10 Side Effects of Joining a Cheer Squad

Cheerleading should come with a warning. If you decide to try out for cheer this year (and you really should!) get ready for these 10 side effects: Your room and car will be filled with cheer gear. After practice, you just want to come home, eat, do your homework, and get in bed. This means you will often dump out your cheer bag and refill it with tomorrow’s practice clothes for many days in a row without putting anything away. You will also perfect the art of changing in the car because as you get more and more busy with cheer, you somehow find yourself changing outfits in the car more and more often. For this reason, your car will also be filled with cheer gear. (Source: Tumblr.com) You will never be able to listen to music like a regular person again. You will be making routines in your head to songs you hear in the car. At home. In stores. It really doesn’t matter. There’s no stopping it. If you really zone out you might find yourself performing these routines in the middle of the mall food court. (Source: Tumblr.com) You will accidentally break out in old routines when certain songs come on. It’s not just making up new routines you have to worry about. The old ones never really go away. You will be at school, at a friend’s birthday party, at the mall, etc. and one of your old cheer songs will come on. You will get weirdly excited no matter what, but if you are already spacing out a little, you might just start absent-mindedly doing your old routine. Because once you learn a routine, it is always in your head just waiting to re-emerge. (Source: Tumblr.com) Your sleepovers will get a lot bigger. You ask your mom if you can have some friends over. Then you casually let her know you’ll need enough pizza for your entire cheer squad. And maybe some extra pillows. (Source: mashable.com) You will be sore. Everywhere. Even in places you didn’t know muscles existed. (Source: Tumblr.com) You will have lots of mystery bruises. You could just tell people you got hit practicing a new stunt, or you could make up an elaborate story in which you save the day and walk away a little scratched up. You will have less free time. But you will probably get more done! When having more commitments forces you to manage your time better, you become more efficient, and you’ll probably find that chores and homework take you less time than they used to. But you’ll still find yourself declining invites and missing TV shows you used to love because you have practice. (Source: Tumblr.com) Your closet will fill up. You will suddenly realize that you NEED every tee or tank with a cheer saying on it. But when you’re practicing daily, you actually will need a lot of new cheer practice clothes because no one wants to do laundry that often! (Source: Tumblr.com) Cheer will become your life. Even in the little bit of free time you have, you will be thinking about cheer. You’ll start stretching any time you get a chance throughout the day, and your family members will soon be used to walking into a room to find you in a scorpion or needle. (Source: Tumblr.com) You will have a second family. Your teammates will become your friends right away, but before long you’ll be family. (Source: weheartit.com)What side effects did you encounter when you started cheering?