Introduction
Over the past 20 years, the athleticism involved in cheerleading has increased dramatically. Cheerleading in the United States is a year round competitive activity. Cheerleaders are asked to perform through 3 seasons, peak for national competitions, and attend cheerleading-training camps in the summer. Cheerleading begins at an early age and is estimated to include over a million participants between elementary school and the professional sports levels. Cheerleading is a kind of sports which combines music and physical activities and usually associates with football and basketball. SooHoo, Sell, and Reel (2005) demonstrated that there were five elements in this sport including stunts, tumbles, dance, cheers, and jumps. However, the origin of cheerleading does not contain so many components. In the 1880’s, a graduate student of Princeton, Thomas Peebles, took the Princeton cheers to the University of Minnesota, where football and fight songs were becoming very popular. After that, the idea spread across the country. In 1898, a medical student of the University of Minnesota named Johnny Campbell assembled a group to energize the team and the crowd with the first organized cheer: This set the stage for cheerleading to begin. In the 1960’s, cheerleaders were shaking pompoms, and doing toe-touch jumps, the splits, and claps to get the crowd to cheer for their team (Muller, 2009; Shields & Smith, 2009). The evolution of cheerleading to a sport was again developed by the University of Minnesota as the women became known for their athletic ability by including gymnastics in their routines. Cheerleading developed more showmanship and became more entertaining, and has evolved from service-oriented cheering on the sideline of o...
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...how injuries can be prevented. Not attempting tricks or routines for which everyone is adequately prepared and trained, including the spotters, is important. Mandating adequate floor mats for complex stunts is another important recommendation.
Given the changes in the nature of cheerleading, its popularity, and the injury prevention interventions being undertaken in the sport, it is essential that cheerleading injuries and injury rates be described and risk factors quantified. According to the survey (NFHS, 2010), it indicated that the number of girls’ participation in competitive spirit squads in Florida was 5,226 which ranked 7th in the United States. The purpose of this research is to randomly sample high school cheerleading squads in order to collect and compile selected injury information and to compare this information with previously published literature.
I’ve been doing competitive cheerleading since the third grade. Competitive cheerleading being the third most dangerous sport in the world, I was going to get injured at one point or another; it just depends on when and how bad the injury is. Most cheerleaders hide injuries from coaches and other athletes to continue with the season, like if the athlete has a broken rib, jammed finger, sprained ankle, or wrist. Some injuries just cannot be ignored, like a torn ACL, achilles, obvious broken bones, concussions, or a jammed back. No athlete wants to be injured, but sometimes that’s the best thing that can happen to them.
“Let’s go ladies! Push! That’s it!” All cheerleaders know these words and are probably used to hearing them from their coaches by now. Would you devote your blood, sweat, and tears to a hobby where you would practice twice a day, stunting, tumbling, jumping, running, falling, hurting, and keeping a smile all at one time? I would any day. Cheerleading is one thing I’m good at and enjoying doing when I have the opportunity. I would say cheerleading is the most misunderstood sport there is. It takes more than yelling and jumping around while smiling at an audience.
Cheerleading isn’t a sport. Loads of cheerleaders have faced this controversial statement. An image of peppy girls, twirling in short skirts for the football team fills most people’s minds when considering the topic of cheerleading. The truth is, we are a strong team that works together to lift each other up, literally. Although we work day in and day out to perfect our stunts, tumbling, and routines, our talent still goes unnoticed by our peers. Negative stereotypes often surround cheerleaders. In my high school, we constantly battle to gain the respect of our classmates not just as athletes, but even simply as people. Some of the most involved and highest ranked students in our school make up our cheerleading squad, but those traits are forgotten
Mozes, Alan. "As Cheerleading Evolves, Injuries Mount." US News. U.S.News & World Report, 28 June 2013. Web. 08 Dec. 2013.
The average cheerleader dedicates 6-20 hours a week of their time to their training and conditioning. Cheerleaders are definitely considered athletes and deserve to be recognized for their hard work as an individual and as a team (Smith). A cheerleaders hard work emerges from their goals that are set in the beginning of each season. Competitive cheerleading is a sport that possesses multiple goals throughout the season. Goals are a set of things that you and your team are determined to reach throughout that period of time together. Behavioral expectations and skill accomplishments are just a few of the goals that can be set by a cheerleader in order to be successful. Goals are extremely important, because they help grow the structure of a team in a positive way (“Goal
Ever since I was seven I’ve been a cheerleader and my mom has been my coach. Now I am thirteen and I still do cheerleading, but instead of football cheer I do competitive cheer. The past two years I have been on the Kaneland Competitive squad and all two years the goal was to make it to the second day of a competition called state. State is the final competition were in the past competitions you would need to qualify for it and then at state, all the teams that qualified have a big competition and the top three go to the next day. Last year, was the closest out of all the years.
