Hey All! First Competition (ever) Coming Up At Age 21!

[Kaytastrophe]

Hey guys! I posted here ages ago and have been lurking ever since. Here's the recap:
21 years old, never cheered before ( or danced, or did gymnastics), cheering on a 4.2 open level team.

So there we are, now you're up to speed

I find everything that I've learned has been coming along ( basing, dancing despite having two left feet, even flexibility has come along a bit) but my jumps still suck.

Badly.

Super badly.

You get the point

So I have just under a month to improve my toe touches. My herkies are decent but my toe touches need loooaddsss of work I need some help as to how to improve that ( outside of just cold hard repetition) like stretches or workouts. I also need help with my herkie to split. It's a right facing herkie that's supposed to land in a left split ( left leg foreward). Despite how far I've gotten in my left split, I can't get all the way down without getting caught on the stupid mats/ getting stuck because of my shoes on sprung floors. Any tips? I always end up way higher than I can go and cheat a bit by sliding down into my split a few counts in, but ideally I should land in my split. But I'm scared of breaking my legs off


Thanks in advanced everyone! I'm loving cheer and extremely glad I started, despite starting so late. It's been great so far and I can honestly say I don't mind the extra bit of pressure it puts on my life ( working, university ( grad school next semester, yay!) sleeping (because I don't have much of a social life outside a few people lol). My goal for 2015 is to be on my gym's level 6 squad, hopefully I'll get there!

 

[stuntjumptumble]

Props to you for starting cheer! I truly admire you for doing so. It shows that anyone can start cheer at any age!

So for what you described, I would continue stretching your splits. Also sitting in a straddle and leaning to each side. If you stretch every day you'll definitely see an improvement!

Also to strengthen your hip flexors, sit in a straddle, pick one foot off the ground (make sure your shoelaces are facing behind you) and rotate your leg backward in tiny circles, if that makes sense. & do it on both legs. Hope I helped! Good luck at your first comp

 

[Kel Kell]

This is what I did to get my jumps higher. Stand next to a table (or fence anything higher than your hips) and put your leg up on it, point your toe and stand like that for a bit. It will stretch your hips out. You can also stand with your legs together and arms in a T while you bring your leg up to your arm toe pointed, lower your leg without touching the ground and then bring it up again, repeat this on both legs starting at 10 a day and gradually getting more and more. You can also do V-ups for toe touches, they are like crunches but you bring your legs out in a v as you come up for the situp and then together and down without touching the ground. This will help your abs.

 

[Kitch22]

Straddle V snaps, straddle leg lifts, squats and lunges - they'll kill you but they're fantastic for jumps. Core and quad strength is super important for jump height and form so make sure you're working those muscles as much as you can, and doing both passive and dynamic stretching exercises.

For landing splits after a jump you need a really flat, almost oversplit, and the aim is to keep your hands right near your crotch so essentially that's what you hit the ground with first (if that makes sense?). I tend to get caught if my feet hit the floor first because then my shoes stick and won't slide out further, so aim to land hands and crotch then knees and feet - leaning forward a little as you land can take weight out of your back leg to enable more slide too... Obviously flat splits are an absolute must for that technique, otherwise you can seriously injure yourself. Particularly on sprung floors as the double bounce you'll get puts a massive amount of force and weight through your muscles and tendons twice - as you land, rebound and land again. Plenty of girls have snapped tendons and ligaments on much less!

Let us know how you get on! Maybe post a vid so we can see the progress