In the last ten years, cheerleading has grown so much. People are starting to recognize for what it is: a sport. Cheerleading can be harsh and tough but fun at the same time. In the routine there is a variety of things cheerleaders do in it. Usually people who are not familiar with cheer think it’s effortless to do a two minute and thirty second routine but in reality it’s a lot more. In cheerleading, the routine almost always consists of tumbling, dance, and stunts.
The first part of cheer that takes time, patience, and energy is tumbling. The tumbling section is divided into two parts standing and running tumbling. Tumbling is a hit or miss because you can have really good days or really bad days, but getting lots of practice in can affect your practices. Not only can you have crummy days, but tumbling takes time to get and isn’t always easy to get. It requires stamina and repetition of doing the skill whereas if you throw the skill one practice you might not able to do it for the next practice. For favorable and fast tumbling it requires a great amount of strength so it’s helpful to have to have strength in arms and even strength in the shoulders.
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The dance is the last part of the routine or one of the last parts. It involves the whole team participating and trying their best to look good as a whole. Having high energy makes the dance a lot better so being sync with each other makes a dance look so much cleaner. If you want to be put in the front of the dance then you should try being “extra” in the motions. As coaches say, “If you feel like you look stupid in the dance, then you’re doing it
I have done both high school and All-Star cheerleading. I know first hand how each practice goes, and I have gone through the competitions, training, games, and practices. The first big difference between the two levels of cheerleading is the practice and training. At a high school cheerleading practice, every practice is usually the same. The practice starts out with the everyone circling up and stretching and laughing, it’s not taken very serious. After we stretch, we would usually train for twenty minutes. Training involved seeing how many push ups, sit ups, and jumping jacks we could do in a minute. Then, we would run a single lap around the football field, but most of the cheerleaders would walk. After training was over we most likely would practice cheers and chants for thirty minutes, dances for thirty minutes, and then stunt if we were lucky. We rarely stunted for the simple
I bet many of you thought cheerleading was just about looking pretty and standing on the sidelines while yelling chants and performing stunts, but there is actually many different types of cheerleading.
Cheerleading is a sport that many people don’t support in a way that they support the popular sports in most schools, like football and basketball. Cheering can open many doors and create an ample amount of job opportunities. By cheering you can also receive full ride athletic scholarships from many schools. A cute skirt and pompoms is not the only thing you have to work for when it comes to cheering. Just as any other sport you have to have a certain grade point average to try out for your cheerleading team and also you are held accountable for maintaining your grade point average with also being held accountable for remembering cheers, games day dates and events that you will have to attend with your team. Cheer teaches you many things other than being able to tumble and shout! As a cheerleader, you learn to encourage anyone that needs that boost of encouragement, we learn how to work together with other people. Your cheer team members will become your family!
When most people think of cheerleading, they think of the spirit squads that attempt to pump up the local crowd at high school basketball and football games. People are not aware of what these athletes are doing when they are not in front of these crowds. Strangers to cheerleaders who do not follow the sport extensively do not know the exact involvement of the athletes in this sport, at all ages. Cheerleading requires athleticism like all other sports as you must be in shape and at a great fitness level to be involved in most circumstances. Cheerleaders have to know what they’re doing at all times; while knowing what everyone else on the team is doing as well, which involves a high level of mental preparation. Cheerleading, high school or
Cheerleading is simply entertainment for viewers and is a social club for its participants. “Sports Beat - The Sport of Cheerleading: It’s a lot More than Just Pompoms and Smiles,” points out that a main benefit of cheerleading is the ability to “easily transition into the entertainment industry” (Hatton C-04). This statement supports our belief that cheerleading should not be considered a sport. Cheer-leading, the leading of cheers at sporting events is not a sport. Entertainment, versus athleticism, is more of what cheerleading is. Team supporters are present at games/events to raise school spirit and encourage cheering. Cheerleading generally requires a competition to be in progress, so the cheerleading itself can occur. This is not an activity which can take place alone.
Right before a game, football players huddle up as a team and they get “hyped-up” to win. The coach of the team gives them a game plan and they follow it. This same thing applies for the cheerleaders right before they take the mat. Their “game plan” is the routine that a choreographer made for them. Coaches change the routine to make them win. Cheerleaders have to act as a team. (you build a bond with your teammates practicing so much together.) At competitions, all the cheerleaders match from bow to toe. Cheerleaders always encourage their teammates when they are discouraged or feel failure in not being able to complete a stunt.(they
The sport of cheerleading has been around for a long time; since 1884 in fact! In the beginning, cheer was a sport dominated by college men. Since, women have taken over, and in 1967 the first ranked college cheer competition was held. Both school and competitive cheerleading offer many rewarding opportunities. Though they are a part of the same sport, the two types of squads are actually quite diverse. School cheer is undeniably a worthwhile and respectable sport, but competitive teams often provide a more challenging approach, and are more suited to experienced cheerleaders.
