what are they doing?

[CHSgymnast16]

just a quick question, what are valeri liukin and liang chow doing on the bars before shawn and nastia compete? they are rubbing their hands on it and stuff and i wondered why they did that. or are they just making sure it wont break!

 

[gymdog]

Uhh they're just chalking it before the touch...hopefully they won't break

 

[msl529]

And while we're at it, what was the honey for? There were several bottles of it sitting on the various chalk buckets.

 

[gymdog]

Some of the teams where some don't wear grips use it. I see it more on P-bars. But so then the next group has to scrape and chalk the bars the way they like it.

 

[msl529]

Some of the teams where some don't wear grips use it. I see it more on P-bars. But so then the next group has to scrape and chalk the bars the way they like it.

I was thinking it was exactly for that. But then I thought, how can they allow that? The next people up would have have a sticky mess to deal w/! Interesting.....

 

[gymdog]

I actually didn't know it was allowed on the bars either but when I was watching P-bars I think some were rubbing it directly on the bars before chalking them. I guess they wouldn't stop you from putting it on your hands. I would guess scraping the bar then spraying and chalking it would take care of it though, about what the US team did.

 

[canadiangymnast_eh]

before i used grips i used honey. i would put it on the bar then put chalk on the bar and my hands. (honey is sort of like water that soesn't dry up as fast and chalk also sticks to it better)

 

[all-aroundgirl]

Why they do it

They chalk it up so that the gymnasts don't slip on any part of the bar. Honey does work better than water to help the chalk stick.

 

[Drowning123gone]

Honey just makes the bars sticky to its easier to chalk the bar. You can do the same thing with water, it just takes longer. Plus after you swing on the bars with honey for a while, it makes the chalk on the bar really rough. We use to call the sandpaper like chalk on the bar "chalk grinds."