Floor

The entire floor area must be used during the exercise, which consists primarily of tumbling passes performed in different directions. Acrobatic (tumbling) series must be performed, including at least one forward and one backward, all of which cannot be repeated more than one time during the entire routine. There must also be a balance element on one leg or one arm held for two seconds with a minimum of "B" value. Transitional skills, gymnastics movements performed in between tumbling and acrobatic passes, should be executed with proper rhythm and harmony. The exercise must last between 50 to 70 seconds.

Today's floor exercise routines consists of dynamic tumbling skills that only a few years ago were performed solely on the trampoline. The best gymnasts will incorporate tumbling passes with substantial difficulty, performing multiple twisting and flipping saltos at the end of their routines.
The area of the floor exercise mat is 12 meters by 12 meters.

It is one of the most difficult events to arrive at a 10.0 Start Value. The top routines will include tumbling passes consisting of connected bounding skills that have totals of 0.5 points of bonus. It is also possible to achieve large amounts of bonus points by performing connected flair sequences on floor exercise.
Text taken from www.usa-gymnastics.org.

Click on the British Gymnastics for further information