What is foam rolling and why is it important to cheerleaders?

Foam rolling, also known as self-myofascial release, is a stretching technique that focuses on the connections the brain has with all the muscle groups in an athlete’s body.

When athletes exercise, their muscles become damaged. This damage is actually adhesions, commonly referred to as “knots,” in the fibrous materials that surround individual muscles. The adhesions cause what was once a long, straight muscle fiber to become short and bundled. These adhesions cause the pain and soreness in the days following an athlete’s exercise.

Neuromuscular efficiency is the ability of the neuromuscular system to allow agonists, antagonist, and stabilizer muscles to work synergistically to produce, reduce, and dynamically stabilize the entire kinetic chain in all three planes of motion. So what does this mean for cheerleaders?  In order for a cheerleader to increase her neuromuscular efficiency, foam rolling stretching should be incorporated into an athlete’s daily stretching regimen.

Foam rolling helps cheerleaders maintain optimal neuromuscular efficiency by applying gentle force to an adhesion or “knot,” therefore bringing the bundled muscle fiber back into a straighter alignment. The gentle massage produced by the foam roller causes receptors within the muscles to relax, releasing the tension of the underlying musculature. This helps restore the body back to its optimal level of function by resetting the receptors within the muscles, causing them to unbundle and return to their original length.

If a cheerleader lacks neuromuscular efficiency, her brain, cannot properly tell her muscles to contract, relax, and balance when they need to, resulting in possible injury.  When a cheerleader performs a tumbling pass, she needs to create a hard muscle contraction to propel her body off of the floor; muscles then need to be able to decelerate the athlete’s body for a safe, soft landing; and finally the muscles need to be able to stabilize the body so the cheerleader does not lose her balance and fall to the floor once she has landed. By not using a foam roller, the same tumbling pass may result in improper take off or landing (usually resulting in a fall), possibly causing a sprain, fracture, or damage to a ligament, major joint, or bone.

Visit CHEER360 to learn the proper technique to foam rolling so you can start perfecting your overall performance today!

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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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