If you’ve never competed at a trampoline competition before here is some idea of what you can expect. All competitions are a bit different and some will be less serious than others, but they generally go as follows: 

The Evening Before

General warm-up

The evening before most of the bigger competitions there will be a general warm-up. This means that the trampolines will be open for everyone to practice their routines. It’s a bit of a free for all so you need to be a bit pushy to get a go. 

Competition Day

Clothes

For most competitions you will need to wear a t-shirt, shorts and white socks. Elite (and sometimes advanced) competitors will usually have to wear leotards. For Irish Gymnastics competitions, which are a bit more serious than the student run ones, all levels apart from novice have to wear leotards and novice competitors have to wear all white shorts, t-shirts and socks. 

General Warm-up

There will usually be another general warm-up for your level on the day of the competition. The trampolines will be set out in different panels with two trampolines at each panel – one close to the judging panel and one further away. This is a good time to choose which trampoline you are going to compete on and practice on that one. 

Controlled Warm-up

Each person will get a chance to individually warm-up shortly before they complete their first or set routine. The marshal will call your name and you get up, do one routine and get off again.  

Set Routine

Usually after about 5 more people have competed and 5 more have warmed-up you will get to compete your set routine. This routine consists of 10 moves which are set by the competition organisers. Your routine will be judged by the panel of judges so you should wait until the chair of the judging panel tells you to start. If there’s a delay you should sit on the cross and wait. You should salute the judges before your routine, stop for 3 seconds at the end of your routine and then salute again. Then your marks out of 10 (a maximum of 1 mark for each move) from each of 5 judges will be called out. The highest and lowest marks will be deleted and the remaining 3 added together to give you your score. 

Voluntary Routine

You will also get a controlled warm-up for your second or voluntary routine (vol) where, as before, you get to do your routine once. The vol may be competed on a separate panel from the set at some competitions. The vol routine can be 10 moves of your choice up to a maximum tariff. It’s usually easiest to do the set routine again unless there is a move you particularly don’t like or one you want to add, but talk to one of the coaches about this. You will then get to compete your vol. This time you will get an extra mark for the difficulty of your routine, called the tariff. The scores for your set and vol and your tariff are added to give your final score. 

That all sounds very serious but, in reality, if you get up and compete no one will care how well you do or don’t do and you’ll feel a great sense of achievement for doing it. Other people will be competing on other panels at the same time as you so all attention won’t be focussed on you. And if you manage to get through 10 moves twice then all the better. Then you get to go out and enjoy yourself at the night out afterwards!