Is There a Gymnast Body Type? 8 Truths for Gymnast Parents

Is there a gymnast body type? No. There is no one “gymnast body,” and the sooner we stop chasing one, the healthier and stronger our gymnasts will be.

Oh, the “gymnast body.” The highly coveted physique, propped up by unwritten rules in a sport that is still stuck in diet culture. Gymnastics is an aesthetic sport, and for a long time that has meant judging a gymnast by her weight. False beliefs like “lighter girls fly higher” are still held fast in a lot of gyms.

I see this from three sides. I was a gymnast. I have been a nationally rated NCAA/USAG women’s gymnastics judge for 18+ years. And for the last 11+ years I have worked as a sports dietitian for gymnasts, with training in growth and endocrinology. From every one of those seats, the answer is the same: a lot of career-ending mistakes happen when gymnasts change their training and eating to chase a body that was never theirs.

Let’s talk about what is actually true about the gymnast body, especially the growing one, and how you can help your gymnast feel comfortable and confident in her (or his) body as it matures.

Is there a specific body type for gymnastics?

No. This is an easy answer. Look at the gymnasts from the last few Olympic cycles and compare their bodies. They do not all look alike, and they are all successful in their own right.

Think about Shawn Johnson and Simone Biles next to Nastia Liukin. All three are highly decorated, incredible athletes with different strengths. Nastia would openly tell you vault was hard for her, while Shawn and Simone were amazing on it. A lot of that comes down to body type and power-to-weight ratio. On the other hand, Nastia was famous for long, ballet-like lines that just aren’t built into every body. And that’s OK. We all have strengths and challenges, and gymnastics is no different.

Height is the same story. Gymnasts are often thought of as needing to be short and light, but that just isn’t the case anymore. Plenty of elite gymnasts have been average height for women, like Kyla Ross at 5’7″. Today’s Code of Points asks for so much strength and power that the focus has to be performance, not looks.

Does the Code of Points favor one gymnast body type?

No. As a nationally rated judge, I can tell you the Code of Points does not support one body type over another. Artistry covers expression, how the choreography relates to the music, dynamics and more. It is not limited to one kind of body, and execution deductions apply to everyone.

Sure, we’ve all heard stories about judges who prefer a “certain” look. That is an ethical problem, and today’s judging criteria do not reward it. Gymnastics is and always will be a subjective sport, so preventing that bias takes good judge training AND a mindset change from everyone in the sport.

Body diversity: why there is no one gymnast body type

All bodies are different, and that is normal. Trying to make your gymnast’s body look a way it was never meant to look leads to injuries, worse performance, a mental toll, and a very real chance of an eating disorder.

Sadly, a lot of young gymnasts (and parents and coaches!) believe that if they don’t fit the thin, lithe “gymnast body,” they won’t make it. And a lot of “nutritionists” and trainers working with high-level athletes care more about a look than about health.

Here’s the thing: health and performance are so much more than weight or body fat percentage. I don’t care if a 16-year-old gymnast has a six-pack and 10% body fat. If she hasn’t started her period because she isn’t eating enough for her training, her bones are suffering, and that is NOT normal.

8 truths about the gymnast body type

1. You cannot control how tall you’ll get. Height comes mostly from your parents.

Genetics decide most (about 60-80%) of how tall a child will be as an adult. Your pediatrician can estimate your gymnast’s “genetic height potential,” and there are calculators online too.

When a gymnast hits her growth spurt depends on genetics AND energy availability. A lot of gymnasts are underfueled and dealing with REDs (relative energy deficiency in sport), so they aren’t growing and gaining the way they should. Then an injury or time off happens, and suddenly height and weight shoot up. That catch-up is normal, but it can be unsettling and cause skill struggles that settle down with time and good fueling.

