The concluding event to the Men’s Gymnastics Olympic Order, the Horizontal Bar offers gymnasts the opportunity to perform a high flying display of daredevil acrobatics. Routines on the horizontal bar, also known as the High Bar, involve acrobatic releases and regrasps that are thrilling for athletes and spectators. While Each skill on high bar appears superhuman and risky, high bar performances consist of skills built from a few simple principles executed to perfection.
In this article, we will talk about some of the underlying principles that allow gymnasts to perform their skills before we decode the composition of a high bar routine to help you understand what judges look for when scoring. The goal is to help further your understanding of what makes a truly excellent high bar performance.
What is the Horizontal Bar?
The horizontal bar, or simply high bar, is the final apparatus used in the men’s gymnastics Olympic order of events. It consists of a single steel bar set at a relatively high height, typically 2.5 meters above the ground, and gymnasts perform a variety of both swinging skills and acrobatic releases. To perform at a high level, athletes need to have precise technique that capitalizes on the bounce of the bar to generate fluid swings and flight.
In addition, High Bar is one of the two events in Men’s Gymnastics where gymnasts use grips / handguards.
Key Characteristics of High Bar Performances
High bar is all about two key principles that fit hand in hand – swing and flight.
Great high bar gymnasts have beautiful, long swings and control tempo to create advanced skills. Swing control and power allows the gymnast to generate flight for release skills and dismounts, where air time is crucial.
The best gymnasts on high bar master the ability to generate swing and flight.
Going deeper, a few basic actions performed at the right time create swing a flight. With precise control of timing, gymnasts transition from hollow to arch, and then back to hollow to generate momentum. The timing of these shape changes, the kick back and korbet, determines how the bar will bend and what direction the athlete’s momentum takes him.
Control of the quality and timing of shape changes generates swing and flight needed for high-level skills on the horizontal bar.
Quick Review of Scoring – How do Judges Score High Bar?
How Judges Score Gymnastics Routines in a Nutshell.
The difficulty score, or D-Score, indicates the difficulty of the routine the gymnast performed.
D-Score = letter values assigned to the skills in a routine + value from element groups fulfilled + any bonuses
The execution score, or E-Score, indicates how well the gymnast executed the routine.
E-Score = 10.0 – sum of all deductions in a routine.
Final Score = D-Score + E-Score
How Judges Generally Determine the Difficulty of a Routine
In a Men’s Gymnastics routine, the eight highest-difficulty skills a gymnast performs in his routine count toward the D-Score. The code of points assigns letter values to each skill, and the chart below lists the corresponding point value for each letter.
Fulfilling element groups awards difficulty value to the gymnasts performance as well. High Bar features three main element groups plus a dismount group. Each element group serves a specific purpose in showcasing the gymnast’s abilities on the apparatus.
Including a D-value skill or higher from an element group grants fulfillment for that group and awards 0.5 to the gymnast’s Difficulty Score. Interestingly, gymnasts can also receive partial credit of 0.3 by performing a <D-value skill within an element group.
The value awarded for the dismount element group matches the difficulty value of the dismount itself. For instance, if a gymnast performs an E-value dismount, they would receive 0.5 points for the skill’s difficulty and an additional 0.5 points for fulfilling the dismount element group.
Want a more in-depth overview of how judges evaluate gymnastics routines? Check out our article How is Men’s Gymnastics Scored?
Hand Positions and Grip on High Bar
One key to understanding high bar is recognizing the different grips a gymnast is performing based off of hand positions. Skills often correspond to specific grip positions.
To identify these grip positions while a gymnast is hanging:
- Overgrip – Palms facing forward in a hang. This is the grip used for back giants.
- Undergrip – Back of the hands and elbows facing forward in a hang. This is the grip used for front giants.
- Eagle Grip – Back of the hands facing forward, but the elbows facing backward. This grip both looks and feels fairly uncomfortable as it involves putting the shoulders into extreme internal rotation. A challenging grip, eagle grip is used for upgrades of certain front giant elements.
- Mixed Grip – This just means each hand has a different grip. Typically, this is undergrip + eagle grip or undergrip + overgrip.
D-Score: Evaluating Difficulty on High Bar
What Are the Element Groups on High Bar?
Element Groups In-Depth: Which Skills Fit in Each Element Group?
EG I – Long hang swings with and without turns.
