Question for the coaches, sports therapy/medicine folks.
@cupieqt @SarahS @NJ Coach @ShoWStoppeR
Practice is 2 1/2 hours. At start of practice CP can land standing back handsprings to fulls, but by end of practice (part of their conditioning) she lands hard on her knees every time. Is this okay, or is repetitive falling on her knees (she already has knee pain/issues) something to take serious. I asked her to talk to Coach, but she insist she is fine. It concerns me.
**hmmmmm, did I take my meds today?**
At that point, throwing those skills when they are that tired is useless. It means their form is being compromised and potentially causing it to be altered to pick up bad habits, causing more harm than good, and definitely risking injury. Think of it as having the same kind of impact as the pounding the joints take when running, or even tumbling for that matter, only worse, because of the direct contact. Now I am not a coach, but from my perspective, that is not good coaching to be having kids throwing their hardest skills at the end of a practice after working hard for 2.5 hours. That's how injuries happen. Again, not a coach, but if I were one, and with my sports medicine background, I would run my practices as such- When they get there, have a proper warm up. Not skills warm up, just getting ready for athletics warm up. Then, the cheer warm up. (this practice format would only apply once they are in season and have a routine) Treat it like a competition- have so many minutes for each aspect of the routine and warm it up. Then run the routine a few times, with adequate breaks in between. Then slowly phase out parts, and only run certain sections, so they can still practice the skills with a bit of an elevated HR to simulate competition routines, but not to the point they are so fatigued they will crash and burn. Examples being just jumps and tumbling, just stunts and baskets, etc. That should take care of a good bit of half the practice or so. For the remainder of the practice, they can target areas that have issues and need improved upon. Depending on how many practices you have a week, that would be one format. Say you practice 3 times a week. You run 2 practices in said format, and you use the last practice as a conditioning and skills day. Conditioning involving injury prevention type workouts, and skills training being, well, working on new skills. I understand that in her case the bhs full is necessary for the routine, but throwing it over and over and falling over and over does nothing. Instead, bring her in on a fresh day, and have her work that skill individually. Once she can hit it 10/10 without any other factors (fatigue, running it full out in a routine, etc) it may begin getting incorporated into a routine, bringing on the possibility of said factors. This is in my mind a prime example of how the idea of progression is often forgotten or muddled. Yes, she went through the progressions to get the skill, but she also needs to go through the progressions to perform the skill. Having a skill and performing a skill in a competition based environment are two very different things. Take a basketball player for instance. they may sink 100/100 free throws at practice, and then miss every shot in a game. There are always outside factors we can't control, but there are also outside factors that can be controlled, that people tend to forget about when looking at the bigger picture.
sigh, yes another reason I want to get my hands dirty in a cheer gym working as an ATC.
I hope this answered your question, I tend to ramble when I get fired up about certain topics :)
PS- since by the sounds of it they don't have much conditioning in practice, she would definitely benefit from some functional/strength training on her own time. Explosive type training, such as plyometrics, can do a cheerleader wonders. If you would like some more conditioning type workouts, feel free to PM me.
