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D-FW gyms see boom in adult tumbling, gymnastics interest during, after Olympics

The sport has consistently grown over the past decade, but as Olympians get older, more people want to try the sport.

When Amy Robertson broke her ankle in 2010, her mother told her it might be a sign. As a former gymnast and senior at the University of Oklahoma, Robertson had enrolled in a for-credit gymnastics class run by the men’s gymnastics team.

She was excited to get back into the sport she had quit when she was 13, but she broke her ankle in the third class of the semester.

Instead Robertson trained even more. She joined a boy’s club team for $10 each practice.

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Quitting “never even crossed my mind at that time,” she said. “I just knew I wanted to do it.”

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By the time she graduated college, she knew she wasn’t done. She moved back to Dallas and joined a gym that offered adult gymnastics classes. Fourteen years later, after multiple injuries and a stint living abroad, Robertson still attends gymnastics classes every week and competes in five or six meets a year.

She’s hardly the only one.

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Annsley Martin, 22, of Dallas, foreground, does a gymnastics bridge with other attendees...
Annsley Martin, 22, of Dallas, foreground, does a gymnastics bridge with other attendees during an adult gymnastics class, Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024, at Irving Gymnastics in Irving. (Chitose Suzuki / Staff Photographer)

Adult gymnastics has become more popular in the past decade, but gyms in Dallas-Fort Worth that offer adult gymnastics and tumbling have seen a boom in interest over the past few weeks.

Whether it’s people who competed in gymnastics meets growing up or someone who has never done a cartwheel before, more adults are signing up for classes, in large part due to the Olympics.

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Robertson has noticed more people attending adult gymnastics classes at Irving Gymnastics in Irving, one of the gyms she trains at. The gym allows people to either enroll in the adult classes on Tuesday and Thursday or drop in on classes for $20 each.

Director Shelly Patrick said 13 people are enrolled in the Tuesday class and eight people are enrolled in the Thursday class. More than 20 people showed up to every class during the Olympics.

Ryan Turney, owner and operator at Achievers Gymnastics Center in Denton, also saw a jump in attendance in their adult tumbling class. For events such as CrossFit games, back-to-school activities, New Year’s and the Olympics, he expects his classes to have a higher attendance.

“Last Tuesday, we had 27 people in our adult class, and that was one of the biggest it’s ever been,” Turney said Tuesday. “Most of them when I talked to them, it was because of the Olympics. They were like, ‘Yeah, we just want to come check it out.’ ”

Corinne Gonzalez, 42, of Irving does a back flip as Caegan Arvidson, recreation director of...
Corinne Gonzalez, 42, of Irving does a back flip as Caegan Arvidson, recreation director of Irving Gymnastics, coaches her during an adult gymnastics class, Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024, at Irving Gymnastics in Irving. (Chitose Suzuki / Staff Photographer)

A large reason adult gymnastics has had a surge in popularity is that Olympians are getting older. Simone Biles said this year’s U.S. women’s gymnastics team nicknamed themselves the “Golden Girls,” as they are the oldest U.S. women’s Olympic gymnastics team since 1952.

With the exception of Hezly Rivera, 16, all the other members of the team are 21 or older. Biles, 27, is the oldest member of the team.

The older American team is hardly a first among international gymnasts. Italian gymnast Vanessa Ferrari, 33, was training for her fifth Olympics in Paris before injuring her calf. Uzbek gymnast Oksana Chusovitina, 48, competed in eight consecutive Olympic games from 1992 to 2020.

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But for those who don’t pay attention to the international gymnastics scene, the American team has played a crucial role in shifting people’s perspectives about who can participate in the sport, said Gina Hancock, another attendee of Irving Gymnastics.

“It’s a sport that actually you can do if you’re smart about it as you’re older,” she said.

While the Olympics has helped boost popularity over the past few weeks, the sport has already gained popularity over the past decade throughout the U.S.

In 2014, Gina Paulhus founded a Facebook Group called “Just Like Fine Wine” to connect adult gymnasts across the country. The group started with a handful of people she met while competing at gymnastics meets, but it now has over 13,000 members. She now also runs an adult-only gymnastics camp in New Hampshire every year.

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“I want adult gymnastics to be normalized,” Paulhus said. “If I walk up to somebody — I’m 43 now — and said, ‘I’m competing in a gymnastics meet next week,’ I would want them to say, ‘That’s cool. Where is it?’ And not react like it’s weird. I would feel like, OK my work is done if that’s the case.”

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