Hairstyles for Gymnastics Meets and Practices!

Hairstyles for Practice

For practice, I would always wear a pony tail. Soon my hair got too long and I had to start putting it in a ballet bun, a messy bun (McKayla Maroney bun) would fall out too easily during practice! When I had short hair, I would have two pig tails. Of course this is when I was younger and it didn't look ridiculous.
So for practice I reccomend a ponytail, a bun (doesn't have to be perfect) or if you have short hair, pig tails. I really do not recomend braids. Especially if you are a high level gymnast, the braids will whip around and hit you in the face, trust me. I know.

Hairstyles for Competition
Many gyms require a hairstyle, for example: a bun for complulsory levels and a ponytail for optional levels. Some gyms do not have a rule about it, like my old gym.

The Bun
As a gym mom or a gymnast you are going to need how to do a bun. You will need: elastics, a brush, a comb, hair gel, hair spray, Bobby Pins, the team scrunchie or ribbon, and glitter (optional.)

Step One: Cover the hair in hair gel, remember it is very hard to work with hair gel, so work fast!
Step Two: Brush the hair back into a pony tail, it is hard to brush through the gel, so as mentioned before, work fast!
Step Three: Split the pony tail in as many sections you would like depending on how much hair the gymnast has.
Step Four: Braid each section and secure it with a small elastic
Step Five: Once each section is braided take each braid one at a time and wrap it around the base of the ponytail. (where the ponytail is tied off)
Step Six: Once all the braids are wrapped around, there is a choice. Some people like to tie an elastic around it and then the scrunchie. Others just like to put the scrunchie around. If you are using a ribbon, I reccomend tying two elastics around the bun. If you are doing a scrunchie, I think it's easiest just to tie the scrunchie around it. But you can tie it with an elastic too! Before the scrunchie some people like to use a hairnet that matches the gymnast's hair color.
Step Seven: Once the scrunchie or ribbon is tied around, take the bobby pins and pin the bun like there is no tomorrow! Just kidding! Use up to maybe eight pins depending on the size of the bun.
Step Eight: Spray all of the hair! Especially the bun. At this point you can put glitter on the bun if you want to and if your gym allows it!

I never had a bun for competition considering that I had long hair and a lot of hair. We tried to do a bun before, ended up doing seven braids. The bun was huge! And it gave me a head ache! A pony tail is very simple for competition and can work! My hair got too long for a ponytail so my mom curled the ponytail so it became shorter, and it was very pretty! To curl my hair, I slept in foam rollers and then in the morning my mom touched it up with a curling iron.

Here are some photos of hairstyles that could be used for competitions:
I do not own any of the photos, photos are cited below.

http://0.tqn.com/d/dance/1/0/T/C/-/-/bunfun1400.jpg
http://sportsgirlsplay.com/hairstyles-for-gymnastics-and-cheerleading/