Competitve Cheerleading W/O Help!

Training Powerlifting
1

Hey guys!

My name is Katie and im fairly new to the board (this is my first post!)

Anyway, im 5’6, 118 lbs and I’m a top (or flyer) on my univeristy competitve co-ed cheerleading team. It’s pretty intense cheerleading (my team is 2nd in Canada)!

Right now is our “off season” and the coach said that march-june should be cardio to slim down for next season and then july-september should be muscle building and weights.

I’ve told this to many people and they seem to think it should be the other way around.

I don’t know if many of you know the difference between competitive cheerleading and sideline cheerleading but those of you that do can I many hear your opinion and thoughts of what the training during off season should be like?

Thanks in advance!

2

what are your spot in the squad being a cheerleader? Do you need to jump high, run fast, look good, be light? Any or all of the above?

It looks like you really can fly though from your av… :wink:

3

Since I’m a top on the team I need to stay light, but also have strength to be able to hit positions in the air fast and hard…

cheerleading consists of running/standing tumbling (gymnastics), dance and stunting.
To be a good stunter you need fast twitch muscles so your jump off the ground is strong and fast… the stronger and faster you jump the higher you go. Also arm strength is an important part of stunting because without arm strength you can’t push off from your bases (who are usually the guys) shoulders, wrists, ect.
A routine is no more than 2 minutes and 30 seconds long… at the end of a routine you feel like you’ve just ran the hardest race of your life. Cardio is key.

I’ll attempt to post my teams routine that we did at the university nationals competition but i’m not sure how to do it… hah i’ll give it a try

4

heres a link to the routine… i hope it works

5

http://www.eclipsegym.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=57

In that template substitute dips for bench and snatch for rows

6

That’s just flat-out impressive stuff.

What type of workout program are you following right now?

-Nate

7

I’m sure you’ll get some good advice on your training, I just wanted to say THAT WAS COOL! :slight_smile:

8

Kelly Bagget’s vertical jump manual might be worth it in your case.

9

Hey Katie,

My daughters are both cheerleaders, still in high school, but they both do competitions. One is a base the other is a flyer. I have had great success helping them using inno-sport/Fichter/Korfist training.

The post that pointed you to Kelly Baggett is similar training to inno-sport. My older daughter(17) is not as fast twitch as her sister (14). Training her this way has made her quite a bit faster and quicker. My younger daughter is a fast twitch machine. She has a 2.7 20 yard dash but hates track. Oh well. This training is very effective especially for what you need.

You will find that the hips and hammies and ankles get very strong which prevents injuries and helps your toe touches and back handsprings and arials and whatever the hell else cheerleaders do!

Check out wannagetfast.com. They sell a dvd for about 40 bucks that explains the training. You will notice that the DVD is for ‘Running Fast’ but I have found the carry over to be really good to cheerleading.

Barry

10

thanks nate!
at the moment right now im just doing straight cardio; alternating between running and biking… i’ll probably do this for another week or so and then my dad is making me a workout plan alternating cardio and weights that i’ll go by…
last summer and for most of the year i worked out with my dad so i just followed whatever he did… he knew what he was doing and i didnt haha

mondays - biceps
tuesdays - shoulders
wednesdays - chest
thursdays - back/triceps
fridays - legs/abs
saturdays - cardio
sundays - off

sorry i cant remember the individual exercises that we did, but thats was basically the training for last summer

Of course my dad knows nothing about cheerleading so this obviously isnt the ideal workout i should be going by so im trying to do my research!

11

when you compete, how many times a day do you need to perform?

12

[quote]krizzi wrote:
thanks nate!
at the moment right now im just doing straight cardio; alternating between running and biking… i’ll probably do this for another week or so and then my dad is making me a workout plan alternating cardio and weights that i’ll go by…
last summer and for most of the year i worked out with my dad so i just followed whatever he did… he knew what he was doing and i didnt haha

mondays - biceps
tuesdays - shoulders
wednesdays - chest
thursdays - back/triceps
fridays - legs/abs
saturdays - cardio
sundays - off

sorry i cant remember the individual exercises that we did, but thats was basically the training for last summer

Of course my dad knows nothing about cheerleading so this obviously isnt the ideal workout i should be going by so im trying to do my research![/quote]

Your dad probably had different goals than you so You need a different routine. Have you read the link I posted yet?

13

it depends on how many competitions we decide to go to at the beginning of the year.
This year we went to 2 - Canadian University Nationals in Brampton, ontario and The American Open in Orland, Florida
We also do demo’s around our region as well as city events

Since we are considered a “competitive” sport and not a “varsity” sport, we get no fundings from the university and therefore we have to pay every penny… it’s very expensive, but totally worth it

14

ahaha sorry I just re-read your post and realized that read it wrong!
usually we compete once a day for 2 days… the odd competition will make it so that we do two runs on one day…
for highschool cheerleading you had to compete 2 times in one day and i was on 2 teams (all-star and highschool) so that was 4 routines in a span of an hour… it was harddd work
it ended up both my teams came 1st in their division so it was worth it!

15

Yes i’ve read through the article… it sounds like a good routine. I’ll give it a try not this week, but next and see how it feels! thanks alot!!

16

Dang that was some impressive stuff on the video! Only thing that sucked was that the camera was too far away so i couln’t…

Anywho, back on topic.