A study has found and proven that as a result of the amount of contact activity involved with cheerleading, “two thirds of very serious sports injuries suffered by girls in the United States” (Global Issues in Context). This inevitably highlights the rigors and risks cheerleaders endure as a result of their participation. In effect of cheerleading not being recognized as a sport and cheerleaders not being recognized as athletes, there is little awareness and support for the injuries cheerleaders encounter. Furthermore, according to the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, “cheerleading is also among the top 20 sports with highest rate of head injuries” (Huffington Post). These head injuries include but are not limited to skull fractures, cervical spine injuries, brain injury, concussions, paralysis, and in severe cases, death. Nonetheless, as a result of cheerleading lacking recognition, injuries are typically underestimated despite their severity. It is important to consider the exertion a cheerleader must put in when completing a stunt. Being tossed or held in the air is the flyer who is then supported by two bases and a back spot. Despite being held up by a minimum of four people, one wrong move can result in the stunt collapsing, which can sometimes result in injury to both the
While getting all this training cheerleaders get injured yet they don’t stop cheerleading because they don’t want to let their team down or they don’t want to ruin the routine. Doctors try to point out the fact that cheerleaders get hurt as much any other sport. Sometimes their injuries are worse than those of football players. In the article Is cheerleading a sport? The American medical association think so. Dr Samantha says “Cheerleading is a leading cause of catastrophic injury in female athlete at the high school and college level” (Rose). She is saying that Cheerleaders get hurt just like in any other sport. Some of the cheerleaders won’t even know they’re hurt or they’ll know but they won’t go to the doctors. they won’t stop competing until the competition is over. Cheerleaders don’t use any kind of protection unlike many of the other sports. So if they fall while trying to do a dangerous move they could get seriously hurt. These cheerleaders challenge the limit of their body to do all the maneuvers that they have to do. Knowing these, people still believe cheerleading is not a sport. Even when cheerleaders risk getting injured to be able to
Cheerleading is one of America’s oldest activities. Cheerleading started in the late 1880’s by all-male “pep clubs.” During a football game in 1898, Johnny Campbell was the first “cheerleader” to grace the field by leading the crowd in a now popular University of Minnesota chant. Afterwards, squads began to start up in colleges throughout the country as “yell leaders.” Although cheerleading is a considered a female sport, women didn’t show up on cheer squads until 1923. Female cheerleading became more frequent due to World War Ⅱ (Purvey). Many famous people are known to have been a part of a cheer squad, including George W. Bush who was “head” cheerleader at Phillips Academy in 1968 (Tho...
Just like any other athlete cheerleaders are athletic and physically fit. Craig Peters the author of Chapter 3: Spirit or Sport? discusses that The Women Sports Foundation considers a sport to “Involve propelling a mass through air or overcoming the resistance of a mass” (Peters). Although cheerleading is not played with a certain type of ball, they do in fact propel a mass in the air and overcome the resistance of air. Cheerleaders are propelling a body into the air and catching it and they move their body through the air, tumbling, overcoming air resistance. Being on a cheer squad is physically demanding participants need to be fit and strong. Unlike any other sport cheerleading is tossing and catching a dead weight of at least one hundred pounds. In any other sport the ball weighs less than a pound. Shalimar Azine, captain of the Stamford High School cheerleading team states, “You need a lot of strength when you are throwing a girl up in the air. It’s not like throwing a football” (Ruden). Not only is c...
Sherman, Elisabeth. "Why Don't More People Consider Competitive Cheerleading A Sport?." The Atlantic. N. p., 2017. Web. 14 Nov. 2017.
Last year, during one of my high school’s football games, a couple of students approached my friend and I. “Why do we need cheerleaders?”, “Don’t you think you guys are sort of distracting the football players?”, were the questions directed towards us. Because of my timid freshman self, I was unable to answer their question at the time. Why exactly did Cheerleaders matter? As the year went on, I couldn’t help but notice the drastic effects the
The best leadership accomplishment that demonstrates my potential to make significant contributions to the campus community and broader society is cheerleading. Cheerleading has made a huge impact on my life and has created many opportunities for me. It has paved the way for my high school career. Cheerleading provided me with opportunities to lead, volunteer, perform and show the athletic ability of our squad.
The number of girls and women participating in all levels of sports has risen greatly in recent years, and the way they play has changed too. Women's sports used to be played by a slow defensive style. Today, the sports are played with speed, precision, and power. With these changes have come increased injuries, and female athletes have higher injury rates than men in many sports. Knee injuries have been rising in female sports. Anterior crutiate ligament (ACL) injuries have become the most common injury in the knee to female athletes. Females are four times more susceptible to injury then men.
The sheer energy of a gymnast alone can be felt by audiences of all ages, but what the spectators lack the ability to feel is the pounding of the bodies that bear the impact of the athletes in action. Gymnastics consists of a mixture of acrobatic performances of four different events for females, and six different events for males (Gianoulis 1). Gymnastics is demanding in a multitude of ways, including: physically, emotionally and mentally. It requires countless hours of dedication. The concerns of most gymnasts are moving up to the next level, or getting a more advanced skill, while the concerns of the doctors, coaches, and parents revolve mostly around the athlete’s health, which is put at stake for the adored yet dangerous sport. Injuries are common among both male and female gymnast alike, but due to the fact a female gymnast’s career peaks at the same time of major growth and development, a female gymnast’s body as a whole is more likely to undergo lifelong changes or affects (Gianoulis 2). Among the injuries of the mind blowing athletes, the most common ones affect the ankles, feet, lower back, wrist, and hands of individuals (Prevention and Treatment 1). From sprains, to the breaks, the intriguing sport of gymnastics is physically demanding on a gymnast’s body.