Yet another collection from our favourite sport. Admire the skills and the hard training that goes into making them happen - and shapes the bodies to provide the strength with flexibility that they need... ...just in case you haven't worked that one out - it is a planche on the rings seen from below. The gymnasts swings into it and holds, requiring great strength in the shoulders and core... ...now where would we be without our chalk? ...   ...the training shoes are a bit of a giveaway that he is going for training pull-ups, not a rings routine... ...a great device for training circles on the pommel horse is - a bucket!

Back to the gym, guys! Can't get enough of it... these post are surely getting longer! Enjoy the burn and the endorphin rush...  

Here is a collection of boys school PE classes, mostly from the fifties or earlier, showing how things used to be done. Boys classes were mostly shirtless, some barefoot, and there was an interesting reason for this: post-war, schools had a responsiblity for checking on their pupils hygeine, nutrition, evidence of diseases like rickets, and checking on general physical development. Official nurses or doctors occasionally attended the line up to push and prod and occasionally send pupils to clinics. This happened even with mixed classes, and in primary schools too. My father says that, at that time, a lot of houses in UK didn't have bathrooms and, in some families washing was infrequent: changing rooms always had a lingering odour of cheesy feet. Perhaps forcing everyone to strip was a subtle way of embarrassing them into better hygeine practice. Most of the pics are from UK but you will see the famous LaSierra High School in the US, and some examples of other (army) mass training.