I've myself been wondering what qualifies for "gymnastic" conducting...
certainly the balls-of-their-feet bouncers...  but what about others?
 For me, the only 2 instances I have seen of truly, unequivocally, economic
conducting were Richard Strauss and Fritz Reiner on the "Art of Conducting"
video...  now THAT was *tight* minimalism!  (I can imagine Boult was much
the same, with his philosphy of little arm movement, but instead the use
of fingers and a looooooong baton.)

One conductor who was supposedly famous for his economy of movement was
Karajan.  However, when I saw him on the A.O.C video, as well as other
videos, conducting ol' standards like the Beethoven 5 or Tchaikovsky 5
(although he didn't bounce) he certainly seemed to move good deal...  at
least as much as Stokowski (who I believe was regarded as quite a showman)
on another segment in the A.O.C.  video.

And while I admit to being fascinated by Karajan's gestures (an undeniably
dramatic sight: eyes shut tight...  and seemingly conjuring a spell
"sorcerer"-like) compared to, say, Bernstein's exuberant bounciness...
I must also admit that, having played many of those pieces (albeit in a
student orchestra, where the conductor's gestures *must* be simple and
crystal clear), and then watching Karajan's conducting, most of the time
I hadn't the foggiest idea what he was doing!  So rarely did a gesture
coincide with an actual beat (or even look like a beat at all), or he might
look to be beating out a different tempo to what you were hearing the
orchestra actually play...  I mean, I like most of the musical results,
but WHAT THE HECK WAS GOING ON???!!!:-P

Albie