Injuries

Competitive cheerleading has ranked a spot in the top ten most dangerous sports. From being ranked number one to number eight. There are over 20,000 injuries from cheerleading each year. Some cheerleaders don’t even go to the doctor. My sister has broken almost all her fingers and has broken both her arms from cheerleading. I have been fortunate and only been seriously hurt twice out of my six years of cheering.  I fractured my nose in 7^th grade when I was the flyer in a stunt, and going into tenth grade, I fractured my back, and had a bulging disk. Everyone who has broken something could agree with me that the healing process isn’t easy. Healing a nose was on its own time there is obviously no physical therapy or casts I just had to wait.  For my back, I had physical therapy two to three times a week for about four months and I had to wear a back brace. I was told my pain would never go away and that when I’m older it may cause me trouble. I was out of cheer for six long months. Since cheerleading involves your back for lifting, jumping, tumbling and stretching (everything!) my doctor warned me to not rush when I started to get back into the swing of things. I was so excited when I was allowed to try tumbling again and I was disappointed right away. My tumbling had changed and everything was so much harder than before. Even though it only took me a month to get my running tumbling requirement to be back on the team, I was frustrated. Everything was forced nothing was the same. The simplest thing, a back handspring, was the most difficult for me because of the repetitive arching. It has been a year on and off with practice and I am almost back to where I left off but everything is more of a challenge. I cannot take five-minute breaks or my back will stiffen and even though my body is warm, I will have to warm-up again. Lying down at night isn’t comfortable and neither is standing for a long period of time. I lost my flexibility, I look flexibly when I jump but it’s all forced. I don’t get as high up as I use to and I can’t lift too much weight. I have learned to adapt with all the changes.