Gymnastics Explained

Kip

A swing from a hang up into support on a bar, using a fold at the hips and a quick extension. It's one of the most fundamental bar skills.

A kip takes a gymnast from hanging below a bar up into support on top of it. The gymnast swings, brings the feet up towards the bar in a deep fold at the hips, then drives the hips open while pulling the bar down to rise into support.

The Codes of Points treat it as a swing skill, not a strength one. The men’s Code describes kip-type elements as swinging elements that “should be initiated from a deep fold, followed by a clear dynamic swing action”, and deducts a kip performed with minimal fold and use of strength instead. The women’s Code deducts insufficient extension in kips and exempts kips (with giants and casts to handstand) from its limit on repeating the same root skill on uneven bars.

Kips appear on uneven bars, horizontal bar, parallel bars and rings — on rings, a kip into a cross is a swing-to-strength element. It’s often confused with a giant swing, which is a full circle around the bar.

Related guides

  • What Is a Giant Swing?

    A giant swing is a full 360-degree circle around a bar with the body extended straight, used to build the speed and rhythm that release moves and dismounts rely on.

  • Uneven Bars Explained

    Uneven bars routines link swings, releases, pirouettes and transitions between a high and low bar into one continuous sequence, ending in a dismount.

  • Swing-to-Strength and Strength-to-Swing on Rings

    A swing-to-strength element carries momentum from a swinging skill into a held strength position, and is formally recognised as its own element group on rings with its own difficulty values. Releasing from a hold back into a swing is a real, judged technique too, but current sources do not show it as a separately named Code of Points category the way swing-to-strength is.

Related terms

  • Giant swing

    A full 360° circle around a bar with the body straight, passing through handstand. It builds the swing that releases and dismounts depend on.

  • Empty swing

    A swing on a bar apparatus that doesn't lead to a skill. It's deducted from execution and, on women's bars, cancels connection value.

  • Hold

    A position held still — such as a cross on rings or a handstand — which must be held for at least two seconds to count.

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