Strength and Beauty: What Gymnastics Can Teach Us

As she watched the gymnastics events in the Summer Olympics, Rebecca W. Martin noticed how the sport provides a lesson in complementarity.

Like many of us, I’ve been enjoying the actual sports of the Olympic Games. The displays of superb athletics highlight the beauty and majesty in God’s design of the human body, and the excellence to which discipline and skill can push us. Or at least can push other people, given that the most flexibility I ever demonstrate is sitting cross-legged on my bed hunched over my laptop.  

I’ve been thoroughly enjoying the men’s and women’s artistic gymnastics — and noticed something this year that I hadn’t before.  

If you’re not familiar, though the structure of the sport is the same, men and women compete on slightly different line-ups of apparatus: balance beam, uneven bars, floor, and vault for women; parallel bars, high bar, pommel horse, rings, floor, and vault for men. Uneven bars and high bar require very similar skills, and of course floor and vault are the same apparatus for both men and women. 

The contrast of emphasis in gymnastic events for men and women

An illustrative contrast appears between the male-specific apparatus of the rings, and the women’s on the balance beam.   

Watch a man hanging in a Maltese position or a cross position on the rings, and you’ll see sheer strength. There is grace and balance, yes, but those serve to accentuate the physical power and capability these men possess.   

Watch a woman on the balance beam, and the strength that appears is very different: it’s graceful, dramatic, with a focus on beautiful gestures through the whole body rather than merely smooth transitions between skills. 

The contrast appears again in the floor routines. For the men, any transition between skills is done with a simple raise of the arms, while the women add flourishes and dance-like movements to their amazing acrobatics. 

A display of complementarity, not objectification

At first, when I observed the differences, I immediately concluded that the women’s side of the sport was overly focused on beauty, requiring its athletes to be not only skilled, but lovely. Ah, the objectification of women, I thought. Forced to play up their sexuality for entertainment value. And let’s not mention that there are twice as many ads on the women’s gymnastic coverage.  

Some of that may very well be true. But as I reflected further, observing more closely and bringing in my knowledge of Christian anthropology, I realized that actually I had noticed a visceral display of the complementarity of the sexes.  

Yes, of course the women add the additional element of beauty to their routines. Isn’t that what the feminine genius does: bring beauty to the world? We are strong, but we aren’t defined solely or even predominantly by our strength. We don’t just do the thing, we do it with that little extra care and attention and delight that invites the other into the thing we are doing. We can rejoice in the beauty of our bodies as created in the image and likeness of God, and with generosity we can share that in appropriate ways with others.  

Think of dancers, for instance. It’s difficult to overly sexualize a ballerina in The Nutcracker or Swan Lake, even though her body is almost entirely on display, because the purpose of her costume and movements is to create true beauty, not seduce the viewer. The same goes for the great Grecian statues and much of fine Renaissance art.  

At the same time, it makes perfect sense why the men’s side of the sport glorifies strength in its own way. These men aren’t brutes, all muscle and no mind. Instead they are a display of strength brought to its finest: through control and discipline, they arrive at a beauty that can almost rival their female counterparts. 

As I go back to binge-watching Olympic coverage — kayak slalom and sport climbing, especially — I’m reminded that there’s a reason Saint Paul tells us to approach the Christian life like athletes: 

Do you not know that the runners in the stadium all run in the race, but only one wins the prize? Run so as to win. Every athlete exercises discipline in every way. They do it to win a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one. Thus I do not run aimlessly; I do not fight as if I were shadowboxing. No, I drive my body and train it, for fear that, after having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified (1 Corinthians 9:24-27). 

 There’s an inherent goodness in the efforts of an athlete to push himself or herself to the limits.  

Yet our limits don’t end with a perishable crown, or even a fancy gold medal. There’s more at stake for us, both men and women, as humans. Strength and beauty of body, wonderful as they are, are perishable things, each calling us to the strength and beauty of a virtuous soul.  

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Copyright 2024 Rebecca W. Martin
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