Retroactive Bronze Award 2000
When I saw a title stating that the US Women’s Gymnastics Team had been awarded the bronze medal for the 2000 Olympic Games – I had to do a double take. Honestly, I looked at the cover several times, and then I double-checked the date on the magazine I was looking , USA Gymnastics Online at (it was in fact for the month of May 2010). After one or two more minutes of head scratching, a very dim light began to come on inside of my head. I remembered that I had heard that the International Olympics Committee had penalized China for using under age gymnasts during the 2000 games. Finally it all made sense. I am sure the ladies were excited to learn of their belated award. One has to wonder though if we will be seeing more of this type of activity. If you recall, the 2008 games were full of allegations that one or two of the female gymnasts looked woefully under age. I guess time will tell.

A New Thought On Finding Used Gymnastics Leotards
I have written several articles discussing my thoughts on finding used and discount gymnastics leotards. If you have spent any time at all trying to find used leos, you know it ain’t easy. In the past I have covered options such as visiting Amazon or eBay to see what they have to offer in the way of cheap gymnastics outfits. Typically you can find something on those sites. Tonight, while I was sorting through the Internet to see what other resources I could find for you I had an epiphany…CraigsList (craigslist.org). They seem to have a little bit of everything on this site. While you may not be able to find quality used leotards on Craigslist all of the time, I am certain you can find a deal on there every once and a while. Another excellent source for finding reasonably priced, gently used leotards is at your local gymnastics center. Most gyms I have been affiliated with have some type of a pro shop on the premises and in those pro shops they typically sell used gymnastics leotards on consignment. If you can find a local gymnastics pro shop, they will be your best bet for finding a nice workout leotard for a reasonable price. Even if you paid the exact same amount for a used leo from the pro shop as one listed on eBay, you will save on the shipping.

Are You Ready For Gymnastics Camp?
To finish out this post, I figured I would throw a little bit of information out there about some of the upcoming summer gymnastics camps. When I was coaching my competitive girls team, summer camp was always the high point of their year. Gymnasts like to have the opportunity to go and work with other coaches and gymnasts because it changes their workout up a little bit. As a coach, I always enjoyed it because it was nice to have another coach reaffirm the instruction I had been giving them all year long. For those of you new to the gymnastics summer camp thing, there are tons of camps out there. I have decided just to provide you with information on three of them. The Woodward gymnastics camp and the UCLA Gymnastics Camp have been around forever and have very good reputations. The Olympia gymnastics camp is new to me, but they do have Svetlana Boguinskaia (former top notch Russian Olympian) coaching at the camp. Any one of these three camps is sure to be a great experience for your young gymnast.

Now get out there and stick it!

Welcome back to Girls Gymnastics Leotards! In the past I have spoken extensively about the various manufacturers of girl’s gymnastics leotards – GK Leotards, Addidas, Danskin, Alpha Factor, etc. On top of these major manufacturers, there are a whole host of other gymnastics leotards makers. Just Google the term “girls gymnastics leotards” and you will be greeted with pages of leotard resellers.

Those of you that have children that participate in gymnastics know that this piece of equipment is every bit as vital as the bars or floor equipment. Young gymnasts have to have the ability to move freely in their outfits without their movements being inhibited by their clothing. This is the primary reason that young ladies participating in the sport of gymnastics need to have reliable leotards designed specifically for gymnastics. One of the primary problems with gymnastics leotards however, is that they can be very expensive.

Again, I’ve written many articles on different places to find bargains on either new or used gymnastics leotards. Be it eBay or Amazon, there are deals to be had. Additionally, I have written a little bit on finding discount gymnastics leotards at secondhand stores as well.

Yet, there are still other alternatives to buying a high priced designer leotard. This leads me to the next alternative — make your own. One must understand that this solution will not be viable for everyone that reads this article. Sewing is an acquired skill that takes a great deal of time and practice. Furthermore, there is a degree of complexity that is inherent when sewing leotards. Therefore, if you’re not an experienced seamstress this might not be the best solution. However, if you do have a fair degree of skill when it comes to using a sewing machine you may be able to save yourself considerable money when it comes to leotards.

