How cheerleading is a sport.

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Do you believe cheerleading to be a sport like football or basketball? While you read through my article you will read the reasons why cheerleading is considered to be a sport and how it is the most injured sport for women.

First up is the definition of cheerleading. Cheerleading is said to be a sport that uses organized routines made from elements of tumbling, dance, jumps, and stunting to direct spectators of events to cheer on sports teams at games and matches or compete at cheerleading competitions. So many Americans do not thinking cheerleading is a sport because a sport is usually played with a ball or an activity that the NCAA says is a sport. Cheerleaders do not use balls and they don’t manipulate objects but some other sports that don’t use balls or manipulate objects are wrestling, swimming, boxing, diving, Ice-skating, track and cross-country. Some other athletes have no idea what it takes to be a cheerleader. Now a definition of a sport is an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment. Cheerleading does involve physical exertion and skill and is also a physical activity that is governed by rules under which a winner can be declared.

Second is that cheerleading is the number one cause of serious injuries to women. Cheerleaders do not wear protective gear and they get hurt. Emergency room visits for cheerleading are five times the number than any other sport. Over the past 25 years high school cheerleaders accounted for 65.1 percent of all catastrophic sport injuries. A major factor in the percentage total is the change in the cheerleading activity because cheerleading involves gymnastic type stunts. Throwing girls up in the air, doing flips and jumping off the ground that’s going to cause some injuries now. Between 1982 and 2007 there were 103 fatal disabling or serious injuries recorded among female high school athletes with the vast majority of 67 occurring with cheerleading. Each year, more females are severely injured in cheerleading than athletes in any other sport. In 2002 in the united states there were 22,900 women athletes admitted to the hospital. A lot of schools don’t think cheerleading is a sport so the girls usually don’t have the proper matting that should be used and the girls seem to use whatever space they can use even if the ceilings aren’t the height they need them to be.

Last but not least why cheerleading is a sport. Cheerleaders work just as hard as any other athlete out there and train just as much. You should try to go out there and throw a girl seven feet in the air and catching her or even better be that girl in the air and get thrown and have to do a double twist down. Cheerleading is far much more that just standing on the side lines and cheering, cheerleading really just no longer involves that - it includes chants, cheers, routines, jumps, tumbling, gymnastics, partner stunts and pyramid building. College and high school cheerleaders compete for national championships against other squads. They risk terrible injury. They get recruited for college scholarships. And, in some cases, they put in more practice hours than the football team. Cheerleading takes just as much dedication and skill as any other sport, sometimes it takes more. Today, cheerleading involves skills which require the strength of football, the grace of dance, and the ability of gymnastics.

Hopefully one day cheerleading will become as well known a sport as football and basketball and even appear in the Olympics since cheerleaders are just as athletic and physically fit as those involved in the more accepted sports. Cheerleading is a physical activity that is governed by rules and which a winner will be declared. Also don’t forget that cheerleading is the number one cause of serious sport injuries to women. Cheerleaders are just as athletic and physically fit as those involved in the more accepted sports. The sport of cheerleading would be equivalent to juggling 50 porcupines. If you can do that without getting hurt then you can say that cheerleading is not a dangerous sport.

Cheerleading practice and workouts are much like those of other sports. Because cheerleading follows every aspect defined under the word sport, it is my belief that cheerleadi ng should be defined as an actual sport. Cheerleading is a sport and after reading my article I hope you believe that cheerleading is a sport also.