How many bars make up the parallel bars?

The parallel bars are made up of two bars.

The apparatus consists of two elastic, parallel rails held above the floor by a supporting metal framework. In modern competition equipment, each bar is approximately 350 centimeters long and about 200 centimeters above the floor. The distance between the bars can be adjusted, usually within a range of about 42 to 52 centimeters, to suit the gymnast.

Gymnasts perform swinging, balancing, turning, handstand, and release skills between and on the bars. A routine normally ends with a controlled dismount from the end or side of the apparatus. The bars are typically wooden rails reinforced with fiberglass, making them both strong and flexible.

The apparatus has roots in nineteenth-century German gymnastics. Friedrich Ludwig Jahn is commonly credited with creating an early known set in Berlin in 1811, originally as a way to strengthen the arms for vaulting-horse exercises. Parallel bars are a men’s artistic-gymnastics event; they are different from the women’s uneven bars, which use two bars at different heights.