Athletico Health Resources

Cheerleading is a competitive, fun, and popular sport for many ages. Competitive cheerleading can start as young as five years old and continue through collegiate levels. Most school affiliated cheer teams begin in middle or high school. Cheerleaders are often divided into two main categories based on which skills they perform: flyers and bases. Flyers are the athletes who are lifted or tossed into the air or on the top of stunts. Bases are the athletes who perform the lifting or toss, and they catch the flyers. Both flyers and bases perform tumbling passes.

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Cheerleading is a potentially high risk sport and it involves extensive and consistent training.

Participation in cheerleading ranges from young kids through collegiate athletes. The National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) estimates approximately 400,000 students participate in U.S. high school cheerleading annually, including competitive squads.¹ Cheerleaders can be found at the elementary, junior high, high school, and collegiate levels as well as at park districts or private competitive gyms. Cheerleading squads can be all-girl or co-ed.

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Gymnasts and cheerleaders are two types of athletes whose sports require tumbling. Tumbling can range from cartwheels to more complex flips and twists. Regardless of the difficulty of the tumbling, strong ankles for pushing off and landing are important. Weakness in ankles can result in injury such as an ankle sprain, ankle fracture, or tendinitis in muscles surrounding the ankle.

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Cheerleading is rising in popularity and its composition has changed significantly over the decades.

Despite its popularity, there are still many things people don’t know about cheerleading. While some wonder if cheerleading is even a sport, others wonder if it could actually be the most dangerous sport. To help answer some of these questions, we are separating the cheerleading facts from fiction below:

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