Tumbling skills, endurance, and flexibility are important in order to become a competitive cheerleader. The world of cheerleading is often underestimated by the school jocks, nerds, and fellow classmates. However, what they don’t know is that cheer takes lots of time and training to refine. These skills will help improve your physical health and give you strength. Cheerleading can be a very competitive sport that everyone can appreciate, even if it means you have to put a bow in your
One component cheerleaders also must have is flexibility. “Flexibility is the range of motion in a joint or group of joints or the ability to move joints effectively through a complete range of motion. Flexibility training includes stretching exercises to lengthen the muscles” (VeryWell). Flexibility must be present in order for flyers (the girls that are lifted into the air) to pull positions in midair, for the whole team to perform various jumps, and also helps in tumbling, which is a very important skill to have when participating in competitive cheerleading. “Tumbling is a form of gymnastics that requires athletes to use their bodies to flip, twist, roll and jump” (OmniCheer). Tumbling can take years to develop and isn’t an easy skill at all. Some girls work their whole life to just master simpler areas of tumbling and only the best of the best can do some of the hardest tumbling, which incorporates twists while flipping in midair. The last skill that cheerleaders must have is coordination. There is a lot of dancing whenever it comes to cheerleading. Dancing can be considered easy but not when it must be sharp and synchronized with all of the other teammates, along with adding in facial expressions, which appeal to the judges. These aspects take loads of time to perfect and some of these skills take years to even begin learning how to do.
The physical activity must have five elements, some include overcoming the resistance of a mass, competition against an opponent, and the rules must define time, space, the purpose of the activity, and the conditions under which a winner is declared. In addition to, acknowledgement that the competition is an evaluation of the skills of the participants and the key purpose of the activity is for competition. Competitive cheerleading fits into all five of these categories through stunts, tumbling, competitions, score sheets, time limits, and mat size. Cheerleading also fits into these categories through the Entertainment and Sports Programming Networks (ESPN) comparing cheerleading routines and a competitive cheerleader’s sole purpose is to compete. Most people in the world do not think cheerleading is a sport for several reasons. Some they think cheerleading does not have a strategy, while others think cheerleaders do not have enough physical ability. However, cheerleading fits into all of the categories of what must take place in order to deem it as a sport (Cheer
From an outsiders perspective one may see brainless and beautiful robots, which scream and perform neat tricks. This is not the case from the inside; cheerleading is so much more than that. Many people are under the impression that cheerleading is not a sport. I am the voice of reasoning that will let you in, and I will show you that cheerleading, in fact, is a sport. Cheerleading requires much physical demand from the body just as any other sport would. Cheerleading, in general, is a team effort. There are many sides to cheerleading, which make it a versatile sport. When it comes to cheerleading there’s more to it than what meets the eye.
Many have seen her. Many know her. But who is the American cheerleader? Is she a blond haired, blue eyed sex symbol? Is she a drug-addicted girl with no brains and even fewer moral values? Maybe she is just your average, pretty, girl-next-door with a loud voice and lots of spirit. What is clearly true is that cheerleading and cheerleaders have evolved greatly over a century-long history. What started as one bold college student has turned into an activity with over 3 million participants (Brady 1); one that is backed by a $150 million industry (Williams 2). Modern cheerleading has come a long way from its historic roots, but large differences still exist between the iconic cheerleader, the stereotypical cheerleader, and the truth.
Cheer is intense and the ¨cheer teams workout, run and have to deal with all team players just like any other sport¨ (Webb). Cheerleaders do everything that people do in any other sport and they work very hard. Cheerleaders do everything that people do in any other sport and they work very hard while doing
Science is in cheerleading, just like technology, engineering and math is too.You just have to look closely at cheerleading to find them. In cheerleading, you have to level out the different weight types.An example of this would be, you would not have a 84 pound girl lift a 129 pound girl, all by herself. Pyramids are main in getting weight even, the base has to be especially strong. Flyers, which are the people who are thrown in the air, have to be very light, so they are easier to throw in the air.Ease and balance is good too.Also, you have to use dynamics while doing flips.The support bases have to absorb the force from catching the flyers, after they do their stunts.
Although cheer is not considered a sport on their I can say from myself being a cheerleader cheer takes strength, agility, flexibility, and stamina just like any other sports. Lorie A. Selke a professional writer and editor for 15 years says, “In order to gain and maintain athletic qualities, a competitive cheerleader must train as hard as any other athlete.” (Oct 21, 2013)