The Dangers of Cheerleading
In the USA, most high schools and many colleges have cheerleaders. The sport has gained a reputation as sideline entertainment and community morale booster, but it also teaches valuable life skills like leadership, communication and respecting others. These qualities, in turn, can be beneficial in college projects and the workplace.
Cheerleaders are a physically demanding sport that requires a high level of physical fitness and skill. The sport is not without its dangers and has been known to cause serious injuries. However, despite the dangerous nature of cheerleading, it is still often not considered a “real” sport by many people.
The new Netflix series Cheer follows the championship cheer team at Navarro College in Corsicana, Texas. The six-episode series has been warmly received by elite cheerleaders in the UK for its accurate portrayal of the sport – from the mechanically precise choreography and gravity-defying tumbling to the sheer grit required to push past exhaustion.
There are several different types of cheerleading: all-star cheer, college, pom and stunting. All-star cheer is a more competitive version of the sport that involves a large number of all star teams competing in competitions around the country and world. It is a more specialized form of the sport and requires extensive training in areas such as tumbling, gymnastics, dance, stunting and acting.
Generally speaking, the athletes that get hurt in cheer are the base (people standing on the ground holding or catching flyers) and the fliers (aerial artists that perform stunts in the air). The most common injuries in cheer include ankle sprains, knee injuries, back and neck injuries, and other minor musculoskeletal issues. Catastrophic injuries are much less common, but they do occur. cheerleaders