The Place and Role of Gymnastics Exercise Equipment as Teaching Means for the High-school Physical Education Lesson

Considering the fact that Swedish ladders and gymnastics benches can be found in every teaching institution, and that their usage possibilities in a Physical Education lesson are practically limitless, this research comes at a right time to study the importance of these tools, in the context of their diversity and multivalence. The starting point in choosing this theme was the belief that the exercise equipment for gymnastics is an accessible means of education, and can be used successfully for accomplishing the different goals of the PE lesson that has a gymnastics theme. The published literature highlights a large number of ways of using both Swedish ladders and gymnastics benches in the PE lesson. This research started from the hypothesis stating that, presumably, the gymnastics exercise equipment can be used in different ways to accomplish the goals of the gymnastics-themed Physical Education high-school lessons. The research was conducted throughout the academic year of 2011 - 2012, a period during which we recorded 120 observation charts during Physical Education lessons that had gymnastics themes, in 6 Bacau county high-schools. The observation chart comprised the specific gymnastics means that were selected after a documentation, using the bibliographical material, through which the specific categories of means that can be performed using the exercise equipment. The structure of the chart consisted of gymnastics means (front and formation, general physical development, applicative and acrobatic, support jumps, rhythmic gymnastics, methodical regulator exercises), vertically inserted, the structural parts of the PE lesson, horizontally inserted, and at their intersection, the number of lessons that was recorded, and the corresponding percentage. The observational research and the recorded results showed the fact that both the Swedish ladder and gymnastics bench were partially used in the gymnastics-themed lessons, their uses being capitalized on only in a few parts of the lessons.