "For fun, our gym had the guys and the girls switch up for a week on what we trained on. At the end of the week, the guys kept falling flat on their ass in uneven [bars], and many of them couldn't do the balance beam. Our side, although poorly, had everyone completing the rings and pommel horse in beginner routines, with all the other ones being done even better."

"No, you can't."
"Yes, I can."
"No, you can't."
"Yes, I can! Yes, I can!"

Stick It, a 2006 movie about gymnastics, showed how hard it actually is for female gymnasts, and changed a lot of minds about the preconceived notion of women's gymnastics being "easy." But, just like men's gymnastics' acceptance in the mainstream, it still has a long way to go.

For more insider perspectives, check out Ballet Is Hell: 5 Nightmare Realities You'd Never Guess and 5 Brutal Realities Of High School Football (From A Coach).

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