Cheer and

Safe Tumbling Tips

Dance:

Just like in any sport, safety is a primary concern in cheer and dance. Whether you are a cheerleader or a coach, your main objective is to make sure that everyone will stay safe and free from injuries during practice or competitions. After all, no one wants a broken bone or a visit to the emergency room. Fortunately, keeping everyone safe during cheer practice is not exactly rocket science. With a bit of common sense, you can prevent accidents and other unfortunate situations from occurring.

Tumbling, meanwhile, is a common part of any cheer routine. There’s no better feeling than nailing a tough tumbling pass and experiencing a rush of adrenaline coursing throughout your body. If done incorrectly, however, it can be a source of a world of pain. Therefore, when performing any sort of tumbling and other cheerleading acrobatics, you should take all the necessary precautionary measures to avoid injuries.

As mentioned earlier, safety should be your primary concern as a cheer and dance athlete. Therefore, you should never start tumbling on your own. You should get proper instruction from your coach or the help of a more experienced teammate. Otherwise, you will endanger not only yourself, but also the people practising around you. Also, you will expose yourself to injuries that can potentially derail your career as a cheer athlete.

Also, you should follow the proper skill progression. Whenever you’re practicing your acrobatics, you should never quickly jump from a beginner level to an advanced level stunt or tumbling. Always start off with the basics. Once you have mastered the basic cheerleading skills, then you can move towards the intermediate level stunts and tumbling. Always remember that you shouldn’t overestimate your capabilities because it is where disasters usually start.

Once you have mastered a tumbling skill, you should always use a spotter. Always remember that spotters are there to help cheer and dance athletes in case of an accident. Usually, spotters will just give you the extra push you need to nail a tumbling and land safely. However, their assistance and vigilance can prove to be extremely quite useful when it comes to saving your life and keeping you and your teammates out of harm’s way.

This is probably a no-brainer for you but you should always make it a point to get your body properly warmed up before doing any activity that is related to cheer and dance. Before you practise your tumbling skills, you should do some warm-up exercises to make your body limber and more flexible. Otherwise, you’re making yourself more susceptible to pulled muscles, torn ligaments, and broken bones.

- See more at: http://worldcupcheer.com.au/cheer-and-dance-safe-tumbling-tips/#more-993