This “stunting” is not normal, and it shouldn’t be celebrated just because some people prefer shorter gymnasts. For some athletes, the 80th percentile for height is normal. For others, the 25th is. The red flag is when your gymnast starts to fall off her own curve on the growth chart. That’s your sign to check in with a sports dietitian, and possibly a pediatric endocrinologist, since other hormone or genetic issues could be at play. This is not something to put off. (More on this in Does Gymnastics Stunt Your Growth?)

And to the coaches who complain in front of athletes about moving the bars for the “tall girls”: too bad, adjust the bars. And stop commenting on gymnasts’ bodies.

2. You cannot control your weight or when you gain it as a growing gymnast.

Girls gain weight steadily through the preteen years, and then puberty brings a lot more. Over the teen years, a girl can gain 20-40+ pounds as her body matures. How much and when is very individual and mostly driven by genetics and energy availability.

The body wants what it wants. Delaying growth and development only leads to worse health, more injuries, and a shorter career in the sport. (See Gymnast Puberty: What’s Normal.)

3. Early puberty brings weight gain and more belly fat. That’s your body doing its job.

It is not normal to look 12 years old at 18. A mature body has wider hips, breasts, more muscle and more body fat. This is normal and healthy, and it needs to be normalized in gymnastics.

The start of puberty can feel awkward because the body stores some extra fat around the middle before the first period. Later, that fat redistributes to the breasts and hips. It gets blamed on “diet and exercise,” but it’s biology, and it has to happen for the body to keep developing.

4. You cannot control where your body stores fat. In girls, estrogen largely decides that.

This is why some girls have larger or smaller breasts, or carry more in their legs than their upper body. A certain amount of body fat is needed for periods to start, and a bit more for them to stay regular, which is a hallmark of a girl’s health. I’ve written a lot about missing periods and why they’re bad news for bone health and performance.

5. Up to 90% of women have cellulite, and stretch marks are common too. They often show up during fast growth. It’s normal.

This is another “taboo” topic in gymnastics. Parents and gymnasts come to me wanting to “get rid of” cellulite or stretch marks on the glutes, hips, chest, arms or belly. Here’s the thing: 80-90% of women have cellulite after puberty. It’s the norm, not a flaw. And there is no magic fix. A review of 67 cellulite treatment studies found no clear evidence that any of them work well, despite what spas and clinics advertise.

Cellulite is just what happens when connective tissue bands pull the skin over fat inward, which makes the surface uneven. Yo-yo dieting makes it worse, and a lot of gymnasts start dieting very young. When you lose weight, fat cells empty out. When the weight comes back, those cells fill back up, and the body can even add more.

And the weight usually does come back. In a review of long-term diet studies, one third to two thirds of dieters regained MORE weight than they lost. In kids, it’s even clearer: a study of nearly 15,000 kids ages 9-14 found that those who dieted gained more weight over 3 years than those who didn’t. Never going on a diet in the first place beats trying to shrink a body to a place it doesn’t want to be.

6. Underfueling is linked to higher body fat. Starving to “get lean” doesn’t work.

SO many gymnasts around 12-14 try their first “diet.” They notice normal puberty changes and think something is wrong.

We know that athletes who underfuel can have higher body fat. Why? When food is restricted (to any degree), the body senses “starvation” and turns down the systems that help body composition: thyroid, metabolic rate, muscle building and more.

When she eats matters too. Athletes who stay in a deficit for most of the day tend to carry more body fat, even if they technically “eat enough” by the end of it. Think about it. A gymnast heading into 4 or 7 hours of practice on a tiny breakfast, a skimpy lunch and a snack or two is running on empty, and her body gets stingy. That can mean more fat and less muscle, even when she’s “working out a ton.”

The fix is enough energy across the whole day, especially before, during and after training.

7. No one food causes weight gain. No food “turns directly to fat.”

In gymnastics (and everywhere else) people believe certain foods cause weight gain more than others: white bread, sugar, fat. That’s why “clean eating” is so trendy. The irony? “Clean” is a made-up standard that guarantees nothing. You can overeat, undereat or miss key nutrients while eating “clean” and never know it.

