The Growth

Cheerleading originally started in the United States and The United States is where the sport is mostly popular in but it had been spread across the globe. Cheerleading is advertised in many places like the internet, TV shows, ESPN hosts a few competitions on their channel, and movies. With the of the amount of exposure cheerleading has, cheerleading has stretched to countries including Australia, Canada, China, Colombia, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

During the summer of 2007 at the gym I was a part of there was a team practicing that I have never seen before. Their skills were pretty good but nothing like the TopGun Large Coed. The team’s mascot was a duck...that should say a lot! They had quaking noises in their music it was actually really funny, but if they had a better choreographer they could have been good. It’s interesting to see cheer teams from across the world. Worlds is a competition obviously that is participated by other countries beside the U.S. I would really love to go and watch worlds one day!

Conditoning!

Cheerleading involves a lot of physical activity. You need flexibility and strength. For stunts, you have to use mostly your legs and then it involves your back and arms. Tumbling also requires strength and you have to make sure you keep your stamina up. When I was a part of my cheer team, our workouts changed after a few months but it always involves cardio. No matter if it’s running laps or sprints we always do cardio.
My favorite workouts that I have done are the workout videos. P90X and Insanity are the two I used. Both videos are by the same people. There are different disks for different sections of your body. You can pick your arms and back on day and then your legs and abs another day. It’s great! You can pick which parts of your body you want to work out and the sessions can be up to a full hour or there are shorter 30 or 15-minute sessions. Either way short session or long you will get a great workout!

Cheerleading Motions

I was looking for pictures of cheer motions to show you guys what the common used motions are and I found these cute pictures! The motions that are used for sideline cheerleading would be bow and arrow, go or punch, right and left K and L. The others are used in both sidelines cheerleading as well as competitive. Competitive will definitely use those motions but now a day’s many choreographers make up their own motions. The think about these motions is there not actually in motion. Coaches say, "Hit a high V" and the only motion there is, is to bring your arms to the motions but otherwise you hold it in position.

*The pictures wont show so I will give you the website to view the really cute pictures! Try the quiz after you look at the motions!*

Cute Pictures of the Motions

Motion Quiz!

How To Do A Toe Touch

A Toe Touch is the most common used jump cheerleaders do. The jump doesn’t look the way it sounds, believe it or not you don't actually touch your toes. Important tips are:
1. Always, keep your chest up! A lot of cheerleaders like to lean forward it makes them look funny and obviously incorrect.
2. Don't reach for your toes. If you reach for your toes, it makes your jump look lower and we all want pretty and high jumps!
3. Stay flexible by doing splits.
4. Keep your legs straight at all times while you bring them up as well as down.
5. ROTATE YOUR HIPS! This is my trick to getting high jumps. When you lift, your legs curve your hips up and your jumps will look even better! :)

The Three Common Confused Jumps

The Side Hurdler, the Front Hurdler and the Herkie are often confused even I confuse them. Where I cheer we never do Herkies but if I go to a cheer camp they ask us to practice that jump. All three of these jumps involve flexibility, especially in the hamstrings. These jumps are great for opposites in routines, meaning because these are jump that could be whichever leg you pick. So If I were on the right side I would use my right or left while my opposite uses the opposite of my jump. I prefer the Front Hurdler out of all the jumps in cheerleading. Here are the differences between them.

Side Hurdler - One straight leg in Toe Touch position; the other leg is bent level with your hip with the knee pointing forward.

 

 

 Herkie - One straight leg in Toe Touch position; the other leg is bent pointing down to the ground just like the Front Herdler.

Front Hurdler - One straight leg lifted up next to the front of your face (knee to nose); the other leg is bent pointing down to the ground.

Cheerleading As An Olympic Sport?

As much as I love to cheer, I don't feel that this sport should be a part of the Olympics. The Olympics is judged in a way that I don’t think cheerleading meet the requirements of. The Olympics is usually judged on one event with one person, for example swimming or gymnastics. Judging a whole team of 30 cheerleaders would be very difficult. Judging a cheer performance takes time where you have to replay a tape repeatedly, deduct, and add as many points as you can find. To watch each cheer team and there videos a few times is time consuming.
If cheerleading were to be an Olympic sport than you would need a small team and judge harder on form like gymnastics does. Even better, I would do individual cheerleaders if they want to have cheerleading in the Olympics. Individual routines do everything the same as normal cheer teams accept there are no stunts. Instead of stunts just show flexibility. Individual cheer routines would be a better, easier, and fair way to compete!

Is Cheerleading A Sport?

There are many opinions on this question. Cheerleading on the sidelines, I would say that’s not a sport but competitive cheerleading is a sport. That’s my opinion on the question. My mom told me about a month ago that they decided that it was a sport, but I can’t find a recent article on that so I don’t want to say it definitely is. Many people think just because we don’t throw a ball it’s not a sport, but we do more than just throw balls. We throw girls! Even other activities are known as sports that don’t use balls like wrestling or ice-skating. This sport is also number one for causing injuries for women. Cheerleaders have to have a main combination of three things grace, strength, and gymnastics.
I understand people might say they dont think football cheer is a sport but that’s only to an extent. Just chanting isn’t too hard, but the partner tosses are pretty difficult. In a toss like that, you need strength, balance, and flexibility and most importantly trust. It’s not that easy to be a cheerleader and I wish people would realize that. For those people who like to argue why it’s not a sport, I have open ears. I just would like reasons and examples because I know I have my reasons to why cheerleading IS a sport.