To increase ur speed, strength, agility, explosivness, etc, I recommend that you incorporate Power Snatches and Overhead Squats. Once ur over the learning curve, incorporate the Snatch.

If you don’t know how to Snatch here are some links that can help:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6529481301858251744&q=dan+john&hl=en

http://www.T-Nation.com/readTopic.do?id=459939

http://www.T-Nation.com/readTopic.do?id=480470

also check out www.DanJohn.org is the site of the guy in the video.

my2cents…

p.s be careful with running steaty-state-cardio for too long. Once ur body has used up all the carbohydrates it will start using PROTEIN (aka ur muscles) for energy.

17

I’d say you should train primarily like a gymnast. Practice tumbling and work on your vertical (I’ll second the reference to Kelly Baggett’s Vertical Jump Manual). As far as I know gymnasts don’t do a whole lot of conventional weight training (the girls on my team had minimal experience, even those who were very good tumblers) so there’s no need to over do it, especially if you could be tumbing instead. As far as strength training goes a simple 5 x 5 style program should be more than enough using bench, squat, deadlifts, rows, and pull-ups. The added strength, especially from squats, should help you stay tighter in the air. I’d structur the program like this:

Day 1
Bench 5x5
Squat 5x5
Bent rows 5x5

Day 2
Deadlift 5x5
Pull-ups 5x5
Bench 5x5

Day 3
Squat 5x5
Bent rows 5x5
Deadlift 5x5
Pull-ups 5x5

It’s simple, no fluff, will make you stronger, should work for quite awhile since most cheerleaders I know have a lot of “newbie gains” still left in them in the weight room.

As far as weight/cardio is concerned, don’t overdo the cardio but it won’t kill you. Use DIET to manage your weight. There was nothing I appreciated more as a cheerleader than a girl who was light.

Now, as far as structuring the year-long program, I agree with the people who said it should start with strength. The year should look like this:
end season–transition–stength/speed–conditioning w/stength and speed maintenance–competition training

That was a little scattered but I hope it helps.

18

[quote]Yoda-x wrote:
I’d say you should train primarily like a gymnast. Practice tumbling and work on your vertical (I’ll second the reference to Kelly Baggett’s Vertical Jump Manual). As far as I know gymnasts don’t do a whole lot of conventional weight training (the girls on my team had minimal experience, even those who were very good tumblers) so there’s no need to over do it, especially if you could be tumbing instead. As far as strength training goes a simple 5 x 5 style program should be more than enough using bench, squat, deadlifts, rows, and pull-ups. The added strength, especially from squats, should help you stay tighter in the air. I’d structur the program like this:

Day 1
Bench 5x5
Squat 5x5
Bent rows 5x5

Day 2
Deadlift 5x5
Pull-ups 5x5
Bench 5x5

Day 3
Squat 5x5
Bent rows 5x5
Deadlift 5x5
Pull-ups 5x5

It’s simple, no fluff, will make you stronger, should work for quite awhile since most cheerleaders I know have a lot of “newbie gains” still left in them in the weight room.

As far as weight/cardio is concerned, don’t overdo the cardio but it won’t kill you. Use DIET to manage your weight. There was nothing I appreciated more as a cheerleader than a girl who was light.

Now, as far as structuring the year-long program, I agree with the people who said it should start with strength. The year should look like this:
end season–transition–stength/speed–conditioning w/stength and speed maintenance–competition training

That was a little scattered but I hope it helps.[/quote]

hey thanks alot! that for sure helps out!

19

Hey Katie do you go to Queen’s?

20

[quote]krizzi wrote:
Yoda-x wrote:
I’d say you should train primarily like a gymnast. Practice tumbling and work on your vertical (I’ll second the reference to Kelly Baggett’s Vertical Jump Manual). As far as I know gymnasts don’t do a whole lot of conventional weight training (the girls on my team had minimal experience, even those who were very good tumblers) so there’s no need to over do it, especially if you could be tumbing instead. As far as strength training goes a simple 5 x 5 style program should be more than enough using bench, squat, deadlifts, rows, and pull-ups. The added strength, especially from squats, should help you stay tighter in the air. I’d structur the program like this:

Day 1
Bench 5x5
Squat 5x5
Bent rows 5x5

Day 2
Deadlift 5x5
Pull-ups 5x5
Bench 5x5

Day 3
Squat 5x5
Bent rows 5x5
Deadlift 5x5
Pull-ups 5x5

It’s simple, no fluff, will make you stronger, should work for quite awhile since most cheerleaders I know have a lot of “newbie gains” still left in them in the weight room.

As far as weight/cardio is concerned, don’t overdo the cardio but it won’t kill you. Use DIET to manage your weight. There was nothing I appreciated more as a cheerleader than a girl who was light.

Now, as far as structuring the year-long program, I agree with the people who said it should start with strength. The year should look like this:
end season–transition–stength/speed–conditioning w/stength and speed maintenance–competition training

That was a little scattered but I hope it helps.

hey thanks alot! that for sure helps out![/quote]

Another thing is I would cut out all cardio that isn’t intended for burning fat. Instead I’d do 400 meter sprints, probably less than 5 in a training session. You really only need to be able to do one or two! I don’t know how well your muscles and joints would react to that, but just throwing it out there.