In the course of my research online I found a couple of sites that provide a fairly diverse selection of patterns for gymnastics leotards. The first of these sites is specialtysportswear.com. From the looks of the site it appears they have basic and advanced leotard patterns that will provide you with several different styles of leotards. If you visit the site you will find they have nice graphics that provide visual representations of patterns that they offer.

The other site I found was jalie.com. The site actually provides photographs of the products and additionally they have patterns for boys unitards. Both of these sites do not specialize solely in gymnastics leotard, but actually provide sewing patterns for many different articles of clothing.

If you’re looking for an inexpensive gymnastics leotard for your young gymnast, and you’re decent with a needle and thread, you may want to look into these two sites and see what they can provide you with. Good luck finding the right leotard for your daughter.

Gymnastics Leotards

I’ve been writing this blog for a little over two years, and during that time I’ve written multiple articles about a whole host of different gymnastics leotards vendors. Those of you that have read my “About Me” page know that I have over 20 years experience as a competitive coach in the sport of gymnastics. Furthermore, I have several children who participate in the sport… so it stands to reason that outfitting children for gymnastics is something I know about. I thought I would take some time on this post to kind of go back and summarize the various leotard manufacturers that I’ve written about — there are a bunch of them. If you are new to the site this post will provide you a broad overview of some of the topics I’ve covered over the past two years and give you a decent starting point for your research regarding which gymnastics leotard is best for your young superstar.

I anticipate this post will be rather long so for the purposes of organization I decided to break it into three basic categories: personal favorites, established vendors, and new sites. In the personal favorites section I will spend time talking about the gymnastics leotards manufacturers that I’m partial towards. There are multiple reasons for my partiality towards the specific brands, and I will spell them out as I’m discussing these different gymnastics leotards. In the established vendor site I will focus on those girls gymnastics leotards makers that have been around for a while and have an established reputation. Most of these vendors I’ve only used infrequently, but their good standing in the gymnastics community certainly warrants a discussion of their products on this site. Finally, the new sites section will spend some time reviewing several of the new gymnastics leotards manufacturers that I have come across (primarily by surfing on the Internet and reviewing the ads in the latest copies of USA Gymnastics magazine). While most of these sites are still proving themselves in the gymnastics community I feel it’s only fair to give them a mention on this blog and provide you, the consumer, with an opportunity to try their products. Hopefully if you try their products and have something to report you’ll come back here and share your experiences with us. So now…onto the review.

Personal Favorites….GK Leotards and Danskin Leotards
If you spend any time at all looking at the pages of this blog you’ll notice that I write a lot about GK leotards and Danskin leotards. It should come as no surprise that these are two of my preferred brands. I don’t work for either of the companies, they don’t advertise on the site, and I don’t get a kickback for saying that. As a competitive gymnastics coach I have worked with young ladies for 20 years and seen my share of leotards that last and leotards that wear out quickly. Personal experience has taught me the GK leotards and Danskin leotards seem to perform and last considerably longer than some of the other brands. That’s just from my personal experience. As I have said in the pages of this blog, if you want a GK leotard or Danskin leotard, and intend to buy it new… you’re going to pay for it. They are not inexpensive leotards, but if you look at it like any other investment amortizing its depreciation over the usable life of the product, in the end you will certainly realize your return on this investment.

Established Vendors
The next group of gymnastics leotards manufacturers/vendors I wanted to talk about are those companies that have been in the gymnastics community for quite some time and that have a good reputation for producing high-quality products. Brands such as MotionWear, Addidas, and Alpha Factor (Aerials) have established themselves in the gymnastics leotard niche, and I believe they will continue to be major players for quite some time. The reason for their success, again as with my personal favorites, is that they continue to make high-quality products. While I have had many girls throughout my gymnastics career that have used these types of leotards, I personally don’t have any first-hand experience with them. These companies are widely known for having a widely varied product selection, with some type of leo to fit almost any gymnast’s taste. Additionally, in regards to Adidas, if I remember correctly, they produced the ladies leotards for the 2008 USA women’s gymnastics team. Again, if you’re looking to purchase one of these leotards new you can expect to pay a higher price, but you can have a high degree of confidence that the quality of these products will not disappoint you.