This is also why I don’t have my athletes count calories or weigh and measure food. It isn’t an exact science, every body is different, and for perfectionistic gymnasts it’s a fast track to food obsession and disordered eating.

I like to think of foods as “more nutrient dense” or “less nutrient dense” instead of good or bad. Spinach has more vitamins and minerals than sugar. That doesn’t mean she can’t have sugar. A high-level gymnast has huge energy needs, so she can fit a lot more added sugar than a sedentary adult and still meet her protein, carb, fat and vitamin needs. It’s all about context.

8. Her weight is probably NOT the problem in the gym. A lack of fuel is much more likely.

Oh, one of my favorites. I can’t tell you how many clients were told by coaches to “lose weight” to flip higher or move faster. What was really going on? They were underfueled, and that made them slow and sluggish. Then they cut food to “slim down” and walked into practice even emptier.

What if we fueled the gymnast and saw what she could do with a fueled body before blaming performance on weight? Often her strength just needs to catch up to her maturing body, and that only happens when she’s eating enough.

I have yet to have a client who was told to lose weight who either kept it off or avoided a serious injury, physical or metabolic, that set her back. The gymnasts I’ve seen told to lose weight at 12 or 13 would have had better body composition at 16 to 18 if they’d simply been allowed to fuel, train and grow. Instead, years of dieting, starving and bingeing pushed their bodies to a higher “settling point,” which keeps the cycle going.

Why do so many gymnasts look small or flat-chested?

Parents ask me this a lot. Some of it is genetics. Some girls will always have smaller breasts, and that’s completely normal. But on a lot of teams, what you’re actually seeing is delayed puberty from underfueling. And that is NOT a body type to aim for.

How underfueling delays puberty

When a gymnast trains hard without eating enough, her brain senses there isn’t enough energy to go around. To save fuel, it turns down the hormone signals that tell her ovaries to make estrogen. This shutdown of reproductive hormones is one of the main features of REDs (relative energy deficiency in sport), according to the International Olympic Committee. Less estrogen means puberty slows down or stalls.

What low estrogen does to her body

Estrogen is the hormone that builds breast tissue. So breast development, which is usually the very first sign of puberty, shows up late or stops partway. The same low estrogen also:

• Delays her first period, or makes her periods stop
• Slows bone building during the teen years, when she should be building most of the bone she’ll have for life
• Raises her risk of stress fractures and injuries that won’t heal
• Can slow her growth in height

Why this isn’t something to celebrate

A flat, “childlike” body at 15 or 16 can look like the classic gymnast build. But often it’s a sign her body is stuck in energy-saving mode. The bone she doesn’t build now is very hard to make up later. The good news? When her fueling improves, puberty usually picks back up, and breast development, periods and growth catch up.

The red flags: no breast development by 13, or no period by 15. Either one is worth a visit to your pediatrician and a sports dietitian to check her growth and fueling. See Do Gymnasts Get Periods? for more.

Should gymnasts be weighed?

Gymnasts should not be weighed by their coaches. Period.

The scale measures how hard a body pushes against the earth. It can’t tell you bone, water, muscle or what she ate for lunch. Body composition is a better measure, but it’s still not perfect. The most accurate tool is a DEXA scan, which is mostly found in universities and medical offices. The gym scales with metal plates and the handheld body fat gadgets have such a big margin of error that they can easily mislead an athlete.

Whenever a parent or athlete wants a number, I ask, “What are you going to do with this information?” Very rarely does focusing on weight or body fat help a young athlete in an aesthetic sport. Frequent weighing quickly becomes a mind game and feeds disordered eating.

In my opinion, a young gymnast should only be weighed by her physician or dietitian, because those are the people trained to track growth. Non-licensed “nutritionists” and trainers are NOT. And kids under 18 are exactly that: kids. I’ve counseled MANY athletes whose parents or coaches tried to micromanage their weight. It almost ALWAYS backfires.

Why extra cardio isn’t the answer

Adding cardio sessions to “get leaner” is risky. It makes an athlete depend on exercise to hold her body composition, and life happens. She gets injured, sick or retires.

