Integrated Training: A cheerleader’s secret weapon to success

Have you ever sat down and thought about the type of strength and agility that is needed to successfully complete a competitive cheerleading routine with ease? Cheerleading routines use every concept of an integrated training program including stretching, speed and agility, cardiovascular endurance, and resistance training.

A typical competitive cheerleading routine lasts for two minutes and thirty seconds; any type of exercise that is physically demanding for over a minute is considered cardiovascular training. During the first minute of a routine, cheerleaders use their anaerobic energy system for endurance. After that first minute has gone by, an athlete’s body has used up all of his/her anaerobic energy sources and now has to switch to its second energy source, which is the aerobic energy system (burning fats and sometimes muscle for energy).

During a competitive cheerleading routine, athletes are required to perform a number of stunts, tumbling passes, and jumps.  These skills all need to be performed with high energy and poise.  In order for a cheerleader to hold her teammate in multiple stunts, with a flyer weighing possibly 100 lbs or more, it takes a tremendous amount of total body strength. A stronger cheerleader, that has a regular resistance training program in place, will have the ability to hold these stunts for longer than a cheerleader that has no experience with resistance or core training.  A cheerleader that has participated in an integrated training program will also be able to run faster, jump higher, and perform more difficult tumbling passes because of her increased strength and overall body control.

Balance and flexibility training are two other very important aspects of a cheerleading routine. These two training systems are most involved with injury prevention. Most cheerleading injuries occur due to lack of balance and/or flexibility. This is where the Cheer360 training model takes a step above and beyond any other integrated training system available today. Cheer360 has designed a training concept that incorporates balance and flexibility into every exercise our athletes perform during training sessions. Incorporating the Cheer360 training philosophy into your athlete’s training regimen will allow her to jump higher, stunt with better technique, tumble with more power, and overall help decrease injuries.

 

Kent Tarburton is Cheer360’s Co-Founder and Director of Fitness. He holds Personal Training certifications through the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM), the American Aerobic Association International (AAAI), the International Sports Medicine Association (ISMA), and is a certified Mental Game Coach.

When Cheerleading Ends

High school cheerleading is more than just promoting school spirit at football and basketball games and competing locally, regionally, and nationally from November through February.  If you sit in on a three hour practice, you will find that these athletes should be gaining something bigger.  Like all sports, cheerleading teaches skills that transcend to all aspects of a person’s life and future.

Teaching young athletes how to maintain an optimum level of wellness is just as important as teaching them how to jump, stunt, and tumble.  One of CHEER360’s goals is to promote healthy lifestyles not only during their cheerleading careers, but also throughout their entire lives.  Learning how to build and maintain muscular strength, cardiovascular endurance, and flexibility will reduce the likelihood of injuries now, as competitive cheerleaders, as well as in their futures.  The fitness related benefits that can be taught to teenagers are ones that can be carried throughout their college careers, adulthood and beyond. 

Having a regular fitness regimen in place improves one’s overall sense of well-being including body posture, endurance for daily activities, an increased self-esteem, and a decreased likelihood of developing lifestyle diseases. But, as much as we don’t want to think about this, at some point, a cheerleader’s career will come to an end.  Often times this leaves a previously active person struggling with ways to keep fit.  So why not start teaching these habits now to our cheerleaders in order to promote long, healthy, and successful lifestyles?  After all, other sports have been doing this for years!  

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