Is cheer harder than it was 20 years ago?

Cheerleading is hard. There’s no question about that! But has it gotten harder over the years? That’s a more difficult question to answer. Twenty years ago, was cheerleading less of a commitment than it is now? Today, cheerleaders commonly practice for hours each week, sacrificing a lot of their free time for cheer events and even scheduling extra fitness and skill work on their own outside of team practices. The reason this question of whether cheerleading has become more difficult is so hard to answer is probably because there’s not just one definition of “cheerleading, ” so it’s hard to know what to compare it to! A cheerleader could be on a strictly sideline squad, a sideline squad that also competes, and/or an All Star or other competitive squad. It seems like even sideline squads have incorporated more stunting and tumbling into their routines. Just because you aren’t being judged against other squads doesn’t mean you aren’t constantly challenging yourself to improve and expand your skill set! Sideline cheerleaders commonly take tumbling lessons on their own or with their team in addition to their normal cheer practices. Twenty years ago there were definitely some highly competitive and involved squads that incorporated lots of difficult tumbling and innovative stunting into their routines‚ but was it the norm like it is today? For All Star and other competitive squads, have the stunts and tumbling requirements gotten more difficult? Or have trends changed, but the difficulty of skills remained the same? While we can’t say for sure what the answer to this question is, we think cheerleading is as difficult as each athlete makes it. So even though we have a hunch that cheerleading has generally gotten more demanding over the years, a committed cheerleader 20 years ago gave just as much time and energy to the sport as successful cheerleaders do today! What do you think? Has cheerleading gotten more difficult over the years?