If she was fueling well, she can adjust. If she was eating as little as possible, her weight will likely shoot up to a place she’s uncomfortable with. Some body changes after a gymnast retires are normal. But big swings can usually be avoided by fueling right from the start. I teach athletes to “fuel for the work required,” so it’s easy to pull back the extra snacks when they’re injured, on break or on vacation.

Body talk: a zero tolerance policy

Telling a gymnast she’s “fat” or needs to lose weight to win might “work” in the short term. But at what cost? It sets her up for disordered eating and a lifetime of struggle. Little girls are vulnerable, and they will do what they’re told, especially if they’re told it will make them win.

I know because it happened to me. My coach told me to eat just fruit for dinner to lose weight, so I did, after 4-hour practices in the summer heat. Then I wondered why my ankles and Achilles tendons weren’t healing. I was so hungry that I’d binge on peanut butter, then ask my parents to hide the jar. None of us understood that the bingeing was my starving body asking for fuel, so it only led to more confusion and conflict.

Why your gymnast needs a trusted third party

Think about it. Food and body talk between a gymnast and her parents rarely ends well, even when everyone means well. You’re just too close. It would crush me if my husband told me I “shouldn’t be eating that,” and yet we say the same kinds of things to our gymnasts all the time.

This is where a pediatric and adolescent sports dietitian, and sometimes a therapist, comes in to help with these conversations. And parents, watch what you say about your OWN body in front of your kids. How you treat your body and your relationship with food speak much louder than anything you tell her.

When to get help for your gymnast

If your gymnast is struggling with food in any way, it’s time to get help. She might be overeating, undereating, or convinced she needs a special diet to succeed (and trying to convince you she knows what she’s doing).

If you’re worried about her body, start with a look at her growth chart. Most of the time, that’s reassuring. Get help sooner if you see:

• She’s falling off her own growth curve for height or weight
• No period by 15, or periods that stop (this needs a physician to rule out other causes besides REDs)
• “Body checking” in the mirror or comments about being “fat”
• Low energy, frequent injuries or injuries that won’t heal

When I worked in a pediatric endocrinology clinic, I saw athletes alongside the physician. A nutrition assessment was key, because so often the issue was not enough fuel, not a true hormone disorder. And healthy puberty is closely tied to strong bones.

If your gymnast is carrying extra weight, a few visits with a registered dietitian can help too. There may be other things driving her eating, like not knowing how to fuel or using food to cope. This is a touchy subject, so please get advice before bringing it up with her.

Frequently asked questions

What is the ideal gymnast body type?

There isn’t one. Successful gymnasts come in many heights and builds. The “ideal” body is a well-fueled one that is growing on its own curve.

Why are gymnasts so short?

Height is mostly genetic, and shorter athletes may have a slight edge on some skills. But many gymnasts are also smaller because underfueling and heavy training delay their growth. That isn’t something to aim for.

Does gymnastics stunt growth?

Gymnastics itself doesn’t stunt growth. Not eating enough for the training load can delay it. Read more in Does Gymnastics Stunt Your Growth?

Do gymnasts need to be light to be good?

No. Strength, power and fuel matter far more than the number on the scale. Asking a growing gymnast to lose weight usually leads to injuries and a shorter career.

Help your gymnast fuel the body she has

Gymnasts are not exempt from the normal changes of growing up. Delaying growth to keep a gymnast “small and light” isn’t ethical, and it isn’t needed to perform well.

The first step to helping her feel confident in her body is fueling it like the high-level athlete she is. Just “eating healthy” isn’t enough. Take our free Underfueled Gymnast Check to see where she stands. And if you want more than a generic meal plan, The Balanced Gymnast® Program is our 1:1 program, built by a former gymnast, nationally rated NCAA/USAG judge and pediatric sports dietitian who lives and breathes this sport. We build her plan around HER: her training, her growth, her confidence and the foods she actually likes.