Aerobic gymnastics

Aerobic gymnastics

A sport aerobics team
Highest governing body	Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique
First contested	United States, 1980's
Characteristics
Contact	Not with opponents
Mixed-sex	Yes
Type	Gymnastic sport
Presence
Country or region	Worldwide
Olympic	No
World Games	1997 – 2021

Aerobic gymnastics or sport aerobics is a competitive sport originating from traditional aerobics in which complex, high-intensity movement patterns and elements of varying difficulty are performed to music.

Nature of the game

The performance area is 7 metres (23 ft) square for juniors or 10 metres (33 ft) square for adults and for aero dance and step.

Since 1995, The international governing body of the sport is the FIG based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is the same body that governs Artistic, Rhythmic, Trampoline and Parkour. In their international events for the sport of Aerobic Gymnastics, there are 9 different events: Individual Women, Individual Men, Mixed Pairs, Trios, Group (five athletes), Step and Dance (both two last categories have eight athletes). The last four are regardless of the genders of the athletes.

The performances are made up of four groups of elements. The routine must be performed entirely to music.

In the competition, there are specific requirements regarding the outfit, the number of elements performed, the number of lifts performed, the number of elements performed on the floor and much more.

Performances are scored in the following areas: artistry, execution, difficulty and the chair of the judges panel determines the final score deductions based on deductions that change with each code of points. If the combined scores are the same, the tiebreaker is the team with higher execution scores.

The long-term ultimate goal of the sport of aerobic gymnastics is to be included in the Olympic Games.

Competitive aerobic gymnastics

National Aerobic Championships

The National Aerobic Championships was a competition of aerobic gymnastics started in 1984 in the United States until the last official event held in 2019. In the early days of the 1980's and 1990's, it was primarily known as a high level competition sponsored by various US corporations during the fitness boom that followed the Jane Fonda era of Hollywood Fitness videos.

Founded by Sports Fitness International (SFI), it was the first major championship in the sport predating the FIG sponsored World Aerobic Gymnastics Championships Aerobic Gymnastics World Championships. Howard and Karen Schwartz are the founders of SFI and NAC (National Aerobic Championships) and ANAC (Association of National Aerobic Championships) and the original form of the competitive version of this sport in the USA and probably the world, and it is all documented on YouTube. From 1988 onwards the individual events were separated into individual men and women, mixed pairs, and teams. The first World Aerobic Championship was held in 1990 in San Diego, CA by the Association of Aerobic Championships (ANAC).

The FIG (the governing body of Gymnastics worldwide) adopted the sport in 1995 which meant that all national gymnastics federations must follow their protocol, rules and vision for the sport.

The owners of SFI resisted following FIG rules for nine years and made their own similar rules. Finally, the owners of SFI were forced by the FIG to stop using the title World Aerobic Championship as the name of their event starting in 2005 when they changed the name to the annual event to "International Aerobic Championship". There was a 10 year overlap in the event title "World Aerobic Championship" when there were "two" World Championships until the FIG forced the owners of ANAC/SFI to stop using the title.

Meanwhile, since 1995, the FIG has held and continues to hold (as of 2024) World Aerobic Championships annually and later bi-annually and most of the top athletes in the world gravitate to events affiliated with the FIG. The level of the athletes who came to the SFI/NAC events slowly declined over time from 1995 forward. In 1996, in the height of the challenges of power between FIG and ANAC, Elaine Alfano (Krasne) won the Individual Women's category. Elaine was an award winning college gymnast from Utah who entered into Aerobic competitions just as the ANAC was working to clean up the sport to appeal to the new FIG rules. As a long-time gymnast, she understood the rules, and maximized the impact for her routine and won the gold medal. Her gold medal win at the ANAC event in 1996 was met with boos, and that was very challenging for someone who was newer to the sport, but who, as an incredibly experienced and successful gymnast, understood the direction of where the sport was going better than all of the leaders of the sport in the US who were still focused on the fitness roots of it.

In 2007, NAC/SFI sent three National and World Aerobic Champions and coaches to the annual USA Gymnastics convention to build awareness among USA Artistic and Rhythmic Gymnastics coaches and participants.

For a brief period in the late 2000's, SFI/NAC worked with the FIG and hosted top-level competitions as a part of the FIG World Series events in the USA. During that period, some of the best athletes in the world came to the annual USA event that was once called the World Aerobic Championship.

Howard Schwartz opted out of the World Series in 2010 against the advice of top leaders and advisors, some of whom since 1989, as national champion athletes, coaches, and USA FIG-certified judges from several different countries, and he essentially severed most efforts to work with FIG at that time to the detriment of the sport in the USA. Efforts to build relationships with the USA Gymnastics, the largest and most powerful gymnastics in the world were minimal.