Most of a high bar routine fits into long hang swings because the giant swing, the basic building block of high bar, is a long hang swing. These are named so, because the athlete is meant to stay as long as possible during these swings.
Back giants involve a full swing around the bar, starting belly down to the floor from handstand to handstand. Gymnasts typically perform back giants in overgrip.
Front giants involve a full swing around the bar, starting back down to the floor from handstand to handstand. Gymnasts typically perform front giants in undergrip.
Other long hang skills are built from giants and include turns to upgrade in value. For example, the Quast (C), a back giant with a full turn, and Rybalko (D), a back giant with a full and a half turn, are common in elite routines.
Generally, gymnasts also include a back giant with a half turn, or blind change, and front giant with a half turn, or pirouette, to switch from front and back giants.
EG II – Flight elements.
Tkachev (C) – a swing forward with a straddle cut backwards over the bar to a regrasp. Can also be performed piked or stretched.
Kovacs (D) – a double back flip over the bar to a regrasp. Variations involve piked and stretched body positions, also with twists.
Gaylord (E) – a double front flip over the bar to a regrasp.
Yamawaki (C) – a swing backward to a hecht with a half turn and a regrasp. A hecht is essentially standing up straight from the back swing while releasing the bar.
Gienger (D) – A swing forward to a piked or stretched back half in front of the bar with a regrasp.
Jaeger (C) – A swing backward to a straddle front flip behind the bar with a regrasp. Variations also include piked or stretched positions.
EG III – In bar and Adler elements
Stalder (B)- From back giants, the gymnast will straddle on the way down into a basket swing returning to handstand on the way up.
Endo (B)- Just like a stalder but from front giants.
Free Hip (A) – From back giant, the gymnast will bring their hips close to the bar with a straight body going down and then return to handstand on the way up.
Weiler Kip (B)- A free hip circle forward from front giants.
Adler (C) – Starts like a piked endo but the gymnast shoots their hips up forward and “dislocates” to a handstand. A basic adler finishes in eagle grip, but variants of the adler with turns finish in different grips to upgrade the value.
EG IV – Dismounts
Gymnasts most commonly dismount by releasing in front of the bar from back giants and performing back somersaults. You can usually tell an athlete is ready to dismount when they perform a distinctive Tong Fei / Chinese tap which involves them ultra-aggressively snapping their body over the bar the giant before they dismount. A common elite dismount is a double twisting double back layout, or Watanabe (E).
Essentially all elite gymnasts perform their dismounts as described above, but there are more rare dismounts that gymnasts can perform. Gymnasts can double flip over the bar – like a Kovacs but without the regrasp. Similarly, they can double front over the bar from front giants – like a Gaylord without a regrasp. Finally, gymnasts can release behind the bar from front giants – like a Jaeger – into front somersaults.
Connection Bonuses on High Bar
Gymnasts gain a connection bonus for performing certain skills immediately into a release. For example, a Kovacs immediately followed by a Kolman will gain 0.2 tenths for connection bonus.
Gymnasts gain bonuses not only for connected releases, but also connecting an In-Bar or Long Hang directly into a Flight skill.
The following chart outlines the connection bonuses from Article 15.2.2 of the FIG Code of Points:
High Bar Execution and Common Deductions
The horizontal bar has a few event specific deductions. The most important to note are angle deductions and reverse of direction.
Angle Deductions
When executing turning skills or in-bar elements, the gymnast must finish in OR near a handstand. Deviating from a handstand is a deduction and the size depends on the severity of the missed angle.
Half turns and In Bar skills, like the stalder and endo, have only 15 degrees of leeway past handstand before deductions start, while more complex turns to complex grip have 30 degrees of leeway.
You can refer to the following chart from the FIG Code of Points Article 15.2 for specific deductions:
Reverse of Direction
A swing backward to handstand that reverses direction with no skill performed is a 0.3 deduction.
Final Notes
As you can tell, the rules around high bar are just as complex as the other events in Men’s Artistic Gymnastics. Hopefully, this writing helps you follow High Bar performances and can serve as a future reference guide to the exhilarating final event in the Men’s Olympic order.
For our guides to the other MAG events, refer to:
– Simple Guide to Pommel Horse
– Simple Guide to Still Rings
– Practical Overview of Parallel Bars
Useful Equipment for High Bar
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