Returning to Sport: A Level-Based Guide for Women’s Artistic Developmental Program Gymnasts

  Female artistic gymnasts, defined as gymnasts who compete in the vault, uneven parallel bars, balance beam, and floor events, may be affected by a wide variety of acute and overuse injuries throughout their athletic careers. Returning these athletes to their sport safely after an injury requires detailed knowledge of the various events in which they compete as well as a familiarity with what is expected of these gymnasts at the various levels of training and competition. Despite the complexity described above, there are few published resources to help providers guide the female artistic gymnast back to sport after injury. Therefore, we developed two purposes for this paper: (1) to review important concepts regarding return to play (RTP) in women’s artistic gymnastics and (2) to add to the existing literature on RTP in women’s gymnastics by providing RTP protocols that consider a gymnast’s training level as well as injured body area.