to find out what it takes to make a true Olympian.

Now we're working, come on!

- Testing, analysing. - Dig deep, come on!

Getting under the skin of an elite athlete...

..as we push their bodies to the max.

(ANATOMY OF A GYMNAST)

Artistic gymnastics

really does require a range of skills physiologically,

psychologically, technically across a broad

range of different disciplines.

When we look at gymnasts, what we're really looking for

is an all-round package.

Vanessa Ferrari is 25 years old and Italy's most decorated

female gymnast — a former world

and European all-round title holder.

The Olympic Games Rio 2016

was Vanessa's third appearance at a Games.

She placed 4th in the Floor Exercise

and proved once again why she is

one of the world's elite performers.

And few sports put a human body through

the levels of punishment that gymnasts experience.

(VANESSA FERRARI, ARTISTIC GYMNAST)

It's been a very difficult year for me.

First, I contracted glandular fever and then

I've had a problem with my tendon, which I haven't

fully recovered from yet, but thankfully I'm still able

to train and I'm sure I'll give my best.

Vanessa Ferrari!

We've brought Vanessa

to one of the world's leading human performance labs

to see what makes a gymnast's physiology so totally unique.

Vanessa's anatomy packs massive amounts of strength

and explosive power into a very compact body type.

The average female Olympic gymnast is smaller than 80%

of the adult population and Vanessa is even 10cm shorter

than most of her fellow competitors.

In general, female gymnasts tend to be petite -

they are short, they are light, and why is that?

Because the biomechanics of tumbling

require shorter individuals

in order to get the rotational speeds required.

But, at the same time, they have to be incredibly strong

and incredibly powerful in order to give them

the time to jump high to execute some of these

really complex moves.

We're going to do the DEXA scan first.

So, it's a test that measures your body composition

and bone mineral density, it's very quick.

A gymnast is not an endurance athlete, so we don't expect

Vanessa to show the same breakdown

between lean tissue and fat.

But the high impacts and rapid transitions of movement

that gymnastics require need a muscular physique,

so how will Vanessa measure up?

Your fat percentage is around 14,

quite below the average, as you suspected.

An Olympic rower has an average body fat percentage of 15.5,

Vanessa's 14.6 compares really well for an essentially

anaerobic athlete and, surprisingly,

not much more than the 13.7% of a track cyclist.

She is petite, perfect for gymnastics,

perfect for tumbling.

She's also incredibly lean, 14.6% body fat,

which tells you that the vast majority of her weight

is muscle mass and that is absolutely fundamental

to power production.

(DYNO)

The dynamometer test really is a measure of strength,

but we're also looking at the balance

between quadriceps and hamstrings.

Why does that matter? It matters for performance,

but it also matters for injury prevention,

particularly for gymnasts who are repeating moves,

over and over again.

The dyno test will quantify just how powerful

the muscles are that Vanessa needs

to complete the complex manoeuvres that form

the artistic gymnastics routine.

This is where we'll really see the strength behind the stats.

When we start the assessment in just a second,

I want you to push, push, push, push

and then pull back your leg as hard as you can as well.

OK? So, when you're ready,

Three, two, one, go!

Push, push, push. Good!

Vanessa may not be at full power output

due to her tendon injury,

but she is still pushing loads which are remarkable

for an athlete of her size.

Artistic gymnasts need this phenomenal power

to rotate their bodies

through as much as 900 degrees of movement

in less than a second,

and to gain heights approaching five metres

during the vault exercise.

Good, push, push, push!

Excellent! One more to go, push, push, push!

Pull it right back, well done.

Excellent, well done. As hard as you can.

Well done. Push, push push. Excellent, well done.

Vanessa's dyno test results show just

how powerful she really is,

her quadricep strength coming in at a higher rating

than elite football players.

And even with a debilitating tendon injury,

the force generated by her hamstrings gives her

an excellent power-to-weight ratio.

What we do know about Vanessa is that she is a former

all-round world champion.

She's had an incredible career from 2006

all the way through to 2016.

And one of the reasons for that is her physicality.

And her physicality is exceptional and what we see

from this test in particular,

the thing that surprised me the most,

was the balance between hamstring and quadricep,

and really underpins why she is able to perform

the incredible complex manoeuvres

that she can in gymnastics.

Vanessa's results are impressive,

but how does she measure up

against the other elite female athletes we've tested?

Jolanda Neff, the Swiss cycling sensation,

showed us her ability to deliver maximal power output

consistently over long periods of time.

