All-Star Elite Tumbling Survey

[CGAcheer]

That makes more sense, since it covers everything from a jammed finger to being paralyzed

 

[CGAcheer]

but I'm guessing those percentages would probably fall in line with cheerleaders as a whole too

 

[imrichhowboutu]

but I'm guessing those percentages would probably fall in line with cheerleaders as a whole too

i really want to see numbers like that compared to other sports. I feel that 8% of elite athletes in other sports don't require surgery.

 

[CGAcheer]

i really want to see numbers like that compared to other sports. I feel that 8% of elite athletes in other sports don't require surgery.

there are varying degrees of surgery-
there are surgeries with 8 month recovery times vs putting a pin in a broken hand.

 

[cheerKT]

i really want to see numbers like that compared to other sports. I feel that 8% of elite athletes in other sports don't require surgery.

I don't know. My best friend and roommate is an athletic trainer and works with our school teams. She's worked with football, swimming, soccer, baseball and a smaller college in the area. She tells me about all the surgeries the athletes get all the time. I feel like there are players constantly in an out of surgery. Of course, there's not much stopping them if they actually need the procedure since they school pays for it if it occurred on their time during your sport.

 

[yojaehs]

i really want to see numbers like that compared to other sports. I feel that 8% of elite athletes in other sports don't require surgery.

I'd like to see that as well. I'm curious as well because I know baseball and football have fairly high surgery results from the top tier athletes.

 

[imrichhowboutu]

260 people have filled this out so far. I'm gonna let it ride for another week then compile information and release it along with some articles i have.

 

[imrichhowboutu]

Looks like we've hit a lull in the responses. I'm gonna try to put something together with the results to release next week.

Had a total of 270 respond.
Some basic info:

• 20% have never had an injury from elite tumbling
• 7% have had surgery because of elite tumbling
• Majority of elite tumbling injuries are to the Knee and Ankles
• 24% wear a brace when no longer required by a doctor for comfort
• 18% of people said their team needed them to get their skills back even though they weren't fully healed
• 60% have aches and pains that they think are normal for elite tumblers
• 10% think elite tumbling has a negative effect on their body in the long run
• 54% think they could be in better shape then they currently are
• only 21% reported that they are NOT REQUIRED to throw a specialty pass - which means that 79% of athletes reported their coaches require them to throw a specialty pass

 

[tumbleyoda]

Looks like we've hit a lull in the responses. I'm gonna try to put something together with the results to release next week.

Had a total of 270 respond.
Some basic info:

• 20% have never had an injury from elite tumbling
• 7% have had surgery because of elite tumbling
• Majority of elite tumbling injuries are to the Knee and Ankles
• 24% wear a brace when no longer required by a doctor for comfort
• 18% of people said their team needed them to get their skills back even though they weren't fully healed
• 60% have aches and pains that they think are normal for elite tumblers
• 10% think elite tumbling has a negative effect on their body in the long run
• 54% think they could be in better shape then they currently are
• only 21% reported that they are NOT REQUIRED to throw a specialty pass - which means that 79% of athletes reported their coaches require them to throw a specialty pass

Does your survey account for which programs the athletes are at? Especially when looking at the 5th, 8th and 9th bullet point.

 

[imrichhowboutu]

Does your survey account for which programs the athletes are at? Especially when looking at the 5th, 8th and 9th bullet point.

No. I didn't require people to give that information so I could get more people interested in the survey.

 

[cheerinfo]

I would like to know the answers to these questions for ALL tumblers though. If this is in support of banning skills that cause issues, wouldn't the numbers on injuries in other skills be important? Or do it in levels and see which level has the most injuries, etc. I just think that JUST doing elite skill surveys will obviously give you results for JUST those skills, but in comparison to injuries in ALL levels, the percentage might be quite small. Does that make sense how I typed it?? LOL!

 

[imrichhowboutu]

I would like to know the answers to these questions for ALL tumblers though. If this is in support of banning skills that cause issues, wouldn't the numbers on injuries in other skills be important? Or do it in levels and see which level has the most injuries, etc. I just think that JUST doing elite skill surveys will obviously give you results for JUST those skills, but in comparison to injuries in ALL levels, the percentage might be quite small. Does that make sense how I typed it?? LOL!

Lucky for you I took Market Research in school and also do that as a part of my career.

I also got information on injuries in other sections of the routine by the same tumblers and asked all of the same questions about those injuries as well.

 

[tumbleyoda]

No. I didn't require people to give that information so I could get more people interested in the survey.

Gotcha. What I wonder then based on your data is how many of those injuries are true "small gym coaches" who "allegedly do not know how to coach elite level tumbling skills" vs strong Worlds finalists type programs. Are those injuries spread out across gyms of all sizes are all they predominantly in the bigger, mega type gyms which may have more athletes? What injuries were the result of the athlete pushing themselves vs the coaches pushing the athletes vs the parents pushing the athletes? What is the amount of conditioning do the athletes that got injured say they actually do on a regular basis?

While an injury is an injury and from the perspective the data is great to have, an understanding the context of the surroundings in which the injury occured is also helpful if we are truly looking at it from an industry safety perspective.

 

[yojaehs]

Looks like we've hit a lull in the responses. I'm gonna try to put something together with the results to release next week.

Had a total of 270 respond.
Some basic info:

• 20% have never had an injury from elite tumbling
• 7% have had surgery because of elite tumbling
• Majority of elite tumbling injuries are to the Knee and Ankles
• 24% wear a brace when no longer required by a doctor for comfort
• 18% of people said their team needed them to get their skills back even though they weren't fully healed
• 60% have aches and pains that they think are normal for elite tumblers
• 10% think elite tumbling has a negative effect on their body in the long run
• 54% think they could be in better shape then they currently are
• only 21% reported that they are NOT REQUIRED to throw a specialty pass - which means that 79% of athletes reported their coaches require them to throw a specialty pass

Thank you for taking the time to do this. For me I feel it raises even MORE questions but I'm glad someone got the ball rolling. I feel that injuries can't not be 100% preventable in ANY sport, heck you could get arthritis from playing chess. But I'm glad if nothing else this raises awareness! Thanks again Rich!

 

[cheerinfo]

Lucky for you I took Market Research in school and also do that as a part of my career.

I also got information on injuries in other sections of the routine by the same tumblers and asked all of the same questions about those injuries as well.

I don't want answers JUST from elite athletes. I'm saying that level 3 athletes should be polled, etc. I think if you take injuries on the skills you name as opposed to injuries on other tumbling skills by other level athletes will yield completely different results and MIGHT show that more people (percentage wise across the entire sport) are injured doing other skills, including other tumbling skills. And I would also bet that elite tumblers have suffered injuries doing easier (tumbling and otherwise) skills as well.