After the Romans invaded Greece, the Roman army adopted gymnastics for training purposes. When the Olympics were outlawed in 393 AD, interest in gymnastics declined and the sport was almost lost. Interest in gymnastics was revived in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when two German doctors – Johann Friedrich GutsMuths and Friedrich Ludwig Jahn – created exercises for boys and young men including modern pommel horse, horizontal bar, parallel bar, balance beam, ladder, and vaulting horse.
