In women's artistic gymnastics, the event performed on a 12-metre square mat is called the floor exercise.
The apparatus is a sprung performance surface measuring 12 by 12 metres, with a marked border around the competition area. Its spring construction gives gymnasts extra lift for tumbling while reducing some of the impact from repeated landings. Although people often call the apparatus simply “the floor,” the event itself is the floor exercise, commonly abbreviated FX.
Women's routines combine tumbling passes, leaps, turns, balances, and choreographed dance. Unlike men's floor exercise, the women's routine is performed to recorded music, which makes musical interpretation and choreography part of the presentation as well as the athletic challenge.
The floor is easy to confuse with the balance beam because both require acrobatic skills, but the beam is a narrow raised apparatus. Vault also involves a landing mat, yet its defining apparatus is the vaulting table. Uneven bars, meanwhile, use two horizontal bars at different heights rather than a square mat.