In the mid-2010s, just before news of the USA Gymnastics sex abuse scandal, efforts were made, again, at the suggestion of the top advisors of SFI/ANAC to bring in a top member of the executive team for USA Gymnastics to build awareness of USA Aerobic Gymnastics. A high-level USA Gymnastics official was sent to the event, meetings were held, and he watched several rounds of competition. He was very excited about what he saw, but it is unclear why no follow-up occurred by SFI/NAC founders, and no inroads were made to become a recognized discipline of USA Gymnastics as the FIG recommends.

Bucking the FIG system of how Chair of Panel Judges are determined for events, the founders of ANAC named two people who did it annually for many years starting in 2009 at the annual event held in the USA regardless of the FIG protocol. In the late 2010's the two NAC designated Chair of Judges Panels were warned of improper behavior and later both lost their FIG Judges brevet in a decision that the FIG Disciplinary Commission made for violations of the General Judges rules at the 2018 ANAC International Aerobic Championships held in Phoenix, AZ, and both were fined $1000.

From 1995 through 2019, the sport experienced huge growth in Eastern Europe, China, Korea, New Zealand, Argentina, Mexico, Canada, and Australia among other countries but never grew in the US as the creators of the sport in the USA struggled to transition the focus from fitness to gymnastics and a failure of leadership. As other countries blended successfully with their gymnastic federations, the US, where the sport was created, was unsuccessful in making that transition.

USA Gymnastics still does not officially acknowledge aerobic gymnastics as an official gymnastic discipline even though the international governing body, the FIG, does so. Almost all other countries who were originally involved with the SFI/NAC/ANAC founders and the events it created have national federations who honor and support aerobic gymnastics under the same umbrella as all versions of gymnastics that are recognized by the FIG.

As of fall 2024, the founders of the original form of the sport, SFI/NAC/ANAC leaders Howard and Karen Schwartz resurrected their social media NAC Facebook page which was dormant since 2022 to honor themselves and the athletes who participated in ANAC events as the 40th year of the original form of the sport that they created while featuring some great memories of their time of active involvement in the sport.

The last person to hold an international event in the USA was an individual USA coach, Stephanie Kalkbrenner, originally from Hungary, who hosted the event in Las Vegas in 2022 without any financial support or active promotional support by the Schwartz's to produce the event.

Currently, NAC social media has shared photos with FIG Technical Committee members on the NAC Facebook page, as of fall 2024, the ANAC appears to be reconnecting and rekindling relationships with the key technical committee members of the FIG, with whom they've had relationships. Interestingly, when the World Games occurred in Alabama, no official from ANAC was sent to the event and none appeared. Dale Duncan, former USA National Champion, coach and FIG Judge from 1995-2021 was there at the event in an unofficial role to support the athletes and judges who had come from all over the world.

According to photos on the NAC Facebook page, Howard and Karen Schwartz were present in Pesaro, Italy for the 2024 FIG World Championships. None of the FIG promotional videos of the event include any mention of Howard or Karen Schwartz or their contribution to the sport or that they were present for the event.

FIG aerobics

The competitive aerobic gymnastics are governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG). The FIG designs the Code of Points and regulates all aspects of international elite competition. Within individual countries, gymnastics is regulated by national federations. In 1995, the FIG recognised sport aerobics as a new competitive gymnastics discipline, organised judges and coaches courses and launched the 1st Aerobic Gymnastics World Championships in Paris (34 countries). In 1997, the IWGA (International World Games Association) included Aerobic Gymnastics in its programme of the 5th World Games (Lahti, Finland). Since 1999 The European Union of Gymnastics has been conducting Aerobic European Gymnastics Championships in every odd year. Leading nations who have provided World Medallists are: Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, China, France, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Romania, Russia and Spain.

FISAF aerobics

FISAF stands for the Federation of International Sport Aerobics and Fitness. It is an independent, not-for-profit, international sport aerobics association with over 30 member countries around the world.

In popular culture

The sport was added in the biannual Idol Star Athletics Championships for Lunar New Year, 2017 as a male team equivalent to the female individual rhythmic gymnastics, and the scores are given in accordance to FIG Standards. Seventeen (9.8 Technical+9.3 Execution-0.0 Penalty) and ASTRO (9.75+9.45-0.1) both scored 19.10 out of 20.00, but since ASTRO scored higher in Execution, ASTRO won the inaugural event.

In the American sketch comedy television series Key & Peele, the duo parodies the '80s video footage of the National Aerobic Championship in a sketch showing one of the aerobic dancers experiencing a meltdown while dancing to the championship theme song.

See also

• Idol Star Athletics Championships
• Aerobic Gymnastics European Championships

External links

• The Association of National Aerobics Championships (ANAC)
• http://www.fig-gymnastics.com/site/site/miniSiteNews?id=14712