Cheerleading is one of the most dangerous sports around. According to KSLA, a Shrevport, Louisiana News Agency, cheerleading accounts for 65 percent of catastrophic injuries among female high school athletes. Unlike the football players they cheer for, cheerleaders have no pads, helmets or soft grass to fall on-to. In many cases, cheerleaders are forced to perform cheers on concrete and rely on their squad members to avoid injury. Although cheerleading injuries are generally minor, there still exists a huge potential for these catastrophic injuries, making cheer safety a top priority this season. According to the KSLA News report, Fairfield Cheerleading Coach Kari Hansee has her cheerleaders adopting a safety-first approach to cheerleading by completing “a head-to-toe stretch before games, practices, even pep rallies, anything performance that we’re going to do, to make sure that the girls are ready to go, ready to jump, ready to kick ready to tumble.” Stretching, however, is only the beginning. Some of the ways cheerleading organizations have attempted to protect their cheerleaders have included changing the venue of cheerleading camps, from the previous standard -college campus greenbelts – to air-conditioned indoor gyms. Other changes include additional water breaks to ensure athletes stay sufficiently hydrated; and, replacing hard, unforgiving concrete surfaces with cushioned, gymnastics mats. Even though the majority of cheerleading injuries are relatively minor, the fact that these catastrophic injuries continue to occur make safety a hot topic of discussion for the cheerleading community. While developing safety guidelines for cheerleaders may help reduce the overall number of injuries, the initiative still struggles to gain industry-wide acceptance. As a result, don’t be surprised if you look to the sidelines this season only to find cheerleaders having come up with a cheer of their own, the “safety’ cheer.
Cheerleaders Break Their Backs to Improve Safety Guidelines
