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What type of a training regimen do you incorporate to obtain optimal performance? How much does physical endurance play a role with a season that encompasses a year-round commitment?
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Nicole Latham
FISHERS CHEERLEADING |
 | Obviously in cheerleading, you have to have a lot of strength. People don't realize when you're tossing people in the air and flipping over backwards, it requires muscles that people don't know that they had. I find strength training and weight lifting extremely vital. We spend a lot of time in the weight room in the summer doing plyametrics and sprinting. It helps them in the long run to have good, strong muscles wrapped around their bones to prevent knee, ankle and wrist injuries. |
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Rachel Lazzer and Carla Smith
Ben Davis Cheerleading |
 | We condition and run through our routines for competition for two hours or more three days a week. As we get closer to the competition season we practice longer. Our cheerleaders also do strength training at our high school with our strength coach Kevin Vanderbush once a day. It's one of their class periods. - Carla Smith, pictured left
Most of our girls take tumbling classes year round to improve their skills. In the summer, we go to a local gym and stunt and tumble with some of the experts there. We also condition more in the summer. We run every week. We have mile-Mondays, and we go to camp. Physical endurance does play a major role because they have to yell, cheer, tumble, stunt, lift girls and do everything at the same time. - Rachel Lazzer, pictured right |
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Annamarie Miller
Avon Cheerleading |
 | The summer is our competition season, so they have to have a lot more endurance. Right after tryouts we do a lot of conditioning and running to get their endurance up. The routine that we throw is two minutes. They're yelling, cheering, tumbling and jumping the whole time, so they have to have a lot of endurance. When the season starts with football and basketball, this is really our time. It's for the crowd, so we spend more of our time on the cheers and the chants, so our practices are less endurance based, but they're still very intense. Our break is in April after tryouts. We take about a month off, and then we start our summer season. Cheerleading takes dedication. |
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Kaylee Johnson
Hamilton Southeastern Cheerleading |
 | We practice at least seven and a half hours a week, which includes conditioning on their own time as well. For our season an athlete needs physical endurance to withstand a four-quarter football game as well as a
two-and-a-half minute non-stop competitive routine. |
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