Cyber Max

Lack of Fully Equipped Training Facilities and Equipment

A simple comparison of the average gymnastics and the average cheerleading training facility shows how poorly the average cheerleading training facility is equipped. Many cheer programs have no specialized training facility at all and many have no or minimal equipment. This makes learning cheerleading skills more difficult, dangerous and creates inconsistent skill performance.

Untrained Coaches

Perhaps the number one reason for the high injury level is the prevalence of untrained and inexperienced coaches. It is not that uncommon for school cheerleading programs to only be required to have a faculty advisor, with no requirement for that faculty member to have any cheerleading experience at all. This results in jr. high and high school age athletes being completely responsible for their own training - obviously an unsafe situation. Often school programs have cheer “sponsors” not cheer coaches, a verbal recognition that the program leader has no cheer coaching expertise.

Coaching Inexperience

Even former cheerleaders may not have enough experience to safely coach the new level of difficult skills that are being performed in cheerleading. Former cheerleaders who only performed simple to moderately difficult sideline and half-time skills are not experienced in teaching the high level competitive cheerleading skills now being done.

Poor Pay

One of the primary reasons for the prevalence of both untrained cheer coaches and more widely experienced coaches is the sometimes ridiculously low pay remunerating cheer coaches or sponsors. There is no financial incentive for coaches to spend their own money for training when they know they will never be able to recoup their investment.

Poor Spotting

Inherent in certain aspects of cheerleading is that cheerleaders spot other cheerleaders. They do so in basket tosses, stunting and pyramids. One of the basic tenets of gymnastics coaching is that only professional coaches are qualified, mature and experienced enough to spot gymnasts. Cheerleading depends on athletes of the same age and experience level to take responsibility for the lives of their cheerleading teammates. This is certainly dangerous to at least some degree and that danger must be recognized. Spotting requires deep concentration, commitment and taking personal responsibility for the safety of the cheerleader being spotted. Simply assigning an increasing number of youthful spotters does not solve the problem.

Lack of Necessary Conditioning and Strength Training

The need for adequate strength training and physical conditioning is recognized in most sports programs. It is also understood that practicing most sports does not provide sufficient strength training and physical conditioning. Too many cheer programs contribute and compound an already unsafe situation by not adequately building the strength and fitness levels of their athletes.

Not Using Proper Skill Progression

Proper skill progression is a tenet of gymnastics training programs. It is only logical that basic skills be learned and mastered in safe small steps. Too many cheer programs rush through progressions or skip them entirely. Many cheerleading coaches and cheerleaders are even unaware of the progressive training steps they should be following. There are safety and skill progressions for tumbling, stunting, pyramids and basket tossing. This is definitely an area where ignorance contributes to the danger.

Competing Skills That Have Not Been Mastered

The emergence of the new competitive aspects of cheerleading and the increasing numbers and importance of cheer competition hve placed pressure on cheerleaders and cheer coaches to increase the difficulty of the skills they are performing. Under the guidance (?) of inexperienced and untrained coaches/sponsors, safely learning to perform these more difficult and more dangerous skills is not surprisingly inconsistent.

Summary

Cheerleading has many factors that contribute to its danger factor. Some dangers are inherent in the sport as it exists. Some have to do with coaching and some have to do with the structure (or lack of it) cheer programs from the school/team level to the national association level.

For More Information
For even more of the type of in-depth information about cheerleading in this article and other interesting and informative products, see our Cheer Zone web site at: http://gymnasticszone.com/CheerZon.htm

15 Books and Counting
John Howard is the author of 15 books and e-Books about cheerleading, gymnastics, gym design, and gymnastics humor. More books are already on the way. He has 25 years experience and has coached State, Regional and National champion gymnasts, international competitors and cheerleaders at the National level in NCAA Division I.

Enter the Gymnastics Zone
GymnasticsZone.com is a highly informative gymnastics information web site for gymnasts, cheerleaders, coaches and parents with numerous FREE articles and information, fun pages and activities all available for viewing at: http://GymnasticsZone.com

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Levels of Safety

There are three levels of safety/injury in the sport of cheerleading in the two different cheerleading sports. Cheerleading ranks as the most dangerous women’s sport in all safety areas. The first level of safety involves catastrophic injury in which involves permanent paralysis or death. The second level of safety involves injuries for which the athlete must receive hospital care. The third level of safety involves injuries which require missing or altering an athlete’s practice or competition schedule.