Her superb dyno results demonstrating

a peak performance that more than compensates

for Jolanda's size advantage over the average gymnast.

Monika Hojnisz, the Polish Biathlon national champion,

excels in a sport based around the need

for exceptional endurance, but her leg strength produced

some truly surprising results.

Her raw output figures were good, but when normalised

for her body mass they were breathtaking.

This all gives her an unbeatable

power-to-weight ratio,

a physiological advantage that she could transfer

to the elite level of many other sports.

Recent studies have shown female athletes

are six times more likely to suffer leg injury

than their male counterparts and a key indicator

of resilience to leg injury is the ratio

of hamstring to quadricep strength.

A ratio between 50% and 80% is average

for a professional female athlete.

Gymnast Vanessa rates outstandingly at 89%,

cyclist Jolanda better still at 98%,

and biathlete Monika's stunning 132% tops the chart.

(UP CLOSE)

I started doing gymnastics when I was seven years old.

When I was little, I saw a beam gymnastics

competition on TV.

I can't remember which competition it was

or even who the gymnast was,

but I remember being so impressed

with what I saw that I begged my mother

to let me do this incredible sport.

I felt the pressure to do well when I was younger

and especially after becoming world all-around champion.

But now I'm older and have had to overcome

many difficulties throughout my career,

with the help of the people closest to me,

my coach and my family,

I know that I can only do my best.

That's why I don't feel any pressure,

except for that special tension before a competition.

Doing gymnastics involves a lot of sacrifice,

especially because we start at such a young age.

At first, you think it's all just a game

but then the expectation of success increases.

A lot of young athletes find these demands

difficult to handle.

To compete at the highest level

requires a lot of concentration.

As gymnastics is essentially an individual sport,

there's no-one to keep you calm,

especially at the Olympics

which is the most nerve-racking

of all competitions.

It's all about finding the right level of concentration

and isolating yourself from what's going on

around you to be able to perform to your best.

(FLEX)

The functional movement screen is going to tell us

a number of things about Vanessa.

Firstly, it's going to tell us about the range

of motion which is critical for gymnastic performance.

But what's key to that is actually stability

under that range of motion,

the ability to control those movements.

So, really, what we are looking at here is

fundamentally what gymnastics is all about -

it's about range of motion under control.

My best disciplines are the beam and the floor exercise.

They showcase my speed and explosive power

and, combined, with my flexibility

are my greatest strengths.

Artistic gymnastics works more muscle groups in the body

than almost any other Olympic discipline.

The flex test uses functional movement screening

to assess how close to optimum level Vanessa

can operate and how much her current injury

might be holding her back.

What we are looking at here is your mobility

and your stability, and this test

has been shown to have an ability to predict a person's

risk of injury and also their ability

to maintain or improve performance.

Over, touch your heel on the floor

and back to where you are with your left foot, please.

Artistic gymnastics requires Vanessa's body

to absorb massive impacts on landing.

She also has to sustain rapid shifts

in momentum during the extreme acceleration

and deceleration phases of her routines.

And, after 18 years in training, it takes a huge toll

on the body and its range of movement.

Push up so your hips stay on the floor,

extending your back.

The beam exercise demands the ultimate in flexibility

and precision of movement from a gymnast,

as they rotate their body at speeds of up to 20kmph

to land on an apparatus no wider

than the average smartphone.

Very slowly, keeping this leg very still

and making sure not to bend this one.

Pain in Vanessa's tendon and her reduced

thoracic spine mobility

are the results of recent training injuries

but her test results prove

she's still a world-class Olympian.

The results are excellent particularly in the areas

of core stability and hip stability, which is effectively

what we expect from a former world champion

in artistic gymnastics.

What that means is that not only is she able to move

through incredible ranges of motion but she's able

to do that under control.

So what she's able to do is not only perform these

complex skills but also present the aesthetic

which is required in that crucial marking system

in artistic gymnastics.

In a 12-year career, Vanessa Ferrari

has reached the heights of her sport,

with a collection of titles few can match.

For an artistic gymnast, injury is a part of everyday

life and Vanessa's performance in our tests

show her remarkable ability to overcome this.

It is the commitment, poise and power that this sport

demands that makes the anatomy

of a gymnast truly unique.

Overall, Vanessa is outstanding,

she is Italy's greatest ever

artistic gymnast and I think the results

really demonstrate that.

She has, as we would expect, incredible mobility.