Featured Image: Snapped! by Becca Clark
What is Sport-Specific Training?
Sport-specific training is designed specifically to improve athletic performance, rather than just improve general fitness. Each exercise chosen in a sport-specific training program will apply directly to the movement patterns or skills required in the sport.
If athletes don’t do this type of training, they are missing out on reaching their full athletic potential and will most likely struggle with skills involved in the sport.
The Issue with Cheer Workouts
Many cheer fitness programs provide workouts that aren’t bad for developing basic fitness, but they fail to include exercises that apply directly to the movements required in tumbling, stunting or jumping.
In order for you to improve specific tumbling skills, stunts or get better jumps, you must strengthen those same movement patterns as you are conditioning.
For example, imagine the body positions and movements you go through while doing a back handspring… they include a 2-foot jump, a slightly arched position, a handstand and a hollow body position.
Now, you’ve probably heard that you need a strong core for good tumbling, but doing sit-ups or plank push-ups isn’t going to give you the specific strength needed for the handspring positions.
Instead, you should be doing exercises like squat jumps, hollow holds or rockers, superman holds or rockers, and handstands. These will strengthen those specific positions so when you go to do a handspring, your body is more aware of what it is doing and can better maintain the correct positioning.
Another example is a back tuck. The skill involves a 2-foot vertical jump, quick hip flexion (pulling the legs up), a backwards rotation and a 2-foot landing. Therefore, training for this skill should involve 2-foot jumping exercises like squat jumps or vertical jumps, quick hip flexion exercises such as V-snaps or hanging leg lifts, backward rotation exercises like back rolls and back drops, then lastly, landing drills to ensure a correct and safe landing technique.
Why Do Cheerleaders Need Sport-Specific Training?
Cheerleading has unique requirements in comparison to other sports, since it involves stunting, tumbling and jumping. Each of those components alone should have its own training program since they are very complex and take years to master.
Unfortunately, the majority of cheer teams train no more than 6-9 hours a week, most of which is spent on routines and competition preparation. Ideally, cheerleaders should be training between 12 and 30 hours a week (12 for youth athletes, 30 for senior & open athletes), with most of that time being dedicated to strength development, flexibility training and the mastering of basic movement patterns required in tumbling and stunting.
But, since training time is so limited, it must be efficient and effective if any results are wanted. This means no random workouts. Instead, a carefully planned out, progressive, long-term training program to reach specific goals and peak for the season’s major competitions is needed.
Analyze Your Training
As a coach, think about the exercises you prescribe your athletes and decide if they directly apply to the goal in mind.
As an athlete, think about each exercise you do and which areas or skills you can apply it to. This will help you begin to understand whether the training you’re doing is benefiting you, or if you’re just wasting your time doing random exercises.
In some cases, there are exceptions though. For very beginner athletes or for those who have a low fitness level, general strength exercises can be used as a kick-starter. Once their fitness level improves, they can begin doing more sport-specific exercises to develop the foundations needed for cheer skills.
Recent Comments