Height and Motion

There are logistical reasons why cheerleading is dangerous. Any activity involving height and motion involves the risk of injury. Cheerleading utilizes tumbling (motion) and basket tosses and pyramids (height and motion) and thus is inherently dangerous to some extent. Choosing to participate exposes cheerleaders to an increased risk of injury, including the risk of catastrophic injury.

Performance Areas

Cheerleaders, except in competitions, perform on surfaces designed for an entirely different sport. Basketball floors and football fields were not designed with cheerleaders in mind to even a minor degree. Even the layout of most basketball and football (and other sports) facilities are not planned with a specific cheerleading area designated, so cheerleaders are stuck performing around the edges of anther sports playing area.

Failure to Warn

One of the legal liabilities of any sport and certainly any sports injury lawsuit involves the failure to warn the participants in the activity of the dangers of their participation. There seems to be little doubt that cheerleaders, especially young cheerleaders, and their parents are not sufficiently aware of the dangers they are being exposed to by participation in the sport of cheerleading. While we are not in favor of the sometimes recommended scare tactic methods of warning athletes of dangers (don’t create self-fulfilling prophecy psychology), there is no doubt that cheerleaders would be safer if they understood that safety practices are never to be bypassed.

Cheerleading Competitions

Cheerleading has split into two distinct sports, although some programs perform and compete in both. Cheerleading used to be an athletic activity designed to act as a support system for other sports. There was more interest in boosting school and team spirit than in increasing skill difficulty. Cheer competitions changed all that as difficulty was introduced as an important factor in judging cheer competitions.

Alphabet Soup

There has been a proliferation of cheerleading associations, matching the rise of the popularity of cheerleading competitions. Often, the primary motivation for the start-up, operation and management of cheerleading associations is financial. Coaching and safety considerations, other than at their own competitions, camps and clinics can often fall by the wayside when the primary association activities are financial.

For More Information
For even more of the type of in-depth information about cheerleading in this article and other interesting and informative products, see our Cheer Zone web site at: http://gymnasticszone.com/CheerZon.htm

15 Books and Counting
John Howard is the author of 15 books and e-Books about cheerleading, gymnastics, gym design, and gymnastics humor. More books are already on the way. He has 25 years experience and has coached State, Regional and National champion gymnasts, international competitors and cheerleaders at the National level in NCAA Division I.

Enter the Gymnastics Zone

GymnasticsZone.com is a highly informative gymnastics, strength and cheerleading information web site for gymnasts, cheerleaders, coaches and parents with numerous FREE articles and information, fun pages and activities all available for viewing at: http://GymnasticsZone.com

Share This

Getting the right cheerleading uniforms may just be one of the most important things that you do for your team. In fact the cheerleading uniforms are just as important as the teams uniforms because the cheerleaders are representing the school as well. It does not matter if the cheerleading uniforms are for a high school team or for a college team, they need to look good and they need to match.

There is nothing worse than cheerleading uniforms that don’t match. Each and every member of the cheerleading squad has to have the same uniform on. There is only one small difference permitted and that is when there are both girls and boys on the team. In that case the colors and the style should be the same except for the fact that the girls will have a skirt and the boys will have on pants. That is the only difference that there should ever be when it comes to any cheerleading uniforms. If you take a look at the professional cheerleading uniforms and the cheerleading uniforms of other schools that is all the difference you will see.

There is a good reason for that as well. A cheerleading squad needs to be seen as a whole. Each individual should be considered just another piece of the over all puzzle, a limb if you will. If they did not dress the same and match then they would lose that uniform look and that would hurt the overall presence that they have. Their routines would not flow the same either. You see, cheerleading uniforms are there for a reason and that is to add to the routines and the entire feel of the show.

Cheerleading uniforms can be in any color, they are generally in the color of the school that they represent. IF they do not represent a school and they represent a pro team then the colors of the cheerleading uniforms are those colors. The colors are not as important as the styles. The cheerleading uniforms should be sexy and cute but never to over the top, they need to look good. Some of the cheerleading uniforms will have sequins on them while others will not, that all depends on the place the cheerleaders are from. There are all kinds of different cheerleading uniforms and they all have their own unique styles.

Most teams have their cheerleading uniforms specially made in order to stand out from the rest of the teams. They do not want to look like all the rest, they need to be unique and attractive in their own right. Some get their cheerleading uniforms online and then have them altered at a local tailor, it does not matter which way you choose to get your cheerleading uniforms as long as you have them in time for the game or match!

Information about uniforms http://uniforms-i.com/ including school uniforms, medical uniforms, sports uniforms and restaurant uniforms.

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