Newer sites
One of the other topics I’m fond of writing about in this blog is new and upcoming girls gymnastics leotards distributors/manufacturers. I am a huge value guy and I like to get the most bang for my buck, so should come as no surprise that I take great joy in finding a new gymnastics leotard maker that is producing high-quality leotards with super reasonable prices. I simply love writing about these types of vendors. Over the past two years as I’ve been writing this blog I have come across several of these: – Jillybeans Leotards, Satara Leotards, Snow Leotards, Leotard City, and Rebecca’s Mom’s Leotards. Now I use the phrase newer when describing these sites not necessarily because these are sites that have cropped up within the last six months… that is not the case. However, these companies are not as established as some of the industry leaders that I mentioned previously. I have purchased leotards from several of these newer leotard companies, and to date I have been very happy with the merchandise I received. As a matter of fact, some of these companies even send complimentary scrunchies along the leotard you order. Customer service-I love it.

The nine or so companies that are profiled in this post are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to gymnastics leotards manufacturers. There are many different leotard vendors out there, and I think most of them are selling decent products. I would encourage you to try and purchase from vendors that you’re familiar with or that friends of yours have used, but if you absolutely have to purchase from a brand-new source make sure your initial purchase is modest in size so that you have an opportunity to evaluate the quality of not only the product, but of the customer service the vendor will provide as well.

Now get out there and stick it!

Gymnastics Leotards

Hopefully your Christmas was excellent. Regardless of whether you observe Christmas, Hanukkah, or winter solstice day, I hope you had a great time and enjoyed the brief respite this season of the year affords to us. However, that brief rest is done and now it’s back to the serious business of gymnastics. I don’t know about where you live but in Arizona, January kicks off our optional competitive season and a lot of young ladies will be entering the gym for the first time at level VII or higher testing their skills as optional level gymnasts. If you’ve done optional gymnastics or coached gymnastics before you know that this can be an exhilarating and anxious time, but by-and-large most young gymnasts that make it to this point have a love for the sport and the talent that it takes to perform at this level. This is also that time of year when these new optional gymnasts will have an opportunity to finally sport their new competitive gymnastics leos that they’ve been waiting so eagerly to don the entire year.

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating…there are many options when it comes to selecting competitive girls gymnastics leotards. Two of my favorites are Danskin and the GK gymnastics leotards lines. You know, if you’ve read this blog, I’m a value man. I’m all for saving a penny whenever it’s possible, but I think a delineation needs to be made when we are looking at purchasing competitive leotards for our young gymnasts. It’s one thing to have a discount leotard to use for the repetition inherent in gymnastics practice five days a week, but especially in optional gymnastics the look that you present is important. As a gymnastics coach with 20 years of experience in the competitive area I believe it is important that our young gymnasts look like a million dollars. Optional level gymnastics judges have fewer things to critique you on when performing an optional routine, as opposed to compulsory routines. While they may know the execution of your skills and the amplitude of your skills, the big deciding factor can be how you present yourself. A clean, sharp looking competitive gymnastics leotard can help add to the clean lines in your arms and legs, pointed toes, and pretty gymnastics hands.

As a parent I know the sport can be expensive, we just shelled out a small fortune for my daughter’s competition leotard and accessories, but remember that it is worth it. For many of these young ladies they have a small window of opportunity in which to participate in this highly demanding sport, I think we need to help them look their best.

When you have a chance, take a look at the GK and Danskin website and see what they’re selling. Not only might you find an excellent gymnastics competition leotard for your young gymnast, but who knows you may stumble across a couple of discount gymnastics leotards that can be used during practice as well.

Now get out there and stick it!

Girls Gymnastics Leotards