Youth Cheerleading Tumbling Tips

Every competitive cheerleading routine has a floor segment full of flying bodies doing handsprings, aerials, layouts, and other cheerleading stunts in coordinated chaos. Sometimes you can't help but wonder how they avoid running into each other.

This seemingly organized chaos is executed to perfection through long hours of practice and coordinating the routine. That said, one of the most important exercises to master and practice properly in order to avoid injury is tumbling. For this reason, it is important to practice tumbling at a safe and reputable gym. Make sure your gym has qualified cheerleading coaches and that all cheerleading spotters know what they are doing. In addition to having certified spotters, training cheerleaders how to properly spot one another on easy cheerleading stunts should be part of any tumbling program. Lastly, make sure there is someone in the gym at all times who is trained in first aid.

For youth cheerleaders, practice is the key to gaining tumbling proficiency. Besides checking out the tumbling tips below, you can also learn the fundamentals from free cheerleading video tutorials on sites like Weplay.com, where top coaches and pros like Debbie Bracewell answer questions and show the proper way to practice drills.

Stretching for Tumbling
Before starting practice, gymnasts and cheerleaders should always do at least 10 to 15 minutes of stretches that work on flexibility. In addition to warm up stretches, you should work on splits, straddles, lunges, backbends or bridges, and other stretches to build strength and flexibility in your arms, legs and core.

Handstands
Handstands are part of most tumbling stunts so make sure you do plenty of these at every practice as well. You don't want to lose your strength in the middle of a handspring and land on your head. As mentioned above, strength is critical to improving your tumbling so you'll need to strengthen your core, legs, arms, wrists, and ankles as much as possible to perform the more advanced cheerleading stunts. To increase arm strength for cheerleading, do lots of push-ups and pull-ups.

Proper Protection While Tumbling
Most cheerleading and dance gyms have spring floors that give you lots of bounce and help protect your knees, back, and arms while tumbling. If your gym doesn't have a spring floor to practice tumbling, they should have good mats designed specifically for tumbling. That said, it is important to check out the cheer and dance equipment before joining a cheerleading program.

Tumbling Technique
It may seem small, but crisp arm positions, strong takeoffs, and precise landings make all the difference in how you look and how well your team does in cheerleading competitions. Work on making your cheer and dance motions sharp and clean. Keep your back straight and bend both your knees when launching and landing a cheer jump. The bend creates some "bounce" and protects your knees, hips, and legs from injury or wear & tear. Learning how to properly practice and land each cheerleading stunt is important, not only for appearance, but for safety.

From the very beginning of learning how to tumble, you should be working on keeping your toes pointed, your knees straight, and your feet together. This may seem hard when you're first practicing cheer and dance moves, but if you discipline yourself and focus on practicing these cheer tips right from the start, you'll be very surprised how quickly it becomes second nature and you improve as a cheerleader.

By Trevor A. Sumner who works for Weplay.com, a youth cheerleading community dedicated to providing parents, coaches and cheerleaders the tools and information to celebrate the love of the sport. Weplay.com has one of the most comprehensive, free cheerleading drill libraries in its active cheerleading community.